………..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.
