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Highlights from Met Gala exhibit: A look at Black style gives prominent voice to emerging designers
"Superfine: Tailoring Black Style" is the first Costume Institute exhibit to focus exclusively on Black designers, and the first in more than 20 years devoted to menswear.
In other words, Miller says, the enslaved themselves were items of conspicuous consumption.The other is a livery coat of tan broadcloth, likely manufactured by Brooks Brothers and worn by an enslaved child or adolescent boy in Louisiana just before the Civil War.Elsewhere, there's a contemporary, glittering ensemble by British designer Grace Wales Bonner, made of crushed silk velvet and embroidered with crystals and the cowrie shells historically used as currency in Africa.There's also a so-called “dollar bill suit” by the label 3.Paradis — the jacket sporting a laminated one-dollar bill stitched to the breast pocket, meant to suggest the absence of wealth.How dress can both disguise and revealThe disguise section includes a collection of 19th-century newspaper ads announcing rewards for catching runaway enslaved people.The ads, Miller notes, would often describe someone who was “particularly fond of dress” — or note that the person had taken large wardrobes. There is also a laundry receipt from 1933 for cleaning of shirts, collars, and handkerchiefs.Also highlighted in this section: Frederick Douglass, the abolitionist, writer, and statesman and also “the most photographed man of the 19th century.”The show includes his tailcoat of brushed wool, as well as a shirt embroidered with a “D” monogram , a top hat, a cane and a pair of sunglasses.Designers reflecting their African heritageOne of Miller’s favorite items in the heritage section is Agbobly’s bright-colored ensemble based on the hues of bags that West African migrants used to transport their belongings.Also displayed is Agbobly’s denim suit embellished with crystals and beads. Elsewhere, there's a contemporary, glittering ensemble by British designer Grace Wales Bonner, made of crushed silk velvet and embroidered with crystals and the cowrie shells historically used as currency in Africa.
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