Superfine: Tailoring Black Style with Monica L. Miller, Part I

Summary

Dressed: The History of Fashion – Episode Summary

Episode: Superfine: Tailoring Black Style with Monica L. Miller, Part I
Release Date: June 4, 2025
Guest: Dr. Monica L. Miller, Chair of Africana Studies at Barnard College and Guest Curator of Superfine: Tailoring Black Style exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

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1. Introduction to the Episode and Guest

In this two-part episode, hosts April Callahan and Cassidy Zachary delve into the Superfine: Tailoring Black Style exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They are joined by Dr. Monica L. Miller, a renowned scholar whose work on Black dandyism forms the cornerstone of the exhibition.

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2. Dr. Monica L. Miller’s Journey and Expertise

Dr. Miller discusses her academic background and the evolution of her interest in fashion as a form of identity expression. She reflects on her early inspirations, including icons like David Bowie and Jean-Michel Basquiat, who exemplified androgyny and the performance of identity through fashion.

“I always felt otherwise in the place where I grew up, and then also otherwise in relationship to standards of beauty and fashion norms.” – Dr. Monica L. Miller [10:43]

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3. From Scholarship to Exhibition Curation

Dr. Miller explains how her PhD research and subsequent book, Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity, naturally extended into curating an exhibition. She emphasizes that while her book laid the theoretical groundwork, the exhibition translates these concepts into tangible, visual narratives.

“Superfine is a conversation between some of the theoretical interventions I might have made in my book and the material manifestation of those in some historical, but also a lot of contemporary fashion design.” – Dr. Monica L. Miller [23:15]

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4. The Met Gala Experience

Monica shares her exhilarating experience attending the Met Gala, highlighting the significance of Black representation in high fashion. She details wearing a piece by Grace Wales Bonner, a designer celebrated for integrating Black history and narratives into her work.

“It was phenomenal to have people show their work and to see the history that I'm telling reflected in their fashion choices.” – Dr. Monica L. Miller [06:12]

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5. Exploring Black Dandyism

The discussion delves into the concept of dandyism, distinguishing between its traditional Western European roots and its unique manifestation within the Black community. Dr. Miller describes Black dandies as “interrogative figures” who use fashion to challenge and redefine societal norms related to race, gender, and class.

“Black dandyism is a practice that serves as a tool and a strategy for self-fashioning, self-liberation, and distinction.” – Dr. Monica L. Miller [18:58]

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6. Superfine: Tailoring Black Style Exhibition Insights

Dr. Miller provides an in-depth look at the exhibition's structure, inspired by Zora Neale Hurston's essay, The Characteristics of Negro Expression. The exhibition comprises 12 sections, each reflecting different facets of Black dandyism and its historical trajectory.

“We wanted to create themes that exemplify Black dandyism and allow for multiple entry points, ensuring the exhibition was dynamic and not just a linear history lesson.” – Dr. Monica L. Miller [36:35]

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7. Curating Rare and Significant Artifacts

Monica discusses the challenges of sourcing garments that represent Black dandyism, noting the scarcity of existing pieces. She highlights the use of paintings and decorative arts to supplement the narrative when physical garments are unavailable, thereby enriching the exhibition's storytelling.

“When we couldn't find specific garments, we looked to paintings and prints to fill in the sartorial history, showing Black individuals in historically significant attire.” – Dr. Monica L. Miller [30:43]

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8. Collaboration with Contemporary Designers

The exhibition not only showcases historical garments but also features contemporary Black designers who draw inspiration from their heritage. Dr. Miller cites Tremaine Emery of Denim Tears as an example of how modern fashion can honor and reinterpret historical Black styles.

“Designers like Tremaine Emery are bringing hidden histories to the forefront, integrating them into their collections to create a continuous dialogue between past and present.” – Dr. Monica L. Miller [28:26]

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9. Exhibition Design and Artistic Collaboration

The visual presentation of the exhibition is a collaborative effort with artists like Terkwase Dyson and Tonda Francis, whose work adds layers of meaning and depth. The design aims to create dynamic interactions between garments and viewers, emphasizing movement and embodiment.

“Terkwase Dyson used her signature hypershape to create architectural zones that hold questions around Black life, enhancing the visitor's experience through visual tension and dynamic display.” – Dr. Monica L. Miller [39:10]

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10. Conclusion and Upcoming Discussions

The episode concludes with a preview of the second part, where Dr. Miller will walk listeners through the 12 sections of the exhibition. The hosts encourage listeners to engage with the exhibition both in person and through online resources.

