Is the Met Gala Theme Okay?
Things I'm thinking about on the First Monday in May.
Despite the occupation by Vogue magazine of “the first Monday in May,” you could be forgiven for forgetting that tonight is the Costume Institute Gala, popularly known as the Met Ball. For one, (like most things) it was rescheduled and then stumbled a bit thanks to the Pandemic, and second, there is the fact that the whole shebang kinda felt more important back when to see celebrities, you had to wait for big inflection points such as this one rather than sift through literally dozens of points of contact, including Instagram, their own branded or backed vitamins, face creams, Patreons, personal pleasure devices and even Cameos. Still, there remain many who compare tonight’s festivites to the Oscars thanks to the celeb wattage, though I personally think it’s really more like Fashion’s Superbowl – particularly if you think of the Superbowl less as a contest between two sports teams and more as the annual convention of world’s biggest corporations and upstarts vying for the biggest audience of the year.
I will also give you a pass for not knowing this year’s theme, since it tends to be easier to recall when it’s easier to understand, like China (“China Through the Looking Glass,” 2015), McQueen (“Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty,” 2011) or Chanel (“Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty,” 2023). This year, however, we have “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” which the museum’s press release describes as “a cultural and historical examination of Black style through the concept of dandyism…[which] sprung from the intersection of African and European style traditions.” It was inspired by the 2009 book Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity by Monica Miller, who served as co-curator.
I am aware that those who religiously follow the live coverage or analyze photos the day after care less about the theme qua theme; as part staid black tie event and part elaborate costume party, wild interpretation of the theme is part of the Schadenfreude fun. They care far less about the “cultural relevance” or “historical context” of the exhibits selected for the show – which most of them will never see, even if they live in New York – than they do about who was there and how good or bad they looked. And hey, I’m usually right there with them. But to me, this year is a little different.
I know I don’t need to tell you that we live in a culture whose relationship with even discussing race is so complicated that there is no way that this choice was made lightly, or that it hasn’t gotten everyone involved with the evening – even as guests – preparing to choose their words carefully. What’s more is that Vogue and its corporate parent Condé Nast have had their own very well-publicized trials with the subject. While I can’t imagine that that history will be explicitly manifest in the show, to me not mentioning it would be like if, say, Tom Ford had been the one chosen to helm recently filled top spot at Gucci and everyone was forbidden to mention that for the last 21 years, no one had seen him around the office.
Of course, the all-day and night nature of social media’s town square heaps additional pressure on the task of addressing fraught topics, especially when the path to them has been paved with what many regard as missteps. If you are a white style arbiter with little to no exposure or expertise, to be too effusive about the importance of Black style is liable to been seen as “virtue signaling”; too solemn might read as “performative”; too unmoved could appear callous, too knowing is centering oneself or failing to pass the mic. These are the hurdles that I believe sometimes push even the most earnest attempts at socially conscious, mainstream examinations of these subjects further to the margins, since they make it virtually impossible to feel like you did it right, or didn’t cause greater harm.
At the same time, the “brace for impact” that I (and perhaps others) am experiencing feels just as real. If you don’t know a lot of Black people personally, you might not know that we have a (well-earned) tendency to be more skeptical than relieved by these watershed moments. Is this the institutional version of that cliché, ersatz defense meant to prove that you have no racial blind spots or grey areas, The Black Friend (as in “some of my best friends are”)? Furthermore, whom do I really trust to stage or experience a show that believes – or even understands – its own premise; that is not clunky mea culpa or a “nothing to see here [anymore], folks.”
All I can tell you is that anyone who believes such summations has a radically different view of the progress achieved by “Fashion’s Racial Reckoning” than mine. I know that our current administration is a mess, but if only you knew how many times I believe I have been specifically targeted as the audience for rhapsodies about grace, style or attractiveness of the Obamas more than a dozen years after their departure from the White House (this gag in Get Out really wasn’t a joke). If I were able to tell you of the times I have pointed out sensitivities, ignorance and “microaggressions” and been shut out or even retaliated against within this or adjacent industries – and not just early in my career, when you could argue that “things were different” and people “didn’t know any better.” And as I looked at the weekend’s Met-adjacent parties, yes, I saw many Black celebrities, but not too many civilians (though there were more of both than when I dreamed of working at Vogue as a girl, and even 20 years later, when I actually did).
The era when this show never would have made it to any major museum is not too far behind us, and for that we may be grateful. But to me, the dream that continues to be frustratingly unfulfilled is the one where Black faces are not just (temporarily) adorning the walls and vitrines – or guarding them – but streaming through the room, tonight and forever after. I am not claiming this the fault of the museum or its benefactors. But given the dire state of our cultural exchange, it is their – and our – responsibility to fix.
There is also the fact that the dandy is a male figure: though all people wear clothes, Fashion writ large has been considered a female pursuit, and though its power as an industry still may not reside entirely under their leadership (since most creative and corporate leads of fashion companies are male), it is women’s capital and decision-making that is its chief revenue source. However, it is an industry that has been notoriously slow to give Black female pulchritude its due. Though I don’t want to fall into the too-common trap of rationalizing that recognition of one marginalized group is a further, de facto repudiation of another, Black Dandyism is a theme that potentially doesn’t leave a lot of room on the page to reconcile or even discuss these erasures.
And lastly, I am thinking of the most famous and recognizable avatar of the “Black Dandy” André Leon Talley, whom I have already seen many cite as the patron saint of this show. His Wikipedia entry does not mention the messy and ultimately public property dispute that was said to have been resolved “amicably” before his death in 2022 but which I know struck a note of dread in anyone who has felt they had to stair-step to achieve success and acceptance in industry obsessed with appearance, portfolio and pedigree: if you are the Other, can you ever really make yourself at home? In 2020 when his memoir The Chiffon Trenches was released, Vanessa Friedman wrote in the Times, “it is a tragedy: the story of how one man sold, if not his soul, then his heart, his intelligence and his body of knowledge for the sake of a suite of branded suitcases and Hilditch & Key crepe de Chine shirts.” André’s scores of friends and mentees may be justified in their belief that he should be celebrated on this stage that meant so much to him – where he began his career, if fact – but will this ultimately be monument or makeover, an aria or an airbrush?
For now, however, I have resolved not do the thing that can be so tantalizing in a world where even marketing emails are now summarized by AI: rush to judgment, or rejection. I have not yet seen the show, of course, nor have I read the catalog or the even the book that was its genesis. A scan of headlines and footnotes is not the same as reading the whole document; “just asking questions” and answering them based on our own already formed opinions helps no one. When something relatively obscure or previously unheralded is suddenly made visible or mainstream, the charges of appropriation or misperception nearly always come, especially if critics do not take the time to review context, sourcing, intent. Furthermore, I dislike that the suggestion that interpolation or reverent tribute seems to be available to some groups and not others. Surely, there will be some who exit the show and decide that a show about colonization and refraction of white standards is insensitive, while others may reason that it’s vitally important: a way of acknowledging the resilience of beauty amidst the prevalence of brutality. I am hopeful that it turns out to be that latter; for at this moment in history, it seems to be a lesson in which we would all benefit to enroll.