Tyler Mitchell’s latest visual essay for The 2025 Met Gala theme, Superfine: Tailoring Black Style isn’t just a collection of photographs—it’s a declaration. A love letter to Black dandyism. A meditation on the cultural weight of getting dressed. A reminder that fashion, for us, has never been just about clothes.
“Beauty was not simply something to behold; it was something one could do,” Toni Morrison wrote in The Bluest Eye. That sentiment echoes through every frame of Mitchell’s work, where style isn’t passive—it’s an active, intentional force, a practice of self-definition.
Mitchell, known for capturing the nuances of Black beauty and joy, sets his lens on the art of styling out—that unspoken, generational instinct to turn any moment into an occasion, whether the world is watching or not. He recalls a moment in Atlanta, where a white friend marveled at the city’s effortless Black style. But for Mitchell, and for so many of us, that observation wasn’t a revelation—it was affirmation. As Monica L. Miller put it in Slaves to Fashion, Black people have long known how to “show up, when the occasion calls for it, and, more tellingly, often when it does not.”
That ethos is at the core of Mitchell’s essay, where he captures a spectrum of Black style—tailored elegance, color-coordinated streetwear and vintage refinement. Tyler photographed a group of modern dandies—such as Ike Ude, Dandy Wellington, and Michael Henry Adams—and models in Harlem wearing looks from the exhibition, as well as some vintage garments and their own pieces.
In his written essay about the project, Tyler described it as a “love letter to modern Black dandyism” that captures the “camaraderie, beauty and joy” among Black men of style across generations. Models stand alongside men in their own carefully curated ensembles, embodying what Greg Tate once called “the capacity to freak the mundane into magic.” This is not just a documentation of clothes. It’s a testament to self-possession, agency, and the centuries-old practice of remixing European formality into something unmistakably, unapologetically ours.
Mitchell knew from the start that this project had to be about more than mannequins. It had to breathe. It had to move. It had to reflect the pride, the wit and the undeniable presence that Black men have brought to tailoring across history. The result? A collection of images that don’t just depict style but live it—where suits are more than fabric and buttons but statements of identity, power and tradition. As Proposition Joe from The Wire said: “Look the part, be the part, motherfucker.”
At the heart of it all are the men and boys who brought Mitchell’s vision to life. “Your style, spirit and confidence,” he wrote, “honor not only the garments but the vibrant legacy of all that Black style, dandyism and all-around flyness mean and have meant through time.”
With Superfine, Mitchell once again proves what we’ve always known: getting dressed is never just getting dressed. It’s history in motion. It’s a quiet revolution. It’s magic.