“Be sure and follow along on social media this week. You can find content associated with these two episodes at Dressed 546 and Dressed 547.” – Cassidy Zachary [41:54]

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Key Takeaways

• Black Dandyism: A powerful form of self-expression and resistance, challenging societal norms related to race, gender, and class through fashion.
• Exhibition Design: Thoughtfully curated to bridge historical and contemporary narratives, using both garments and visual arts to tell a comprehensive story.
• Collaborative Effort: The success of Superfine is attributed to the collaboration between scholars, designers, and artists, each contributing their expertise to enhance the exhibition's impact.
• Cultural Significance: The exhibition serves as both a celebration and a critical examination of Black contributions to fashion, emphasizing the role of clothing in shaping and expressing identity.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Dr. Monica L. Miller: “I always felt otherwise in the place where I grew up, and then also otherwise in relationship to standards of beauty and fashion norms.” [10:43]
• Dr. Monica L. Miller: “Superfine is a conversation between some of the theoretical interventions I might have made in my book and the material manifestation of those in some historical, but also a lot of contemporary fashion design.” [23:15]
• Dr. Monica L. Miller: “Black dandyism is a practice that serves as a tool and a strategy for self-fashioning, self-liberation, and distinction.” [18:58]
• Dr. Monica L. Miller: “Designers like Tremaine Emery are bringing hidden histories to the forefront, integrating them into their collections to create a continuous dialogue between past and present.” [28:26]

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Note: This summary excludes advertisements, introductions, outros, and non-content segments to focus solely on the substantive discussions of the episode.

Transcript

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[Cassidy Zachary]

Dress the History of Fashion is a production of dressed media with over 8 billion people in the world, we all have one thing in common. Every day, we all get dressed.

[April Callahan]

Welcome to Dressed the History of Fashion, a podcast that explores the who, what, when of why we wear. We are friends, fashion historians and your.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Hosts April Callahan and Cassidy Zachary, dress listeners. We talk about the transformative power and language of clothing all the time on the show because these are two core themes at the art and act of getting dressed. And the clothing a person wears is an incredibly powerful communicator, a signifier of both the wearer's personal and public identities, and one that can, remarkably, speak volumes without ever having to say a word but just what that clothing says. So the different meanings it holds changes depending on whatever societal, cultural and historical context within which it is worn. And most importantly for this week's two part episode, who is wearing it? This week we are talking all about the historical and cultural significance of Black Dandyism.

[April Callahan]

Yes, this week's two part episode is dedicated to the most talked about exhibition of the year, Superfine Tailoring Black Style, on view now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York city, running through October 26th. We are excited to be joined by Dr. Monica L. Miller, Chair of Africana Studies at Barnard College at Columbia University, and the exhibition's guest curator.

[Cassidy Zachary]

And it must be said, past dressed guest Monica is one of our very first guests on the show, joining us all the way back in 2018 on our very first season, actually to discuss her book, Slaves to Fashion, Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity, which was a groundbreaking exploration into the evolution of the Black Dandy across 300 years from the 18th century to today. And it is this book that serves as the inspiration and the cornerstone of this exhibition. But while Monica's book was certainly foundational to the exhibition, as we will learn this week, these two things are not the same. And just how Monica translated literary text into literal textural garments is one of the many topics we are going to discuss today in part one of this two part series where Monica takes us behind the scenes of her work and the exhibition planning process in part two.

[April Callahan]

On Friday, Monica will walk us through each of the exhibition's 12 sections where we will meet many a Black Dandy from history, both well and lesser known, and also explore the many trappings of their sartorial toolkit with detailed explorations into the fascinating histories sewn into highlights from some of the 230 objects on view in the exhibition. We are going to join the world in celebrating this incredibly important show and are so excited to welcome Monica back to Drest.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Monica, welcome back to Dressed. I cannot believe it has been seven years since you joined us on our first season.

[Dr. Monica L. Miller]

That's amazing. A lot's happened in those seven years, but I'm very happy to be back.

[Cassidy Zachary]

And I just have to say congratulations. This is such an incredible exhibition.

[Dr. Monica L. Miller]

Thank you.

[Cassidy Zachary]

And what's amazing is, so you joined us on our very first season in 2018, which I don't think I even realized at this time. I just had found your book and I was really excited. But it was nine years since you actually first published your book, Slaves to Fashion, Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity. So it was published in 2009 and was actually based on your PhD research, which was no doubt itself years in the making. As a PhD student myself, I have to know, in your wildest imaginings, did you ever see your work being at the heart of an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, much less the spring exhibition that accompanies the Met Gala?

