The making of Vogue’s Met issue is documented in a behind-the-scenes video. The cover shoots are highlighted and scenes from Tyler Mitchell photographing his 28-page dandy-style suiting portfolio are captured, along with commentary from the many participating models, artists, and cultural figures. | Video by Vogue
BLACK DANDYISM is an idea and potent style with a profound history and influence on contemporary fashion. A dandy is one who dresses elegantly and impeccably with particular attention paid to tailoring and individual style. Think Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Duke Ellington, Dapper Dan, André Leon Talley, Prince, Iké Udé, Andre 3000, Jeremy O. Harris, and Colman Domingo. The concept has dark roots in enslavement and servitude that over generations has transformed into a statement of power, pride, and creativity.
Last fall, the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York announced its spring 2025 exhibition would focus on the “historical and cultural emergence of the Black Dandy, tracing the figure from 18th-century depictions to modern-day representations.”
Titled “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” the exhibition is inspired by “Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity,” a scholarly volume published by Monica L. Miller in 2009. Miller is professor and chair of Africana studies at Barnard College at Columbia University. She is guest curator of the exhibition, which opens May 10. The occasion is historic, marking the first time Black style is the focus of a Costume Institute exhibition, with a variety of Black designers among the clothiers showcased.
Black dandyism is also the theme for this year’s Met Gala (May 5), another first in terms of centering Black fashion. Often referred to as the “Oscars of Fashion,” the Met Gala gathers popular and influential figures from the worlds of fashion, arts, and entertainment for a fundraiser benefitting the Costume Institute. The co-chairs of the Met Gala are Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton, A$AP Rocky, Pharrell Williams, and Anna Wintour, with LeBron James serving as an honorary co-chair. (The Met Gala menu is by Chef Kwame Onwuachi and artist Cy Gavin is designing the décor concept with Derek McLane and Raúl Àvila.)
In addition, the May issue of Vogue magazine celebrates the exhibition’s sartorial theme. Wintour’s four co-chairs each grace a cover of the special issue. The making of Vogue’s Met issue is documented in a behind-the-scenes video with Miller framing the history and definition of Black dandyism.
“The kind of dictionary definition of dandyism is somebody who studies above all else, to dress elegantly and fashionably. When the dandy is Black, we get to see the dandy as a figure that really encapsulates a kind of matrix of identity, race, gender, class, sexuality and sometimes nation. I’m really interested in thinking about clothing, dress, and fashion as a tool, as a critique, and also as a creative mode of thinking about liberation,” Miller said.
“When the dandy is Black, we get to see the dandy as a figure that really encapsulates a kind of matrix of identity, race, gender, class, sexuality and sometimes nation. I’m really interested in thinking about clothing, dress, and fashion as a tool, as a critique, and also as a creative mode of thinking about liberation.” — Guest Curator Monica Miller
Pharrell Williams, Portrait by Henry Taylor (Vogue, May 2025). | Williams said it was an “honor” to be featured on the cover of Vogue. He said: “Henry’s a fantastic artist, crazy life story. And he’s just writing new chapters as we speak. He’s one of the most coveted artists in the space, and is just alive, well, kicking it and crushing it. Van Gogh never got to see the world revere him. Henry’s alive to experience people appreciating his work.”
VOGUE’S BLACK DANDY ISSUE is fashion forward and artist centered with appearances and contributions by an all-star lineup from the worlds of style, art, and culture. In terms of the covers, Henry Taylor painted a portrait of Williams, Nigerian American artist and author Iké Udé shot Domingo, Senegalese photographer Malick Bodian captured Hamilton, and Tyler Mitchell photographed Rocky.
Vogue profiled Taylor who lives and works in Los Angeles. He makes richly colored, loosely rendered narrative images, candid scenes and fascinating portraits of the people he encounters in his expansive universe—friends, family, neighbors, fellow artists, anyone who strikes his interest. The paintings are embedded with politics, history, violence, humor, and personal and universal emotion.
Working from memory, Taylor made a few paintings of Williams before he settled on the portrait that appears on the cover. The musician, producer, and men’s creative director at Louis Vuitton (the primary funder of the exhibition) is pictured against a green background. Williams looks squarely at the viewer from behind tinted glasses with blinged-out frames, wearing a blue baseball cap with “Human Made” emblazoned on the front. (Williams is an advisor to the Human Made brand, founded by his friend, Japanese designer Nigo.)
Taylor told Vogue he wanted “keep it simple and soulful.” He said: “Sometimes simple is best, and that’s what I ended up doing.”
