THE MET — SUPERFINE BLACK TAILORING
There are exhibitions that document fashion — and others that reframe it.
I visited Superfine: Tailoring Black Style at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, an exhibition examining the history and cultural significance of Black tailoring through identity, authorship, and resistance.
I walked through it alongside the owner of my fashion school — who also taught me — and what unfolded felt less like a visit, and more like a lesson.
THE POLITICS OF THE SUIT
The suit, here, is not neutral.
It becomes a language — shaped by history, power, and visibility.
A way of negotiating space. A way of being seen on one’s own terms.
Through different periods, tailoring has moved between assimilation and resistance. Precision and elegance sit alongside deeper narratives of control and identity.
What stood out most was how consistently the suit has been reclaimed — not just worn, but redefined.
CONSTRUCTION AS STATEMENT
Walking through the exhibition, the conversation kept returning to construction.
I was shown how elements in the jacket were intentionally echoed in the trousers — how proportion, line, and structure are carried through an entire look. Nothing exists in isolation.
That way of thinking felt familiar.
During my time studying textiles at school in England , I spent three years learning the basics of sewing and construction with pre made patterns — culminating in designing and making a two-piece suit as part of my final exam.
Seeing these garments up close brought that process back into focus.
The discipline behind it. The precision. The decisions that sit beneath what we see.
Construction is not just technical — it is expressive.
WHAT IT MEANS TO DRESS WITH INTENTION
The exhibition shifted how I think about intention.
Not just what is worn — but how it is built, and why those decisions matter.
Tailoring doesn’t leave room for guesswork.
Every seam, every proportion, every line is deliberate.
That level of clarity is something I recognise in my own work — a slower, more considered approach to making.
Less about adding, more about refining.
FINAL THOUGHT
What stayed with me was not a single garment, but the weight of what tailoring can hold.
History. Identity. Discipline. Expression.
The suit, at its best, is not just constructed — it is composed.
And in that composition, there is both control and freedom.
For another perspective on construction as language, read my visit to the Giorgio Armani Privé retrospective in Milan — twenty years of haute couture distilled into a single exhibition.