[Dr. Monica L. Miller]

Of course not. I mean, I think if you know this as PhD student, that when you're working on a long research project, the goal is to get it done right and you imagine it as done and not necessarily as having a second or third act. Right. So, no, I could not have imagined this in at all. In particular, because my PhD is in. Is in English. Right. The book is. I'm not going to say primarily, but Centers Literature and visual culture. So the idea that I would have the chance to translate that into a 3D experience that centers Gardens was not something that I ever imagined.

[Cassidy Zachary]

And of course, we're going to dive into the exhibition, talk all about it. But first I have to ask you about the Met Gala, because this was an incredibly exciting moment for the field of fashion studies. I'm going to geek out a little bit. I cannot express how excited I was, but also other fashion historians, scholars, professors who were screaming in emojis across the Internet to see you on the red carpet getting your rightful flowers. This is an incredibly exciting moment. What was that experience like for you and who were you wearing?

[Dr. Monica L. Miller]

I am still processing that experience. To be honest. It all seemed to happen very quickly. And what I mean by that is that for many months, even for over a year and a half, I, along with the rest of the curatorial team, have been in the basement of the Met working on this exhibition. The exhibition itself was built very quickly, and then we did installation for, I don't know, two weeks. And then all of a sudden it was open to the world and I was on the red carpet at the Met Gala. It happened very quickly and was then and remains difficult to process, but also just extraordinary. Right. Again, never imagined this was going to happen. Never imagined that I would end up there. But I have to say, it was a lot of fun. And one of the reasons why it was fun, and this is a very geeky reason why it was fun, is that, you know, I'd had some conversations, I will say, with some of the folks who were also on the red carpet with me and just telling them about the history of black dandyism and some aspects of the exhibition. So for me, it was so amazing to. To see the ways in which some of those people responded Right. To the history that I'm telling, to this sort of cultural moment. I likened it to people doing their homework. Right. And then showing their work.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yes.

[Dr. Monica L. Miller]

So it was really phenomenal to have people show their work. And again, I was just so impressed with some of the research that A list celebrities did. Right. In order to show up on this carpet with a kind of joy and respect for the history of black representation, the history of black style and fashion. It was really phenomenal. I felt really lucky to be there. I do feel, and have felt that the exhibition is also a real responsibility. So I wanted to make sure That I did the subject, or we did the subject justice, and that. That it was complex and nuanced and all of that. But that moment was really extraordinary. And it was. I mean, I even saw people had my book with them on the carpet, which is just insane.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yeah, we, of course, did a two part Met Gala. We do a review every year. And so we really dive into a lot of what people are wearing. And sometimes it's hit or miss. Right. But people really did their homework. I was so ready to dismiss people like Kylie Jenner Wright, but she actually had an incredible story literally sewn into the suit she was wearing, which was an homage to Gladys Bentley. And, of course, you yourself. Can you tell us about who you were wearing?

[Dr. Monica L. Miller]

Yes, I was wearing Grace Wales Bonner, and I was lucky enough to be wearing Grace Wales Bonner. The capelet that I had on was from, I think, a 2016 or 17 collection that she did called Ezekiel, which is bringing together kind of Ethiopia and the Caribbean, primarily through the lens of Haile Selassie. A piece of that same collection is actually on the COVID of the catalog. So the signature image for the whole exhibition. And I wanted to wear Grace because she's one of the designers who. There are many in the show, but one of the designers who really does her research, who is a scholar in cloth, who is constantly uplifting all kinds of histories and stories and people and cultural movements in the African diaspora and brings them into her fashion design ideology. So I was really happy to be wearing Grace, and also so amazing to be in the company of the other people who were wearing Grace, one of whom was Lewis Hamilton, who just looked amazing. So it felt very good on that night to be a part of a Grace army.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yes.

[Dr. Monica L. Miller]

So it was great. Great.

[Cassidy Zachary]

And we'll get into this more in a minute, too. But arguably this exhibition is just as much about celebrating black creators and black scholars and black contributors to the field of fashion and beyond, as much as it is about celebrating Black dandyism. And then I also just want to note that I did notice that Capelet is featured in the exhibition catalog as well. So that was a nice little Easter eg.

[Dr. Monica L. Miller]

Yes.

[Cassidy Zachary]

So we are here to discuss your exhibition, Super Fine Tailoring Black Style. But first, I wanted to learn a little bit more about your personal and professional journey to creating this narrative and exploring these themes throughout your work. As you tell us in the introduction to the catalog, your relationship with and interest in dandyism extends from your youth. Can you tell us about your first engagement with this idea?

