Co-Directors: Nina Ljeti, Bety DerejeDirectors of Photography: Jerry Henry, Bradley Credit, Henry Gill, Etienne BaussanEditor: Evan AllanProducer: Rahel Gebreyes2nd Unit Directors, London & Paris: Luke Spencer, Nikki PetersenProducer, London: Rashida JosiahOn-Set Producer, LA: Chase LewisAssociate Producers: Lea Donenberg, Lorenzo PriottoCreative Production Coordinator: Motunrayo SoyannwoCamera Operators: Cesar Alvarez, Kevin Spence, ChaimukiSuper 8 Camera Operator, Paris: Lucas TroadecAssistant Camera: Joshua Makela, Harry Coleman, Donovan Loew, Antoine Balland, Asia Li JonesGaffers: Jeff Cerritos, Maria Kalecinska, Réal Gill, Adam PelleGrip: MyKiah WigginsAudio: Lily Van Leeuwen, Jennifer Zhang, Liam Pellegrini, Nhung Nguyen, Nicole Maupin, Charles BeatrixProduction Assistants: Isaias Rojano, Brock Spitaels, Damali Lawrence, Quinton JohnsonProduction Designers: Marguerite Wade, King Owusu, Simone MoscovitchProduction Design Assistants: Peter Troy, Alex Kim, John Langran, Alex T. Cunningham, Amanda Sheik, Ann Lee, Daniel RushtonMakeup Artist for Law Roach: Amber AmosHairstylist for Law Roach: Coree MorenoMakeup Artist for Professor Monica Miller: Diana ManzanaresProduction Coordinators: Ava Kashar, Tanìa Jones, Ericka Gourgues-LutranProduction Manager: David Alvarez PazSenior Production Manager: Alexandra Dawson HerrenLine Producer: Natasha Soto-AlborsAssistant Editors: Andy Morell, Justin SymondsPost Production Coordinator: Holly FrewArt & Graphics Lead: Léa KichlerColorist: Oliver EidAudio Mix: Nick CiprianoSupervising Editors: Erica DeLeo, Kameron KeyPost Production Supervisor: Alexa DeutschEntertainment Director: Sergio KletnoyGlobal Talent Casting Director: Ignacio MurilloDirector, Content Production: Rahel GebreyesSenior Director, Video: Romy van den BroekeSenior Director, Programming: Linda GittlesonVP, Video Programming: Thespena GuatieriCover Photography By Tyler Mitchell, Malick Bodian, Iké UdéCover Artwork By Henry TaylorImages Courtesy Of: Art ResourceDapper DanThe Gordon Parks Foundation © James Van Der Zee Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art© The Estate of Roy DeCarava© Henry Taylor, Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth© The family of Malick Sidibé and Jack Shainman Gallery, New YorkProduction Courtesy of: Rosco, North Six, Boom ProductionsFilmed on Location: Pier59 Studios, Milk Studios, The Tank FactorySpecial Thanks: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
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PeopleTranscript
00:00This issue, it's a historic moment in the life of Vogue.
00:07Oh yeah!
00:09What we're doing has never been done before.
00:11We're making magic here!
00:13This is the magazine everyone's gonna pay attention to.
00:16I feel more than lucky, I feel blessed.
00:18I can shed a tear.
00:19It just feels revolutionary, honestly.
00:30My name is Monica Miller, and I'm the guest curator of Superfine Tailoring Black Style,
00:46and a professor of Africana Studies at Barnard College, Columbia University.
00:50Black style is really related to thinking about how fashion and power connect.
00:58The way that people are styled, are fashioned, are fashioned themselves,
01:03in response to the degree of agency that they feel.
01:06Silhouettes change, use of pattern, color, all of those things change in relationship to time,
01:12in relationship to history.
01:13So fashion, power, aesthetics, politics, those are all wrapped up in one way that we can see the world.
01:20I chose to focus on dandyism.
01:24What is black dandyism?
01:26Um, gosh.
01:28It's a little hard to describe.
01:30Dandy, I'm feeling quite dandy.
01:32I think dandyism is about individuality.
01:35Excellence.
01:36Freedom.
01:37Whipped.
01:38Elegance.
01:39It is tailoring.
01:40It's a frequency.
01:41Dandyism to me is really about expression, black expression.
01:44Dandyism means confidence to me.
01:46Somebody that celebrates living in a one-of-a-kind body and tailors everything to that body.
01:52I think that the dandy is essentially on that case.
01:55Dandyism.
01:56Can't say.
01:57I didn't even hear the word until the Met Gala.
02:00I just thought it was black excellence.
02:02I was like, oh, the theme of this year is ASAP Rocky.
02:04Okay, I get it.
