To Be Seen and Not Defined: Dandyism and the Black Intellectual Imagination
A sharply tailored blazer, oversized sunglasses, a cigarette lit like the period at the end of a sentence: James Baldwin was a writer and a thinker who also understood the power of presentation. And he was not alone. Across the 20th century, a constellation of Black intellectuals and artists approached fashion not merely as ornamentation but as ontology. They dressed with intention, their clothes layered with subtext.
The spring 2025 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” is full of allusions to such figures. Drawing on scholar Monica L. Miller’s 2009 book, Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity, the show considers how Black people have used dress to shift the way they are seen, spotlighting the work of designers such as Virgil Abloh and Grace Wales Bonner but also the fashions apparent in living rooms and lecture halls and on nightclub stages. As Black intellectuals were reshaping the language of Black life and art, they were also crafting bold visual signatures—through hats, gloves, heels, tuxedos—that projected their thinking into the world.
The Power of Presentation
W.E.B. Du Bois offered a blueprint. In early 20th-century America, where Black manhood was rendered grotesque, Du Bois’s wardrobe was insurgent: gloves, a well-trimmed beard, walking sticks that weren’t just for walking. Dandyism, for him, was not excess; it was evidence. In his seminal 1903 text The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois described double consciousness, the tension of being Black in a country that views you through a veil. His clothes held that tension, transforming theory into form. Every polished shoe and pinstripe was a rebuttal to the caricatures surrounding him.
Zora Neale Hurston carried that sensibility on. In a 2009 essay, Zadie Smith highlights Hurston’s dazzling self-assessments, which underscore her powerful sense of identity expressed through fashion. Hurston turned selfhood into spectacle, dressing in ways that defied categorization.
Beyond Aesthetics: A Living Legacy
Born a generation later, James Baldwin, like Hurston, did not wear his wounds; instead, he wore sunglasses and scarves. His wardrobe wasn’t extravagant, but it was exacting, each garment chosen like a well-placed word. Baldwin’s style was a cipher: queer, cosmopolitan, controlled. His appearance was not about vanity but a profound statement, woven from threads of struggle and resistance.
Figures like Du Bois, Hurston, and Baldwin stitched freedom into fabric—not out of vanity but vision. To revisit their style is not nostalgia; it’s instruction, a reminder that to be Black and dressed is to be in theory, in process, alive.
In this lineage, the energy continues. Modern figures like Prince, Iké Udé, and Solange Knowles carry the torch, treating fabric as language and silhouette as statement. They remind us that fashion is more than surface—it’s a profound expression of identity and resilience.
As we reflect on these groundbreaking figures, we see a world where fashion and intellect intertwine, where to be seen is to be fully realized—and not defined by others. The legacy of Black dandyism endures, inspiring new generations to embrace their truths through style, reclaiming their narrative in the process. It’s a powerful journey, filled with beauty that speaks volumes.