[Dr. Monica L. Miller]

Sure. So for me, I'm a child of the 80s, so what that meant for me specifically. And I grew up in southeastern Connecticut, so not a fashion capital and also not a place that had a lot of people of color. So for me, fashion was a way for me to think about and actually in some ways, manifest a concept that we now know through the critic John Crowley, a kind of black otherwiseness. Right. I always felt otherwise in. In the place where I grew up, and then also otherwise in relationship to standards of beauty. Right. And fashion norms. So for me, I was really interested as a child of the 80s, in androgyny, and also in particular, two kind of androgynous people who were like the real kind of, I think, nodes, right. In which I was thinking around. And one of them was David Bowie, and the other was Jean Michel Basquiat. And when I encountered them as a teen or a teen preteen, I was just really drawn to the ways in which they performed identity and the ways in which that performance could take different forms at different times. Just the ways in which they were experimental with who they were and who they wanted to be. I was really just attracted to that, especially in terms of the way that they messed with gender, the way that not necessarily David Boeilo sometimes in his earlier career messed with race, like, really were asking questions about sexuality. I was really thinking a lot about that and really interested in that, in the kind of matrix that they were creating around this performance of identity. So that's where it all began. And I think those are the people I had in mind. But also at the time, I remembered recently that I had a social studies or history teacher in high school who wanted us to just write essays once a week that had nothing to do with history or social studies. And I started writing a fashion column.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Amazing, I know.

[Dr. Monica L. Miller]

Which I'd forgotten all about it, but I just remembered this process has brought up a lot of old memories for me. And I remember one of the first columns that I wrote was about the gray suit. And so there's a way that I've also been interested in menswear for a very long time, like, instinctively. So I think this all came together later on when I was working on my book. And then it took a whole different manifestation as a part of the process of working on this exhibition.

[Cassidy Zachary]

And how did that transpire, I'm guessing your undergrad and then into grad school. How did that become part of your scholarly inquiry into this topic? Because, as you mentioned earlier, you were studying literature.

[Dr. Monica L. Miller]

Right. And, you know, I do Think that if you're studying in particular, African American literature, which is what I was doing, I think it's very hard to study African American literature, maybe literature in general. This is my own opinion and approach, not to do that interdisciplinarily. Right. So I spent a lot of time in graduate school specifically, but also as an undergraduate, really thinking about context, right. Cultural context. I was always interested in what is the history of that? What is the history of this? How does it matter in terms of. Of what writers are writing about, the ways in which they write? So that has always been an interest of mine. But when I was in graduate school, I was working on a failed thesis about the political novel. So I was also always interested in the relationship between politics and aesthetics. And this dissertation was going nowhere fast. Right. And I was taking a class at the time on W.E.B. du Bois, the Souls of Black Folk. It was with Cornel West. We were reading that text really intensely and thinking again about cultural context, about its relationship to. To religion, its relationship to politics, its relationship to culture at the time. And I was doing some research on Du Bois and came across, it was a footnote where Du Bois was caricatured as a dandy. And I didn't understand that because in my mind, what I knew about Du Bois at that time was that he was incredibly well dressed, looked fantastic all of the time. And I didn't understand why. Why he would react so strongly and negatively to having that called out. In some ways, I did the research and realized that for him, being called a dandy was actually reinserting him into the Blackface Minstrel Show. And that is something he absolutely did not want. And all of the weight. Right. Of the minstrel show and the blackface dandy in that show was so close to him in terms of time. This was the early part of the 20th century, and the minstrel show was the most popular form of entertainment in the 19th century. So this was not something that he wanted at all. But I thought it was also undeniable that he was a clothes horse.

[Cassidy Zachary]

The tension there.

[Dr. Monica L. Miller]

Yeah, the tension, Right. So it became that tension that I really wanted to unpack, right. And figure out what are black people doing with clothing and dress. And if you look through 19th century African American literature, I have to say that maybe in almost every single novel, memoir, written by an enslaved person, or even essays, right. There's something in there about representation. There's something in there like signal moments when people change clothes to signal a new identity, a new possibility, or when they get rid of something in order to take something on that's new. So there were so many of those moments. Once I saw it, I couldn't unsee it. And I thought, oh, there's here.

[Cassidy Zachary]

That's exactly what I was just gonna say. I'm so excited for your grad school self because once you make that connection and you realize that fashion is this conduit to all of these different narratives and stories and what it can reveal to you about humanness and human character, as you said, there's no going back.

[Dr. Monica L. Miller]

No, once I saw it, I couldn't unsee it. And I was just like, wow, in every moment that I'm reading about here. Like a transition between enslavement and freedom, a transition between rural and urban for huge populations of black people, a transition between colonization and decolonization. In those moments, there's always some kind of styling out, right? That is accounting for different ways that people can be embodied.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yes, absolutely. And so obviously you translated this interest into your PhD dissertation and then into slaves to fashion.