02:05The kind of dictionary definition of dandyism is somebody who studies above all else to dress elegantly and fashionably.
02:14When the dandy is black, we get to see the dandy as a figure that really encapsulates a kind of matrix of identity.
02:22Race, gender, class, sexuality, and sometimes nation.
02:26I'm really interested in thinking about clothing, dress, and fashion as a tool, as a critique, and also as a creative mode of thinking about liberation.
02:39I'm from the poorest neighborhood in Harlem.
02:42Goodwill's was our Macy's.
02:45But when I got dressed, even in clothes that wasn't mine, nobody knew how cool my family was.
02:50And that, for me, was the birth of dandyism because I saw the power of transformation that could take place with your clothes.
02:58Instantly, you can become somebody else.
03:04There's nothing more dandy than an African man, like dressed to the nines.
03:09Weirdly, the first person I thought of was my dad, who is not.
03:12Well, you know, to me, he is a historical icon.
03:15When I think about dandyism, I think about my family.
03:19Who comes to mind are actually my mother and father.
03:22I think of black folks going to church.
03:25I think a lot about the jazz musicians.
03:27Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Nat King Cole.
03:30Andre 3000 for sure embodied it.
03:32Jack Johnson.
03:33The honorary chairman himself, LeBron James.
03:35Tyler the Creator is a vision of a modern dandy.
03:38Andre Leon Talley.
03:39Prince was a dandy.
03:40Dapper Dan.
03:41Dapper Dan.
03:42That's right.
03:44There's a very famous pimp named Magic Don Juan.
03:48We grew up seeing him everywhere, seeing him pull up in his green Cadillac.
03:51And I think that, for me, is the ultimate expression of dandyism.
03:56Even though it's negative, it had such a huge impact on the way we presented ourselves growing up in that city.
04:02I look at pretty much every young kid in Africa that mixes collars and tail of rain and tracksuits.
04:09It takes a lot of confidence to want to stick out.
04:12To want to go against the grain and against trends and the status quo.
04:17You kind of tell your story through your clothes.
04:20And it was important for me to bring that into this project.
04:23Today was the first day of shooting for this amazing story that is connected to the theme of the Met Gala.
04:39If we're being completely honest, you just don't know what you're going to get on the day.
04:43And I do remember feeling like, wow, this is very special.
04:47The energy on set today was just so amazing and so joyful.
04:51I feel like everybody was excited to be here.
04:54I was with John Batiste and Jeremy Pope.
04:57But it was magic.
04:58I mean, John was, like, singing.
05:00Both of them were, like, singing.
05:03So we all got a free little serenade, which was pretty magical.
05:08Law is very specific.
05:09When he needs you to express anything with your body or, like, posing or anything, he'll get on set and just do it.
05:15He'll let you know.
05:16Tyler really knows what he wants.
05:19So once he gets the frame right and everybody where they need to be, he's just shooting.
05:23And it's just like, you got to be ready.
05:25Nice. That's great.
05:26That was great, Jules.
05:27The actual photography aspect of it was just to channel this amazing portfolio of very talented people in today's landscape.
05:34And the way we could unify all that was to make a very simplistic set, actually, only containing a few elements, certain colors in a color palette that was primarily pastel.
05:45And then elements or hints of wood.
05:48That's great, Hunter.
05:49Other black photographers, James Van Der Zee, Gordon Parks, Roy de Carrava.
05:54Those were sort of the references.
05:55When the Met announced the theme, like, I already had so many references, right?
06:05I think I am kind of a purveyor of my culture and my history.
06:10I've already built out this incredible database of images and memories, all the way from slavery to modern day.
06:19I have been studying and waiting for this moment, you know, almost all my life.
06:29The moment that you saw and that we had as, like, Tiana, myself, it felt very intimate and, like, sister-like.
06:42Yeah, even the vibe today on set, it's just so cool.
06:45It's so exciting and beautiful.
06:47It's a beautiful thing, getting to celebrate each other and learn about each other.
06:52You don't want to leave.
06:53You don't want to leave because it just feels full of love and that type of feeling you don't want to let go of, you know?
07:00As much as today is so beautiful, it's unfortunately still an anomaly to walk into a space and to see so many of us.
07:09I think many of us here are used to being one of the only brown faces on a set and being the representation and being the diversity.
07:16I mean, even this is only a sliver of just how beautiful and the depth and breadth of what it is to be black and celebrate our blackness.
07:24Fine line tailoring and, like, dandyism in general, what it represents is us reclaiming our individuality and our pride, creating a safe space for black people to really just express themselves in a way that went above and beyond societal limits.
07:38One of the ways that we can think about dandyism is through tailoring. We can see it as a kind of mode of control, what I think African Americans might call, you know, coming correct.