A$AP Rocky, Photographed by Tyler Mitchell (Vogue, May 2025). | “I just made a dream come true. I shot all my (Louis Vuitton) trunks on the corner, a random corner in Harlem right now,” Rocky said. “I came up with the idea to feature my grandma, came up with the idea to shoot in Langton Hughes’s house, came up with the idea to do Dalmatians ’cause it’s 101 years of the Harlem Renaissance.”
Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Mitchell, who hails from the suburbs of Atlanta, became the first Black photographer to shoot a Vogue cover when he was tapped to work with Beyonce for the September 2018 issue. He was only 23 at the time. Mitchell’s work is beautiful and liberating. His carefully staged images convey a sense of freedom and self-determination, joy, style, and leisure. For the dandy issue, Mitchell photographed Rocky’s cover in Harlem, where the rapper was born and raised.
“I came up with the idea to feature my grandma, came up with the idea to shoot in Langton Hughes’s house, came up with the idea to do Dalmatians ’cause it’s 101 years of the Harlem Renaissance,” Rocky said in the video. “So you know, it was a real collective effort and Tyler and Law (Roach) was very receptive to my ideas and we built on top of it and made a masterpiece today.”
Mitchell also produced an expansive portfolio inside the magazine inspired by dandy-style suiting. The fashion shoot showcases good tailoring, fine fabrics, and eye-catching color and pattern.
“The actual photography aspect of it was just to channel this amazing portfolio of very talented people in today’s landscape. And the way we could unify all that was to make a very simplistic set actually only containing a few elements, certain colors in a color palette that was primarily pastel. And then elements or hints of wood,” Mitchell said in the video. “Other Black photographers, James Van Der Zee, Gordon Parks, Roy DeCarava, those were sort of the references.”
“The actual photography aspect of it was just to channel this amazing portfolio of very talented people in today’s landscape.… Other Black photographers, James Van Der Zee, Gordon Parks, Roy DeCarava, those were sort of the references.” — Tyler Mitchell
Lewis Hamilton, Portrait by Malick Bodian (Vogue, May 2025). | “I use canes in this shoot, and I think there’s a sense of pride when the men in the street in like Congo, in Sierra Leone, in Gambia, in Nigeria. They will come out in great tailoring and have their photos taken,” Bodian said. “And I think there’s a sense of pride when you hold something and you are going somewhere. There’s a sense of bringing everything you have to the picture.”
“Superfine & Dandy” is a 28-page presentation cast with fashion models; artists Rashid Johnson, Jordan Casteel, Ferrari Sheppard, and Honor Titus; iconic figures such as Spike Lee, Dapper Dan, and vintage collector Lana Turner; and a new generation, including Jon Batiste, Myha’la, Noah Wyles, Ayo Edebiri, Jeremy Pope, Tayana Taylor, Yara Shahidi, A’ja Wilson, and LaKeith Stanfield. Designers Grace Wales Bonner and Jerry Lorenzo (Fear of God), and stylist Law Roach (who was the fashion editor for the spread) appear, too.
All are dressed to the nines wearing a variety of designers, including Black-owned brands and couturiers such as Duro Olowu, Christopher John Rodgers, Sergio Hudson, Torishéju, Theophilio, Fear of God, and Wales Bonner.
“I really like tailoring because there’s a real intention that goes into crafting a silhouette in in relation to the body. So I feel like it’s a very close relationship that you can have with someone as a designer. There’s a kind of responsibility within that as well,” Wales Bonner said in the video.
“Black style is really related to thinking about how fashion and power connect. The way that people are styled, are fashioned or fashioned themselves, in response to the degree of agency that they feel. Silhouettes change, use of pattern, color, all of those things change in relationship to time, and relationship to history. So fashion, power, aesthetics, politics, those are all wrapped up in one way that we can see the world,” Miller said
She added: “I do think that the main message that we’re trying to get across is really fashion as empowerment. Fashion as a way to say something about yourself, right? Or your community that might be new or that might be outside of stereotype of boundaries.”
Jeremy O. Harris penned an essay that accompanies the extensive fashion spread. The Tony-nominated playwright is a self-described dandy. Harris recalled wearing a suit and bow tie to have his picture taken at JCPenney when he was only three years old—a family portrait with his mother who was unmarried and 21. “You’re looking sharp little man!” the photographer said. “Looking ‘sharp’ was a way to communicate to people that I was taken care of,” Harris wrote. Years later, when the stakes and stereotypes faced by a young Black boy were far greater, his enduring style sent the same message.
