Last year, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art invited a young photographer to shoot its highly anticipated spring 2025 fashion exhibition, the museum got something it probably wasn’t expecting: a counteroffer.
That may be because the invitation wasn’t extended to just any young photographer but to Tyler Mitchell, who in 2018 became the first Black photographer to shoot a Vogue cover. (He was 23, and his subject was Beyoncé.) Although he said he would be happy to photograph objects from the exhibition — a cultural and sartorial examination of Black dandies — for a planned catalog, Mr. Mitchell came back to the Costume Institute with a pitch of his own: Instead of just immortalizing the garments in static shots, he would also showcase them as they were worn throughout history.
“The fact that we are for the first time talking about specifically the history of Black men’s wear, this is an embodied conversation, and most of it lives on through photography,” Mr. Mitchell said in a recent phone interview. “So it felt urgent to go beyond simply object documentation and go into real human lifestyle.”
Now 29, Mr. Mitchell has made a name for himself exploring Black life through his work. In 2020, he published his debut photography monograph, “I Can Make You Feel Good”; two years later, he had a solo exhibition at a London Gagosian gallery.
In a 30-page photo spread and accompanying essay in the catalog for the Metropolitan exhibition, called “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” Mr. Mitchell continues his exploration, investigating the ideas behind dandyism and examining its contemporary interpretations. The photos feature models wearing garments from the exhibition, in addition to self-described dandies like Iké Udé, Dandy Wellington and Michael Henry Adams, many wearing their own finery.
The photo essay showcases several generations of Black men. In one image, a young boy wears a two-piece ensemble of deep blue crushed velvet, trimmed with cowrie shells and crystals, by the designer Grace Wales Bonner. Another shows a tableau of men in formal dress who also happen to sport an assortment of dramatic headpieces. Mr. Mitchell said he had wanted the photographs to be an interplay between the young and the old, highlighting the way different generations show up in different settings.
“I could see it quite immediately,” Mr. Mitchell said. “When I was hearing the theme, ideas were coming. I wanted so badly to do something that could really support the show and also be a celebration of the current moment.”
In simplest terms, the word “dandy” is often used to describe someone, usually a man, who is deeply devoted to his own style. The Costume Institute show, which opens on May 10, was partly inspired by “Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity” by Monica L. Miller, a professor of Africana studies at Barnard College.
In the book, Professor Miller, who is also the guest curator of the exhibit, takes a close look at the Black dandy as a figure who emerged from 18th-century Europe, where Black male servants were made to dress up, essentially turning them into commodities. Eventually, Black people reclaimed the dandy identity, inverting the negative associations as a defiant show of power.
Guided by Professor Miller’s research, Mr. Mitchell worked with the museum’s curatorial staff and a small team of frequent collaborators. He said he drew inspiration from a “kaleidoscope” of artists: Isaac Julien, Toni Morrison, Greg Tate, James Van Der Zee and other figures from the Harlem Renaissance.
“It was a real creative exercise because we also kind of went above and beyond just the garments that were in the show,” he said. “And so it became this kind of creative expression and essay, beyond the remit of just documenting the looks.”
In his accompanying essay, titled “Portrait of the Modern Dandy,” Mr. Mitchell recalled a white friend’s astonishment after visiting Atlanta and seeing how Black people dressed up for situations that didn’t necessarily call for elevated attire. Mr. Mitchell, who grew up in Marietta, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta, was surprised to hear this: In his experience, Black people in the South had always dressed that way.
“If you were just going to the mall, it was more than enough occasion to show up and show out, and dress by your own rules and your own agenda,” he said.
He also carries with him memories of his mother and his wider community having high expectations of him to present respectfully, whether at church, school or elsewhere. (Dressing mindfully has historically been a way for Black people to avoid being negatively profiled.)
That obligation “felt crushing as an angsty kid,” Mr. Mitchell recalled, but he eventually found a way to express his personal style freely, sometimes even within those parameters — a loophole of sorts that he called the very essence of dandyism.
“I didn’t know that word then growing up, but I identified with it from so young because in the South there’s a particular emphasis placed on respectability,” he said. “I think dandyism emerges out of the discourse around respectability and wanting to very intentionally subvert those ideas and wittily reclaim them for one’s own self.”
According to the Met, the exhibition also aims to highlight the current men’s wear renaissance, one in which different designers, stylists and wearers are taking risks and broadening traditional definitions of masculine attire. Mr. Mitchell calls this evolution a “beautifully anarchic moment,” especially for Black men.
That helps “open up possibilities of expression,” he said, and lets younger men avoid “some of the challenges I had growing up, which is, What’s the archetype that you will fit into as a Black man in Atlanta?”
“That’s the shift I’ve noticed, and that’s what I think it means for Black men today,” he added. “That they can grow up in a world where there aren’t those binaries.”
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