BEHIND THE STITCH: ALANI
June 21, 2024
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In an era where fashion and culture are entwining more deliberately than ever before, Suited, Superfine & Dandy rises as a triumphant sartorial statement. Ahead of the 2025 Met Gala, two titans of style journalism; Vogue and GQ, join forces to unveil “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” a striking portfolio and exhibition that doesn’t just celebrate fashion; it canonizes it. It’s a love letter to Black elegance, contemporary dandyism, and the art of using style as identity, defiance, and legacy. And at the heart of it? Bold, Black beauty, immaculately done.
Shot by the visionary lens of Tyler Mitchell and styled by the ever-iconic Law Roach, the portfolio features over 30 cultural luminaries including Janelle Monáe, Ayo Edebiri, Adut Akech, Jerry Lorenzo, and Julez Smith. Each frame is a study in individuality and collective excellence, showcasing how Black people have, through centuries, redefined the suit as armor, anthem, and artistry. These aren’t just fashion photos, they’re portraits of power, precision, and personhood. The tailoring, sharp yet soulful, becomes a language of its own–fluent in elegance, rebellion, and freedom.
The editorial project serves as a high-style precursor to the Met Gala’s 2025 theme, also titled “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style”–an unprecedented collaboration between the Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and scholars of Black aesthetics. Co-curated by Andrew Bolton and Professor Monica L. Miller, whose seminal book Slaves to Fashion laid the philosophical groundwork, the exhibition dives deep into the diasporic dialogues of Black dandyism. With reference points stretching from 19th-century livery worn by enslaved people to present-day innovations by Virgil Abloh and Pharrell Williams, the show’s brilliance lies in its depth and defiance.
What makes Superfine truly exceptional is its conceptual structure; twelve thematic sections inspired by Zora Neale Hurston’s iconic 1934 essay, “The Characteristics of Negro Expression.” These themes, ranging from “Disguise” to “Presence,” “Freedom” to “Cool” not only frame the garments on display but unearth the ways Black people have historically styled themselves into existence, often in resistance to invisibility. This isn’t just a fashion exhibition, it’s a curated conversation on heritage, dignity, swagger, and survival.
The 2025 Met Gala itself, set to unfurl on May 5, embraces this concept wholeheartedly with the dress code “Tailored for You.” Guests are encouraged to interpret Black tailoring through their own lenses, promising a red carpet replete with zoot suits, Congolese sapeur stylings, West African grandeur, Harlem Renaissance regality, and futuristic reinventions. With Colman Domingo, A$AP Rocky, Pharrell Williams, and Lewis Hamilton joining Anna Wintour as co-chairs–and LeBron James honored as a special guest–the night is destined to be an electric intersection of fashion, legacy, and statement-making.
But beyond the glitz, Suited & Superfine is a reclamation. It honors the late André Leon Talley and the generations of Black tastemakers whose contributions have been historically sidelined, even as their styles were copied and commercialized. Through Law Roach’s styling and Mitchell’s camera, and through the rich textures and tones of every garment, this project becomes more than fashion, it becomes testimony.
“Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” isn’t just a theme. It’s a movement. One that reminds the world that Blackness has always been in fashion, not just as trend, but as truth. Whether stitched in silk or wool, in bold brocade or minimal monochrome, Black brilliance is being tailored to perfection and history is taking note.
