Hello, beautiful travelers and curious style lovers,
Welcome back to Travel + Explore & Play with Sallee Jay—where I usually take you through my most wanderlust-worthy destinations. But today, I’m channeling my inner fashion blogger, because my recent trip to New York City was anything but ordinary.
I timed my visit perfectly—during MET Gala week. Because let’s be honest: if you’re going to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, why not go when the energy is electric, the fashion is fierce, and the red carpet has just been rolled up?
For those who might not know, the MET Gala isn’t just a parade of couture—it’s one of fashion’s most prestigious events and a major annual fundraiser for the Costume Institute. Held every first Monday in May, it marks the opening of the Institute’s yearly exhibition. Each year’s theme challenges the world's most stylish icons to make bold cultural, historical, and political statements through high fashion.
This year’s exhibit?
✨ Superfine: Tailoring Black Style
And whew—what👏🏾 a 👏🏾moment.
Black Dandyism: Fashion as Testimony
As a Black woman who lives and breathes both fashion and culture, I was deeply moved by the exhibit’s powerful interpretation of Black Dandyism—a movement rooted in elegance, resistance, identity, and joy. It reimagines the European dandy archetype through a distinctly Black lens, turning tailoring into testimony.
The exhibit was a masterclass in storytelling.
From sumptuous textures and razor-sharp tailoring to black-and-white silent films showing our ancestors radiating pride and sophistication, every inch of the room was layered with meaning. The Black mannequins—graceful, sculptural, styled to perfection—stood like monuments to our legacy.
I had chills. I cried. I lingered. I learned.
Monica Miller, the exhibit’s guest curator, did her big one. Honoring Virgil Abloh, Dapper Dan and André Leon Talley throughout, this iss’t just a fashion exhibition - It is soulwork.
Fashion Meets Culture—And Calls for More
And listen—if Pharrell, Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton, or Teyana Taylor are reading this (a girl can dream, right?)—your 2025 MET Gala looks belong in this exhibit. That kind of energy? That kind of presence? It’s the perfect bridge between red carpet royalty and cultural reverence.
But let’s be clear—this isn’t just about clothing.
Black Dandyism at the MET is part of a larger cultural movement reclaiming space in historically exclusive, Eurocentric fashion institutions.
When the MET Gala and its global media coverage shine a spotlight on Black style, it becomes more than aesthetics. It becomes a platform that challenges:
• Who gets to be fashionable
• What masculinity looks like
• What elegance means in a Black body
Black Dandyism doesn’t just belong at MET Monday—it’s integral to the ongoing diversification and politicization of fashion’s most elite stage.
Plan Your Visit
If you’re in NYC, do not skip this exhibit.
Your heart—and your style soul—will thank you.
🖤 Superfine: Tailoring Black Style is on view through October 26th
🖤 Included with standard museum admission
🖤 Location: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Costume Institute
Travel artfully and remain fashionably fly✨