“Dandyism has a lot of European influence,” says fashion and music historian Mikeisha Vaughn. “It lies in self-expression, but also, resistance to what was the norm as it pertains to dress for men. In a Black American context, we’ve seen with the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights Movement, and Jim Crow, it was a vehicle for political stance because of the confinement of Black people, from laws to segregation.”
Being well-dressed as a Black person has never been just an average occasion for us. Black dandyism is political, always has been. It’s not just about sharp tailoring, it’s about crafting a version of yourself that demands respect. You can trace dandyism roots from Reconstruction to our everyday experiences. That ritual of “dressing to the nines” is where Black dandyism begins. By the 1920s and ’30s, that Sunday best had evolved into zoot suits, jazz tuxedos, and swinging silhouettes. Artists like Cab Calloway, The Nicholas Brothers, Duke Ellington, and Gladys Bentley weren’t just trendsetters during the time of the Harlem Renaissance; their style of dressing was a middle finger to white norms of “respectable” Blackness. Vaughn adds, “Bespoke tailoring, great cuts, a fedora or hat, very clean cut style… We’ve seen that evolve beyond traditional suits. It’s more playful now, but the core is still tailoring and proportion.”
During the 1940s, zoot suits were seen as dangerous. They drew so much attention that they sparked the Zoot Suit Riots; white mobs attacked Black and Mexican men for essentially being too visible and not seen as patriotic at the time — the country was sending soldiers off to WW2; the manufacturing of wool was reserved for soldiers. A black market developed for zoot suit production. From Miles Davis’s redefinition of cool to Thelonious Monk’s sharp hats and head wraps to match his suits, jazz was always dressed in precision. As the decades evolved, funk made Blackness flamboyant, hip-hop rewrote the book of Black urban style, and current artists who blur the genre lines have learned to blur gender lines and tailoring codes too.
“Going back to the blues, funk, and hip-hop, we’ve seen Black people lead the charge on defining fashion for the world, outside of just the diaspora,” Vaughn says. “Even though it’s often exploited, commodified, and sold back to us, we’ve always defined the look of our eras.” For Black people, style and music have been our way of archiving, contextualizing, remembering, and passing on traditions.
And now, with the 2025 Met Gala today and a heightened interest in archival Black style, it’s important to juxtapose the relationship between the Black community and using fashion as a means of expression when on the world stage. Black dandyism is a tradition, and music has always been the thread that holds the looks together generationally.
By the 1960s and ’70s, Black dandyism wasn’t just about looking clean, it was about being larger than life. The sound got louder (and prouder), the fits got flashier, and the stage became a cultural runway. Following in the steps of Little Richard’s campy androgynous Rock n Roll glam and Louis Jordan’s pinstripe suits and pocket squares, James Brown set the tone for this era. The capes, the tight pants, the processed hair, it all moved with the music. When he screamed “Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud” in 1968, the message was in the silhouette. You couldn’t ignore him; even if you wanted, he looked too good, too wild to be ignored. This style of dandyism differed from Curtis Mayfield, another Soul brother whose Superfly soundtrack gave us the music to match the prototype of the ghetto dandy in Priest Youngblood. Donning wide-lapel suits in rich colors, patterned shirts with exaggerated collars, and signature accessories like oversized tinted glasses and berets spoke to a kind of everyday hustler. dandyism wasn’t just clean anymore, it had edge, realism, and sex appeal.
Soon after came the funk wave, and artists like Earth, Wind & Fire and Parliament-Funkadelic took dandyism to space and beyond. Sequins, knee-high boots, fur vests, feathers. It was about claiming space with spectacle. This was Afrofuturism dandyism. Earth, Wind & Fire’s costumes with Egyptian and cosmic symbolism, and colorful fabrics, or Parliament-Funkadelic’s psychedelic space uniforms. This visual style matched their fusion of R&B, soul, funk, jazz, and multi-cultural influences on albums like That’s the Way of the World and All ‘n All for Earth, Wind & Fire. For Parliament-Funkadelic, their visual expression aligned with their albums Mothership Connection and One Nation Under a Groove, which blended sci-fi with funk. Their style or dressing represented their music and artistry as ideologies. Vaughn describes this shift as dandyism becoming more playful, more radical. “We started to see bold patterns, daring silhouettes,” she says. “But the root of it being well-suited, proportioned, intentional never left.”