07:53Good tailoring defines a person.
07:56Right now I'm wearing Fear of God and Cherry Lorenzo. It's pretty cool and it makes me feel powerful.
08:03Right now I'm wearing a three-piece double-breasted suit designed by yours truly. You got to get a good look. Can I stand up for a minute? You getting it? Look at these shoes, man. Just zoom in on those. Fuck the outfit.
08:14Fuck the outfit.
08:15There's something about a tailored suit. This badass boss lady feeling that I get when I wear suits. This suit makes me feel confident, important, singular, because it has indeed been tailored within an inch of my life to my exact body. No one else can wear this suit now.
08:35I don't have, like, the kind of body that you can just buy something off the shelf. When you get a tailored suit or a tailored shirt, it fits better. You look better.
08:43My body does not fit the status quo proportions of an average person. Just so many different people are hands-on to, you know, making us look good, you know, making the clothes fit well.
08:57Historically, made-to-wear clothing was not as available for Black people, so the tailor became a very, very important person in a community. People would go to tailors to have their clothes made or to have clothing modified.
09:09The tailor in Black communities was somebody who would know about people's lives because of the ways in which they would visit the tailor for these special occasions.
09:19I really like tailoring because there's a real intention that goes into crafting a silhouette in relation to the body, so I feel like it's a very close relationship that you can have with someone as a designer. There's a kind of responsibility within that as well.
09:31When I think of dandyism in particular, it's taking on that suit and giving us our own aesthetic, and from that, so much has blossomed.
09:38One of the important stories is about a fight for an increasing ability to self-represent. The Harlem Renaissance, for example, is one of these moments when Black people really had the ability to change their image in the eyes of others. The tailor did that on a small scale.
09:58You see a lot of creativity in the history of Black style because it's our armor. You know, it's a tool in our toolbox to get through life, to make it easier to get into certain rooms.
10:11In 2023, when we had our first show with Vuitton, Anna saw the show and afterwards immediately said, I want you to chair for the Met Gala in 2025, but we have to keep it secret.
10:32How does it feel to be one of the covers?
10:35I think it's an honor. Henry's a fantastic artist, crazy life story, and he's just writing new chapters as we speak. He's one of the most coveted artists in the space and is just alive, well, kicking it and crushing it.
10:52Van Gogh never got to see the world revere him. Henry's alive to experience people appreciating his work.
11:00I often used to ask myself why I am where I am, why the universe has placed me where it's placed me.
11:07But then I realized, like, the reason why the universes allow me through these doors is because I'm supposed to hold them open for others.
11:14We climb the ladder together. That is Black history.
11:19Lovely. Yes. Love it.
11:33All four co-chairs are going to have their covers, which is kind of awesome.
11:37It's a historic moment and it's an epic moment in my life and the life of Vogue.
11:42We're literally going deep into history, something that has always seemed to be challenged right now.
11:51I think IK's brilliant. He's such a brilliant thinker. He's distilling culture across the diasporas in such an extraordinary way.
11:58I learned about IK probably 25 years ago and was just astounded.
12:05Right there in front of me, somebody was living and working as a dandy.
12:12The portrait session went well.
12:17When I began, I was trying to direct him.
12:21At some point, he paused. He said, you know, I'm not a fashion model.
12:26I am an actor. Let me feel the story and I'll give you whatever you want.
12:31It's me and the camera and IK and we're having this moment together.
12:37All the people around me that have come before me are with me in the room.
12:41I like to make sure that it's never just about me, but it is about where I come from.
12:46It's about my ancestors. It's about my family. So I want to bring them into the room.
12:50We're here in London. We've shot the cover of Vogue today, which is very surreal for me.
13:09It really hits home when I think about my heritage. I think about my father, my grandfather, my ancestors who came before.
13:17Black Mirror experience from back then is very similar to today in how they would present themselves through fashion.
13:26How they would turn up.
13:28We really sort of imagined this idea of a group of friends going to a studio to get their portraits taken and they're very proud.
13:35I use canes in this shoot and I think there's a sense of pride when the men in the streets in like Congo, in Sierra Leone, in Gambia, in Nigeria,
13:44they will come out in great tailoring and have their photos taken.
13:46And I think there's a sense of pride when you hold something and going somewhere.
13:50There's a sense of bringing everything you have to the picture.
13:53I have done a lot of photoshoots through my career. A lot of them, I would be the only person of color on the shoot.
13:59More often than not, change was really, really hard to push for. And it's been something I've been really pushing for a long time.
14:05And so to slowly start to see that change and seeing people come together from different backgrounds, it's uplifting for me and feels like we're moving in the right direction when we all come together.
