Last year, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art invited young photographers to photograph a fashion exhibition in the spring of 2025, the museum got something they probably didn't expect: counter offers.
It may be because the invitations were not expanded to young photographers only, but to Tyler Mitchell, who became the first black photographer to film a trendy cover in 2018. (He was 23 years old, and his subject was Beyoncé.) He said he was happy to photograph the objects from the exhibition (the cultural and submissive examination of the black dandy) for the planned catalogue, but Mitchell returned to the costume lab on his pitch.
“The fact that we are specifically talking about the history of black men's clothing for the first time is this a concrete conversation, and most of it lives on through photography,” Mitchell said in a recent phone interview. “So it felt urgent to go beyond simply an object's documentation and enter a real human lifestyle.”
The essay called “Super Fine: Tailing Black Style,” attached to the 30-page photo-spread catalogue of the Metropolitan Exhibition, continues his exploration, exploring the ideas behind dandyism and examining contemporary interpretations. The photos feature self-proclaimed dandies like Ike Ude, Dandy Wellington and Michael Henry Adams, as well as models dressed in exhibition clothing.
The photo essays showcase several generations of black men. In one image, a young boy is dressed by designer Grace Wales Bonner in two-piece ensemble of deep blue crushed velvet, cropped with cowley shells and crystals. Another shows a man's tableau in formal clothing. They show off their assortment of dramatic headpieces. Mitchell said he wanted to make photography an interaction between old and old people, highlighting the way in which different generations manifest themselves in different settings.
“We could see it right away,” Mitchell said. “When I was listening to the theme, ideas came in. I wanted to do something that really supports the show and celebrates the present moment.”
Simply put, the word “dandy” is often used to describe someone who is deeply devoted to their style, usually a man. The Costume Institute Show, which will open on May 10th, was inspired in part by “Styling Black Dandism and Black Diasporic Identity” by Monica L. Miller, professor of Africana Studies at Bernard College.
In this book, Professor Miller, who is also a guest curator of the exhibition, often sees black dandies as someone who emerged from 18th century Europe. In the end, black people regained their Dandy identity and reversed their negative associations as a show of rebellious power.
Guided by Professor Miller's research, Mitchell worked with the museum's curation staff and a small team of frequent collaborators. He said he drew inspiration from the artist's “Kaleidoscope”: other Harlem Renaissance figures, including Isaac Julian, Toni Morrison, Greg Tate and James van der Gee.
“It was a really creative exercise because we went beyond just the clothes that were on the show,” he said. “And that has become this kind of creative expression and essay.
In his accompanying essay entitled “Modern Dandy Portrait,” Mitchell recalled the surprise of a white friend after visiting Atlanta and seeing black people dress in situations where they didn't necessarily need high clothing. Mitchell, who grew up in Marietta, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta, was surprised to hear this. In his experience, black people in the South were always dressed like that.
“If you were just going to the mall, it was enough opportunity to show up and display with your own rules and your own agenda and dress up,” he said.
He also expects him to present his mother and his wider community with respect, whether in church, school or elsewhere. (Historically, this was a way of avoiding historically negative profiles of black people.)
That obligation “feeled crushed as an angry child,” Mitchell recalled, but he ultimately found a way to freely express his personal style.
“I didn't know the word, but I was growing up, but the South has a particular emphasis on being respected, so I identified it because I was so young,” he said. “I think Dandism came out of the discourse that it is respectful and very intentionally destroying those ideas and wanting to regain wit and reclaim it for itself.”
According to MET, the exhibition also aims to highlight the current male wear renaissance, where various designers, stylists and wearers take risks and broaden the traditional definition of masculine attire. Mitchell calls this evolution a “beautiful and disorderly moment.” Especially for black men.
It “helps open up possibilities for expression,” he said, and the younger man said, “some of the challenges I've grown up with: what archetype you fit into as a black man in Atlanta?”
“That's the shift I realized and that's what I think it means for black men today,” he added. “That they can grow in a world without those binaries.”