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[Cassidy Zachary]

We are here to discuss superfine tailoring black style, which is centered around the concept of dandyism. And I'm hoping, just as a primer, if you can maybe start with defining generally what is dandy ism, and then how that meaning changes based on who that dandy is and the time and place of within which they exist. Because not all dandies are created or treated equally historically.

[Dr. Monica L. Miller]

No. So when I think about the figure of the dandy, I always start with, again, geeky. The Oxford English Dictionary and their definition of a dandy. So a dandy is somebody who studies above all else to dress elegantly and fashionably. What is so important for me about that definition is this idea of studying, right? In the idea that dandyism is an intentional act, it's a use, right, of fancy or distinctive clothing as a moment or as a tool. I think of self definition. Dandies in the Western European tradition are people that we think about who are intentional and disciplined in terms of their dress. So that means that they pay attention, close attention to detail. It's often, if we think about classic dandies like Beau Brummel, right, He's very attentive to the suit, to the details, details of the suit, to the cravat, to, to the boot, to all of the things that go into putting together an outfit or an ensemble. And even somebody like Beau Brummell, if we think about dandyism historically, was somebody who might not look at, but is actually pushing different kinds of boundaries, asking particular kinds of questions. That intentionality in the dress, the over attention to dress, is something often that quote, unquote, women do, right? So there's a way in which dandies are pushing at boundaries of gender and do that. They push against boundaries of sexuality as they do that in terms of the way that they intentionally use dress to. To maybe push at the boundaries of class. If we think about the kind of classical contest between French and English dandies, they're pushing at boundaries of nation. So dandies are what I call in my book interrogative figures. Figures who ask questions. They ask questions about the appropriateness of the vectors of identity. And thinking about that, when a dandy is racialized, that figure then, then adds or infuses that questioning with questions about race and racialization. So therefore we get a figure who is really provocative, who is asking about what's appropriate for any one body in any one place. So when I think about racialized dandyism, it's also often a mode of critique, right? A mode of critique, response, provocation, questioning, all of those things. Black dandyism as a practice is also a tool and a strategy for self fashioning, for self liberation, for distinction, for correction. Right. In terms of thinking about black representation across time and across the diaspora.

[Cassidy Zachary]

And this is of course, the thesis and the heart of your book. And then this exhibition which we are going to dive into. Can you remind us what that book is about before we talk about its relationship to the exhibition?

[Dr. Monica L. Miller]

That book is a cultural history of black dandyism. And it's really based on what we were just talking about, which is a kind of literary history. Right. A literary history of black dandyism from the 18th century to primarily the early 20th century, with a chapter tacked on the end that's about contemporary visual culture. So I really think about that book as about the performance of identity. And really thinking about dandyism again, as this. This simultaneous mode of critique of given categories of identity. Right. And a way to create other modes of identity that might be more suited or black centered, suited to centering black people and their modes of self expression. So that book really does think about transitions. It really thinks about different transitions between enslavement and freedom, both in England and in the United States. Transitions from rural to urban. So in the early part of the 20th century, in the Harlem Renaissance, and then later on in the later part of the 20th century, again thinking about decolonization and the way in which that creates a kind of whole arena of post colonial self styling. That's what that book is about.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yes. And you write in the exhibition catalog introduction, superfine is clearly related to slaves of fashion, but they are not the same. Can you please introduce us to the exhibition and how it seems, speaks to, but also expands upon your book?

[Dr. Monica L. Miller]

Yeah, I think about them as cousins. And I think that superfine is superfine, because it is garment focused, really is doing a slightly different kind of work in that it is absolutely about the performance of identity. But we're really able to see with the garments. This another primary dialectic, which is that of being fashioned and fashioning the self. We talked a little bit earlier about the place of contemporary fashion design in the exhibition. And to me, what was so amazing about contemporary black fashion designers, whether they're located in Europe or the US is that so many contemporary fashion designers, black fashion designers, really design with implicitly or explicitly with the history of black representation in mind. They're constantly drawing on and tapping into histories and narratives, some of which we know, some of which we don't know. And there's this amazing way in which they are animating, right. A long history of black representation and sometimes updating it, mixing it, changing it, responding to it, doing all these things. So it was really interesting for me to think about what stories are these contemporary designers telling and how do their stories in some ways echo and use the story that I tried to tell in my book. What is the relationship between these two things? And I think that's. That's one of the ways that I would characterize the exhibition is like a conversation between some of the theoretical interventions I might have made in my book and the material manifestation of those in some historical, but also a lot of contemporary fashion design.

