The Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is preparing to explore the complex politics of race relations through fashion.

On Wednesday, the museum announced its 2025 spring blockbuster, Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, which will spotlight the history of the Black dandy. This exhibition will examine how “peacocking” transcends aesthetics to become a form of empowerment. Co-chairs of the opening gala will include A$AP Rocky, Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton, Pharrell Williams, and Anna Wintour, with LeBron James serving as honorary chair.

This marks the Met’s first fashion exhibition dedicated solely to designers of color, as well as the first in over 20 years to focus specifically on menswear. Andrew Bolton, the Costume Institute’s curator, said the show is part of an ongoing effort to address the institution’s historical shortcomings in diversity and inclusion.

“I wanted to create an exhibition that would use our collection to tell a story long missing from both museum and broader cultural discussions,” Bolton explained. “This is the first of its kind.”

The exhibition aims to explore how the concept of the “dandy,” famously defined by Beau Brummell in Regency England, shifts when racialized. It will examine, for example, how enslaved people were treated as luxury objects to be dressed and displayed, and how those same garments were later appropriated to subvert systems of oppression and forge new identities. The show will also demonstrate how contemporary Black menswear designers draw on this legacy.

The exhibition’s title, Superfine, is inspired by the memoir of an 18th-century enslaved man who bought his freedom and wrote about celebrating with “a suit of superfine clothes.” In essence, it’s about making a bold statement through style.

Bolton credits the book Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity by Monica L. Miller, a professor of Africana studies at Barnard College, as his template for the exhibition. Miller, the guest curator for Superfine, was initially “flabbergasted” when approached by Bolton.

The Costume Institute has been expanding its collection of fashion by designers of color since 2020, following the George Floyd protests. During that time, Bolton re-curated the postponed spring show About Time to feature more designers of color. He also used subsequent exhibitions, such as In America: A Lexicon of Fashion and In America: An Anthology of Fashion, to highlight underrepresented designers like Ann Lowe and Fannie Criss.

Miller noted that Superfine is a rare opportunity for the curatorial team to engage with the vast number of Black designers, both historically and today.

The exhibition follows other museum shows such as Africa’s Fashion Diaspora at FIT and Africa Fashion at the Brooklyn Museum. However, Miller emphasized that Superfine leads with a strong intellectual and political perspective, underscoring how fashion has served as a tool of power for Black individuals.

The show will focus on the Black dandy tradition in Britain and the United States from the 18th century to the present, using 12 themes like “ownership,” “caricature,” and “cosmopolitanism.” Historic garments will be displayed alongside contemporary works by designers such as Grace Wales Bonner, Virgil Abloh, Olivier Rousteing, and others.

The exhibition, opening on May 10 (with the gala on May 5), will feature gallery spaces designed by artist Torkwase Dyson, with bespoke mannequin heads created by Tanda Francis. Multimedia artist Iké Udé, known for embodying the essence of the modern dandy, is a special consultant. Tyler Mitchell, the first Black photographer to shoot a Vogue cover, will photograph the exhibition’s catalog.

Sponsored by Louis Vuitton, Instagram, and others, with the gala dinner crafted by chef Kwame Onwuachi, Superfine is set to make a bold cultural statement. And though the dress code for the evening remains a secret, you can expect everyone to look, well—superfine.