“The story my clothes had to tell as I walked the halls of my private school in Virginia (a school founded in 1968 as Black children were beginning to integrate wealthy public school districts) was that home was safe, my family and I were good—because I was dressed not just well but ornately. It takes time and safety to adorn oneself, and my mother provided me with both,” Harris wrote.
“When the Met announced the theme, like I already had so many references. I’ve already built out this incredible database of images and memories all the way from slavery to modern day. I have been studying, and waiting for this moment almost all my life.” — Law Roach
Colman Domingo, Portrait by Iké Udé (Vogue, May 2025). | “The portrait session went well. When I began, I was trying to direct him. At some point, he paused. He said, “You know, I’m not a fashion model. I am an actor. Let me feel this story, and I give you whatever you want,” Udé said. Domingo added: “It’s me, and the camera, and Ike, and we’re having this moment together. All the people around me that have come before me are with me in the room. I like to make sure that it’s never just about me, but it is about where I come from, it’s about my ancestors, it’s about my family. So I want to bring them into the room.”
THE VIDEO DOCUMENTS the on-set experiences of the models, actors, athletes, and cultural figures photographed wearing handsome, tailored ensembles, as well the perspectives and cultural capital of a new generation of creatives who have made space for themselves in fashion, art, and photography.
Domingo said: “The idea of like honoring the Black dandy, matters. To look at the history and the impact that we’ve had on culture, on design, art, music, and I’m standing with these incredible brothers who I admire so dearly. It’s just a beautiful, beautiful moment and I’m very proud to be a part of it.”
Shahidi said: “As much as today is so beautiful, it’s unfortunately still an anomaly to walk into a space and to see so many of us. I think many of us here are used to being one of the only brown faces on a set, and being the representation and being the diversity. I mean, even this is only a sliver of just how beautiful, and the depth and breadth of what it is to be Black and celebrate our Blackness.”
Pope added: “I think this issue is so important on so many levels because we are taking the opportunity and moment to highlight Blackness, to embrace it, not in a way that feels like a trope or a performance. I hope that people receive it with love and an opportunity to uplift a community. That is a beautiful thing ’cause I’m still standing and I’m still here. I’m still Black and I still feel very beautiful.”
Roach was particularly moved by the project. “When the Met announced the theme, like I already had so many references, right? I think I am kind of a purveyor of my culture and my history. I’ve already built out this incredible database of images and memories all the way from slavery to modern day. I have been studying, and waiting for this moment, you know, almost all my life,” Roach said.
“This moment, especially what’s going on in the world and in our country, this moment seems so important. This is bigger than us as individuals. This is bigger than us as actors or actresses or models. It’s the combination of all of us coming together to create something beautiful for present and for future.” CT
“Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” is on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, N.Y., from May 10-Oct. 26, 2025. The exhibition is organized by guest curator by Monica L. Miller, with Costume Institute Curator in Charge Andrew Bolton, William DeGregorio, and Amanda Garfinkel, with help from Kai Marcel. Artist Torkwase Dyson developed the conceptual design, artist Tanda Francis designed two bespoke sculpted mannequin heads, and artist and author Iké Udé served as a special consultant
Vogue’s Met Issue includes a brief profile of artist Henry Taylor, articles about each cover subject (Pharrell Williams, Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton, and A$AP Rocky) and the making of their portraits, and additional editorial coverage inspired by the Met Gala and Black dandy exhibition theme
FIND MORE The New York Times recently profiled Iké Udé, the Nigerian American artist and author who photographed Lewis Hamilton’s Vogue cover, and whose portrait covers Monica L. Miller’s book “Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity”
FIND MORE Artist Henry Taylor and his cover subject Pharrell Williams have collaborated previously. For the Louis Vuitton Men’s Spring-Summer 2024 collection, Williams incorporated tiny images of the artist’s portraits on suits. Taylor also appears in the opening of the runway video
BOOKSHELF
The exhibition catalog “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” is authored by Monica L. Miller with Andrew Bolton, William DeGregorio, and Amanda Garfinkel with photography by Tyler Mitchell. Pacific (Elizabeth Karp-Evans and Adam Turnbull) designed the catalog. “Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity” by Monica L. Miller inspired the exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “I Can Make You Feel Good: Tyler Mitchell” is the photographer’s first monograph. “Henry Taylor: B Side” documented the artist’s recent traveling retrospective and “Henry Taylor” is the artist’s first major monograph. Both “Style File: The World’s Most Elegantly Dressed” and “Nollywood Portraits: A Radical Beauty” are by Iké Udé. Also consider, “Dandy Lion: The Black Dandy and Street Style” by Shantrell P. Lewis and “Black Ivy: A Revolt in Style.”