[Cassidy Zachary]

And I should say, and maybe it goes without saying, but this exhibition includes a lot of fashion history. But I would not necessarily call this a fashion history exhibition because of what you just spoke to you very much putting the past, present and future of black dandyism into conversation. And this is something exemplified by what you just spoke to is this plethora of contemporary black designers who if from the outside looking in, I'm like, oh, Monica commissioned these looks for this exhibition. But that is not the case because as you just spoke to, this is part and parcel to what a lot of these designers are already doing. And it's about black designers, but also creators featured in front of and behind the scenes of this show, including photographer Tyler Mitchell, whose multi page photo essay and self described love letter to modern black dandyism is at the front of the exhibition catalog. Andrew Bolton refers to this visual interplay between the past, present and future as a collaging of histories, which I absolutely love. Why was this so important to the narrative and how does it play out throughout the exhibition design?

[Dr. Monica L. Miller]

I think it's important because one of the things that we really wanted to communicate was dynamism. I'm realizing this is not something I knew ahead of time, but when you curate a garment focused exhibition, you end up with clothes on mannequins, right? You don't end up with clothes in motion. That's a fashion show, right? So there's a real difference between these things. But for this exhibition, it was really important for us to always be thinking about the body and the clothes. So in order to do that, we had to create some mode or different modes where that dynamism of movement and embodiment could be felt, I think. So one of the ways that we solve that, or hopefully solved, solve that in the exhibition really, is that, yes, the exhibition is historical, right? It starts in the 18th century and it Ends. There's some garments in the exhibition, I think, that were shown on the Runway in January, so right up to the present, but we didn't want it to be a timeline. So in that way, we came up with other themes that could exemplify black dandyism that themselves would also have a historical trajectory. So, for example, within one of the parts of the exhibition called Champion, which is about the relationship of dandyism and sports, we anchor that section with a historical garment with jockey silks that were made in the early part of the 19th century. We anchor it with something historical. But then within that section, we're also moved from that moment to a contemporary garment or a number of contemporary garments that are also about that theme. So we wanted to make sure that you're moving through time and you're moving through space in multiple directions in multiple ways throughout the exhibition. It was a real effort to make sure that the dynamism was there.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yeah. And there's a wonderful exhibition tour that you do that's available on YouTube and dress listeners. We will absolutely link to it so you can watch it if you cannot make the exhibition in person. But you talk about how the exhibition design creates sight lines between sections, amplifying tensions of motion, scale and display. And so, as you just mentioned, it's this really dynamic, multi tiered exhibition space. You can look through some of the exhibition cases and see other pieces intentionally so, because you're really creating this dynamic conversation between the past, present and future through these garments, which is just incredible.

[Dr. Monica L. Miller]

Yeah. And it's. It's also related to what I was saying before about the contemporary designers, because they are doing that we might get. And I'm going back to Champion. Right. One of the garments that we feature in that. In that section is a. A leather ensemble by Tremaine Emery, who's designing for Denim Tears, which is a actually, like, modern tribute to what he calls the great black jockeys. He's thinking about the jockey silks that we have there, the historical garment, not that specific one, but in general, and designed a capsule collection to really bring out the history of these black jockeys, who were incredibly successful in the middle part of the 19th century and later part of the 19th century. So the designers themselves were always thinking about the past, designing in the present, and I think also thinking about the future. I mean, one of the things that's important about Tremain's design practice is that his. His storefront in Soho includes a library of 1500 books about African American art. So when you go into his store to buy something by denim tears, you're confronted with a history. All of the garments and the books are really in a conversation. Right. He's trying to bring out hidden histories, hidden black history, or overlooked black histories, and show them in his garments. Right. But also, again, he's showing the work. The library is there. The clothes are part of the library, the books are part of the clothes. Right. So there's a way in which the designers helped us to create that dynamism, that conversation, across time and across space.

[Cassidy Zachary]

And something else that I think is important to note too is there's not a ton of historical artifacts that reflect black dandyism in terms of garments. And so these designers are really important in that aspect. Aspect. But the objects and garments that you did find for this exhibition are incredible. And I'm hoping you can speak to that process because it's twofold. One, you are translating your written word into textural, three dimensional objects. And. And then you also have to find those objects right within the collection of the CI or on loan from other institutions. And this cannot have been an easy task, but one, I'm sure was, I'm assuming, very fun and fulfilling. Can you share some of that process with us?