This time was also an exploration of LGBTQ culture and gender bending in dandyism styles, as musically, funk evolved into disco, house, and the musical lines we saw were erasing. With his flamboyant presence and falsetto, Sylvester’s moment with “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” demanded to be seen, like his forefather Little Richard. He wore sequins, chiffon blouses, feathered accessories, and platform boots. While her gender and genre-blurring legacy is well documented, Jamaican avant-garde artist Grace Jones’ 1981 album Nightclubbing matched the energy of her sculptural style that consisted of blunt lines, high fashion minimalism, and androgyny on full display. “Pull Up to the Bumper” has the aggression and gall of a man, which, with Grace, was exactly the line she enjoyed walking. Dandyism didn’t have to be just political, it could simply be a tool of disruption.
Dandyism by the 1980s had become theatrical with a new form of music called hip-hop, creating its own version of dandyism. It wasn’t about imitating European elegance but remixing it. From gold chains to custom logos, the bragadoecious era of rap allowed dandyism to evolve from fedoras and zoot suits to wearing custom pieces and numerous amounts of gold jewelry.
The obvious is Slick Rick. Between his British accent, Kangol hats, oversized chains, furs, and iconic eye patch, The Great Adventures of Slick Rick looked and sounded like hip-hop packaged in a marketability, fly way that hadn’t yet been fully explored. The exaggerated opulence, storytelling, and tailored swagger made him a walking dandy. The same can be said for Big Daddy Kane. Smooth-talking, Brooklyn clean, with a high-top fade, silk shirts, and tailored suits, Kane’s style was more refined and mature. “Ain’t No Half-Steppin’” wasn’t as theatrical as Slick Rick, but it maintained the energy of tailored swagger that Black dandyism had evolved into.
Behind some of these iconic looks was Dapper Dan. Dapper Dan’s 24/7 Harlem boutique on 125th and Lexington in the 1980s dressed everyone from LL Cool J and Big Daddy Kane to street legends like Alpo Martinez. Using unauthorized European luxury logos to create custom pieces such as bombers, tracksuits, and leather suits, Dan redefined Black streetwear. “There’s a link between style and survival,” says Vaughn. “Think back to when Dapper Dan and Patrick Kelly were making something from nothing — repurposing Louis Vuitton or Gucci materials, doing patchwork. Historically, Black people have done that a lot. It’s really about being resourceful because you had to.” His work helped hip-hop evolve its own consumer language, where being well-styled and custom pieces became status symbols in the culture. In later years, men like Fonzworth Bentley flipped that same resourcefulness into Southern mainstream style in rap, as seen with rappers such as Kanye West and Sean “Diddy” Combs.
Comb’s shiny suit era was brief, but it mattered. Rap was no longer gritty, it was glossy and luxurious as seen through “All About the Benjamins,” “Mo Money Mo Problems,” “Bad Boy 4 Life,” and the evolution of the Puff Daddy/P Diddy/Diddy eras. Then came Kanye, who saw fashion as just another form of branding. His “Touch the Sky” video paid homage to Curtis Mayfield and Blaxploitation cool. By Watch the Throne, he was in Givenchy skirts and Riccardo Tisci’s couture. Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was the moment where dandyism met maximalism. The visuals, from the suits to the ballet dancers, borrowed from the music, which felt grand, expensive, and lyrically spoke of consumerism, sex, the pursuit of the American Dream, greed, and the burden of Black genius.