14:13I think what we're all trying to get to, telling history, telling the truth about who we are in the world, especially as black people, you know, whether we want to tell black history or not.
14:26I think we have a great access point when it comes to style, because you can't deny it.
14:35I think it's important to pay attention and homage to black style because it's been a kind of force.
14:44It has made us ask questions about who is fashion for. Dapper Dan changed the way that we think about fashion and particularly in relationship of black people to luxury brands and luxury in general.
14:56I didn't grow up thinking I was going to be a dandy or wanted to be a dandy.
15:00It was all a matter of me surviving psychologically what was happening to me at the time, right?
15:09His own personal story is just about ingenuity. Everything that he was able to do in the 70s and 80s, it changed fashion.
15:17Ninety percent of the men in my neighborhood was hustlers. I'm first generation in the migration that came from the south.
15:24So they came with top-notch skills, but street skills. I felt like it was a Robin Hood thing, you know, because I was Robin and bringing it to the hood.
15:33When I started studying all about fashion, there's no way to separate fashion from music. So I said, okay, I'm going to do something that's going to transform the community.
15:43So here comes hip-hop. They had no fashion identity, but they felt this connection to guys like me who came up hard.
15:52People think that my mission is to dress young bodies, but that's not my mission. My mission is to dress young minds. Fashion is just a platform for me to reach young people in a different way.
16:03That's why I stayed in Harlem. I would never leave in Harlem. I wanted to make sure I was still there and telling these stories.
16:10See where we at? We in Harlem.
16:14We are at Langston Hughes's prior residence. Langston Hughes is the first rapper ever. From a rapper. Take it from me.
16:36All right, 128th and fifth. What up, what up? Harlem world.
16:43I'm on one of the cover. I'm on the cover, actually. Yeah, the best one.
16:48Is this thing on? Guess what I just did? I just made a dream come true. I shot all my trunks on a corner, a random corner in Harlem right now.
16:57Tyler, you killing this, bro. Check me out. I came up with the idea to feature my grandma.
17:03Came up with the idea to shoot in Langston Hughes's house. Came up with the idea to do Dalmatians because it's 101 years of the Harlem Renaissance.
17:11So, you know, it was a real collective effort. And Tyler and Law was very receptive to my ideas.
17:18And we built on top of it and made a masterpiece today.
17:25I'm not trying to be cocky. I don't got nothing to talk about. We're going to let the art speak for itself.
17:30I feel more than lucky. I feel blessed. I could shed a tear.
17:35I'm feeling all of the manifestations from the Harlem Renaissance.
17:41It's a pleasure to be here, my dear.
17:48In terms of where fashion goes from here, I'm hoping that it becomes more and more inclusive.
17:53How would the final result look like? They will be sublimely beautiful with such chromatic intensity and a touch sexy.
18:04To be a part of this is just, I'm very proud of it, honestly.
18:08This moment, especially what's going on in the world and in our country, this moment seems so important.
18:15This is bigger than us as individuals. This is bigger than us as actors or actresses or models.
18:22It's the combination of all of us coming together to create something beautiful for present and for future.
18:32I'm not going to cry, but I want to cry so bad. I think I probably will cry when it's out and everybody gets to see it.
18:40I think this issue is so important on so many levels because we are taking the opportunity and moment to highlight blackness, to embrace it, not in a way that feels like a trope or in a performance.
18:52I hope that people receive it with love and an opportunity to uplift a community that is a beautiful thing because I'm still thin and I'm still here.
18:59I'm still black and I still feel very beautiful.
19:02I do think that the main message that we're trying to get across is really fashion as empowerment. Fashion as a way to say something about yourself, right?
19:15Or your community that might be new or that might be outside of stereotype, of boundaries.
19:22You are your lineage. You are your history. That's also why I think this is so beautiful to me.
19:27Even for people who might not be black, like this opportunity to get to learn this history, connect to you.
19:31Connect to each other, to each other's humanity, to each other's art. That's like such a gift.
19:37Our art is precious. Our love for everything we've contributed to culture stands the test of time.
19:44The picture goes such a long way. It's going to inspire kids globally.
19:48And I think that's the whole point we're here, you know, to inspire people.
19:52It's a real moment to highlight our own underrepresented voices.
19:56And it's something I'm so honored and so proud to be a part of.
19:59The idea of like honoring the black dandy matters. To look at the history and impact that we've had on culture, on design, art, music.
20:09And I'm standing with these incredible brothers who I admire so dearly. It's just a beautiful, beautiful moment. And I'm very proud to be a part of it.
20:16I think a dandy is as a dandy does.
20:19Anytime human beings are doing their thing unapologetically, it's inspiring and life-changing for somebody out there.
20:26Yes, indeed.
20:28Yes, indeed.