[Dr. Monica L. Miller]

Sure. I mean, it was fun and fulfilling. And also just I learned so much. I'm a scholar who really works with archives, different kinds of archives, usually a visual archive. But trying to find and create a garment based archive for this work was a challenge. And we looked in unexpected places, I think in terms of where historic garments that would have been worn or even made by enslaved people, where those are located, those are located in history museums. They're located in the historic New Orleans collection or regional museums like the Chicago History Museum. Right. So we looked for garments in a lot of those places, Historical societies, historical museums, some other costume collections. But in one way, the exhibition that you see when you go to see Superfine is actually completely dependent on the things we were able to find. I mean, so it was a matter of figuring out what was out there at the same time. All this happened simultaneously. What's out there at the same time? What is the relationship of what's out there to the story that we want to tell? And this was. This is also really a fun part. When we couldn't find things, we were forced to. To think about where else is this sartorial history being seen? So then we could look to paintings, we could look to prints, we could look to decorative arts. Right. So in the earlier parts of the exhibition, when there aren't that many Extant garments. You know, we've filled in that sartorial history with paintings, prints, decorative arts, later on in the exhibition film. So there's a way in which we wanted to also show people in the clothing. So that's where the paintings and the prints come. It really humanizes some of the sort of difficult moments at the beginning of the exhibition when people are being fashioned. It humanizes that, but also just gives us the sartorial history. If we don't have a silk waistcoat from the 18th century that was worn by an enslaved person, we can see one in any number of paintings. So that was a real challenge that there weren't that many extant garments. On the other hand, it was a real opportunity to also, I hope, show people how when they are in museums and they're thinking about the history of dress and fashion, the paintings are telling you a lot of what you need to know. That more often than not in so many 18th century European paintings, there are black enslaved and. Or servants in those paintings that you don't notice.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Especially in fashion plates.

[Dr. Monica L. Miller]

Exactly. Who are there wearing something spectacular that is of interest and of note. So I hope that those earlier parts of the exhibition are really helping people to see differently when they're in museum spaces, but also to really appreciate some of the garments we were able to find, which are really rare. Right. And ultimately really precious.

[Cassidy Zachary]

And were there any objects that you were really wanting to acquire that you did get your hands on and then maybe some that you weren't able to find?

[Dr. Monica L. Miller]

I can think of a couple that got away. One, and this is going to sound silly because it's not. It's not such a. It's more recent history than older history is like we're really looking in this phenomenally a phenomenal plaid suit from the 70s that we really wanted from a particular museum that had. It was like a three piece plaid wool suit that was just impeccable. It also had these phenomenal accessories like a hat with a feather in it and heeled shoes that also matched it. This was a phenomenal ensemble. We weren't able to get that. I still think about it and not many other things that we weren't able to get. One thing that I was talking about this morning on a tour is we have a section of the exhibition called Cool where we are thinking about the influence of jazz and hip hop musicians on 20th century fashion. And we feature a number of tan suits at the beginning of that section. And you can't say the word tan suit right without thinking about President Obama's tan suit. So we weren't able to get that tan suit. But in some ways, just by looking at the suits, you have it in your head. So we actually didn't need it. So that would be another garment. It didn't really get away, but again, something that we think about but did not display.

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[Dr. Monica L. Miller]

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[Cassidy Zachary]

There are over 230 objects in this exhibition. As you've mentioned briefly. You've referred to the different sections a couple times. There are 12 different sections in the exhibition and we are going to go through them together. But I'm hoping before we do that, can you tell us about the inspiration behind the title of the exhibition? Because that does root us in our narrative and where we'll begin. And then the inspiration behind the 12 sections of the exhibit too. Because there is significance to everything in this exhibition, dress listeners. Everything has been thought through.

[Dr. Monica L. Miller]

Yes. So the exhibition title, Superfine, Superfine Tailoring Black style. Super fine is a wool, right? It's a luxury wool and also I think, a feeling. So we take the exhibition title from a quotation from the memoir of the formerly enslaved writer Aladdo Equiano, who he was able to purchase his freedom in the middle of the 18th century. And when he was almost ready to purchase his freedom, he said, I'm putting aside aside eight pounds to purchase a suit of super fine clothes to dance in at my freedom. He was thinking luxury wool. He wanted a really nice suit, right? But he was also talking about this feeling of liberation, the ability to self style, this kind of incredible feeling of owning oneself. So for us, superfine, the exhibition really is about wearing superfine. So wearing, I'm not going to say fancy clothing, but an intentional wearing of clothes and feeling super fine. This incredible feeling that you get when you're in something, when you're self styled, and when you just feel comfortable and right in some ways in your own body. So that's where the title comes from. The 12 sections were inspired conceptually by Zora Neale Hurston's 1934 essay, The Characteristics of Negro Expression. Because we were thinking, like, how are we going to organize this if we're not going to do it necessarily chronologically? We thought that was going to be boring or just too much of a history lesson where you're just trudging from 1850 to 1860. We didn't want to do that, but we needed to convey history. But we also wanted to convey, again, the sense of dynamism. Right? Hurston, in this essay, is really trying to figure out what are the ways in which black expressive culture, how could we define this? So she comes up with 12 different ways that she thinks black people express themselves. She has drama as one category, the will to adorn, right. Which is a very attractive category for us. Angularity, asymmetry, all of these categories. But they were a little funky, like we couldn't use them all. But we thought, what are the 12 themes that we might use to define Black dandyism but are not really definitive? We wanted this exhibition to be one that had multiple entry points and that wasn't meant to be the definitive word on anything. Andrew Bolton, the curator in charge here, always says that each Costume Institute exhibition is an essay, right? So we wanted to think about what essay conceptually helps us with this essay. And it was Hurston's characteristics.

