Yearly Archives: 2025

…………….The other night I was flipping through the channels, and “TOP HAT” with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers was about to start……I hadn’t seen it in years!….so I thought….OK….I’m going to watch this incredible team and look at all the wonderful clothes, sets and listen to legendary music…..As I was watching I thought how much a young Ginger Rodgers reminded me of a young Jac……It’s not that they were spitting images of each other…but there were many similarities…..it was a look in the eyes, certain gestures, and an elegance that they both shared….You may or may not see what I see…..but after all it is in the eye of the beholder.

……………..Chapter #3…………”THE PRINTS”……………For me the most impressive, and informative part of the exhibit were the old prints shown…..You rarely get to see both black men and women depicted in such beautiful clothing of that era……I think the recent series…”THE GUILDED AGE”….is doing an outstanding job at truly showing how the most affluent black people dressed and LIVED!

……………”THE WRITTEN WORD”…….The explanations of what the exhibit was about gave a great understanding of what you were about to see……The illustration at the top truly gives the viewer a context for what the word “JOOK” meant…..This was a term unfamiliar to me, and the written definition enabled me to fully understand what I was seeing…….JOSEPHINE BAKER, bottom photo, the incredible entertainer, left America and lived in Paris in the 20s where she was judged on her talent alone! and not by the color of her skin. She was a sensation, and lived a remarkable life! She sometimes wore a men’s tuxedo which was the epitome of ANDROGYNOUS style! which many actresses wore…both black and white….a la Marlena Dietrich.

………..Moving on to the next exhibit……..Chapter 1……….”Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” was the exhibit right next door to the Sargent exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum……….Before I get into the exhibit itself my over all opinion of this exhibit was mixed at best…..Firstly, it was just two rooms, and I felt it didn’t go deep enough into the clothing of the periods shown…..I think the actual clothing was the least impressive part of the exhibit…..I learned a great deal about what the term….”DANDY” meant, and how it relayed to black men before and after the Civil War until today, and how the term has been revised……What I loved were the old prints of actual men of the times…..You very rarely, if ever see black men of those times, portrayed in such a beautiful and elegant way…I wished there were more actual clothes of this period….I would have even settled for good reproductions, but few period clothes were shown……that was disappointing…….I was not overly impressed by the clothes shown by contemporary male black designers either, and I thought there were omissions of some noteworthy black designers from the past and present, who did and are doing wonderful work…..A missed opportunity……What I did love was the written word….and the explanation of the word “DANDY” and  “JOOK”…..Also, ALL of the prints on exhibit, some shown here, truly illustrated what the exhibit was about……It doesn’t take long to visit the exhibition, and I still think it was worth while seeing….even if I felt it was some what lackluster, and could have been so much more…..It was an interesting look back at the style of black men, especially now when inclusion is being stricken from the vocabulary….by some…. who are doing all in their power to dismiss the past.