But Andre 3000 broke the mold. Vaughn says it best: “When OutKast first came out, Andre’s style fit the typical rap image. But over time, he evolved in a way that went completely against the grain. It didn’t have to be oversized jeans and jerseys anymore. His style was eccentric, fluid. He’s one of the most perfect examples of a Black dandy.” In the early 2000s, Andre 3000 evolved from Southern rap cool into a full-fledged Black dandy, trading jerseys and denim for vintage suits, feathered hats, suspenders, and ruffled shirts that matched the surreal, genre-blurring sounds of Stankonia and The Love Below. His style challenged hip-hop’s masculinity norms while expanding its imagination for future dandy’s like Tyler, Doechii, and A$AP Rocky to follow.
The modern dandy performs taste. Part of being a dandy is the performance that comes with wearing something fly. You’re aware of the statement you’re making. Janelle Monáe didn’t just wear a tux; she moved in it — a homage to her mother, who worked in cleaning services for years. “Throughout her career,” says Vaughn, “It’s always been very precise, very clean, very well fit. The tailoring has been great, and she puts a lot of emphasis on her style. It was a great way to separate herself from her peers, especially with Black women as dandies.”
Her music amplified the message of the look: futuristic, but sharp. And even as she became musically looser on projects such as Dirty Computers, her relationship to dandyism evolved into one of queer expression, outside of just Black femme expression. Janet Jackson was doing that decades earlier. Her defined silhouette on the cover of Control. Her Rhythm Nation military jackets. The “Alright” video, which is Black music and dandyism in a perfectly married moment that features Cab Calloway. The whole Velvet Rope tour and era — the influence of “I Get Lonely.” Tailored, genderless, choreographed dandyism with style, restraint, and sex appeal. Teyana Taylor’s embracing of Black dandyism follows her well-documented fashion evolution from Harlem BAPE wearing tomboy to couture sexiness and softness that complements her rise as an A-List talent in music and film. Black women have continued the dandyism practices of being structured and intentional.
And there’s a whole new wave: Doechii channeling eccentric Southern academia, which has become her aesthetic. Solange, gaining influence from Daniele Tamagni’s book Gentlemen Of Bacongo, became a Tumblr staple with her “Losing You” video, which featured the Swenkas’ Zulu dandyism style known in Johannesburg. Pharrell’s transition from BAPE and BBC to Chanel pearls, couture shorts, and a Louis Vuitton creative director title. It’s all part of the modern Black dandy arc: less about suiting up for a purpose, more about styling as individual language.
Tyler, the Creator went from Odd Future tees to Igor-era wigs, pastel cardigans, and a globe-trotting Wes Anderson-meets-prep school Gen Z icon. Jidenna’s “Classic Man” era was a love letter to old-school codes: color, fit, fabric. Vaughn notes, “People clowned Jidenna… but he had well-tailored suits, and he wasn’t afraid to play around with colors or fabrics.” Even the icons are part of the lineage. Usher’s Confessions era was peak R&B dandy, with tailored vests and suits, fedoras, and masculine vulnerability (as seen in music videos such as “Caught Up”). A$AP Rocky, who has become one of the modern kings of the newer styles of dandyism, has evolved from the streetwear Raf Simmons, Rick Owens prince to a figure who has mastered serving Chanel, Loewe, Bottega Veneta, grillz, and babushkas scarves without ever losing the essence of Harlem that raised him.
Today’s dandy might not wear a three-piece suit or use fashion as a political stance, but they know the codes: proportion, presence, poise, and performance. Vaughn sums it up best: “Modern dandyism feels more rooted in self-expression. They go against gender norms, but still feel safe, not political.” It’s still there, just layered under streetwear, vintage Raf, or thrifted weirdness.
And maybe that’s the point. Because from zoot suits to sequins, from Superfly to Tyler, The Creator, the Black dandy has always known how to be seen and heard intentionally, and on their own terms. Andre Leon Talley knew that better than anyone. He understood that being a Black dandy wasn’t just about dressing well. It was about knowing you belong in every room.