[April Callahan]

And it is here, dress listeners, where we're going to leave our conversation with Monica. But there is a lot more to say about this exhibition, which is a supreme masterclass in the art of visual storytelling and design. Every single detail of this exhibition has been thoroughly thought through by Monica, the Costume Institute, and a whole team of other collaborators which they assembled, including artists, scholars, designers, all representing the supreme practitioners of their respective fields, and all of whom played a really central part to the exhibition's success.

[Cassidy Zachary]

And remarkably, this was the first ever exhibition concept designed by artist Terkwase Dyson, who the museum tells us, quote, used her signature hypershape to create a series of standalone monumental sculptures, or quote, unquote, architectural zones designed to hold questions around black life related to reflection, theatricality, scale, liberation, flight and transcendence, and amplify moments of tension between motion, scale and display in visitors experience. End quote. And let's just say Dresden listeners, if you have not seen pictures of this exhibition yet, this is not your typical exhibition design. And once you do see images of it, you will know exactly what I'm talking about because it's quite striking.

[April Callahan]

And we also have to talk about the two bespoke mannequin heads designed specifically for the exhibition by another artist, Tonda Francis, which are intended to emulate bronze monuments but also pay homage to historical figures. One of the mannequin faces was actually inspired by the features of Andre Grandard Matsua, who was considered to be the first Congolese superior. And if you do not know this term, you may have actually already heard us talk about this on the show, because this term, super It's a sartorial subculture of these incredibly vibrant and imaginative dandies that arose in the 1920s and who continue to use fashion as an intentional act of self expression and also subversion today.

[Cassidy Zachary]

And of course there is just so much more to say about this exhibition dress listeners. And on Friday Monica is going to be back with us us to take us into the exhibition and walk us through its 12 sections where we will continue to meet the many fashioned architects and objects of Black dandyism past and present that does it for us today. So be sure and follow along on social media this week. You can find content associated with these two episodes at Dressed 546 and Dressed 547. Until Friday, May you consider the many tools of yourself fashioning. Next time you get dressed.

[April Callahan]

Please head to restpodcast on Instagram or Rest Podcast without the underscore on Facebook to check out the visual content associated with each week's episodes.

[Cassidy Zachary]

And remember, we always love hearing from you, so if you'd like to write to us you can do [e-mail] dressedhistory.com is also our website where you can sign up for our monthly newsletter, our in person tours and online fashion history courses and you can check out whatever else we have up our finely tailored sleeves.

[April Callahan]

We get so many questions from you all about our recommendations for fashion history books, so if you are interested you can always find a link in our show notes to our Bookshop Bookshelf. So that address is bookshop.org shop dress and there you can find over 150 of our favorite fashion history titles.

[Cassidy Zachary]

And do you love Dressed but want to skip the ads? You can now sign up for ad free listening with any tier on our Dressed History Patreon where you can also chat with your fellow fashion history lovers and attend one of our live Q&As and so much more.

[April Callahan]

We are also excited to now be part of the Airwave Network and their premium ad free history subscription Airwave History plus available on Apple Podcasts. The subscription brings dress and also 27 other popular history podcasts ad free for just $5.99 per month. More information on Patreon and Airwave is available at the link in our bio.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Thank you as always for tuning in and more dressed coming your way very soon. The History of Fashion is a production of dressed media.

[JJ Virgin]

Hey JJ Virgin here on my podcast well beyond 40 we ditch the idea of aging gracefully and go go all in on aging powerfully. Every week I host powerful experts who can give you powerful insights on building muscle, boosting your energy and feeling amazing no matter what your age. This is your one life and trust me, being smarter and stronger are superpowers that can turn lifespan into strength span. Listen to well beyond 40 wherever you get your podcasts.