Star-Studded and Superfine: The Making of the May Issue

[camera shutters]

[upbeat music]

[Colman] This is you.

It s a historic moment in the life of Vogue.

Oh yeah.

[Tyler] What we re doing, it s never been done before.

We re making magic here.

This is a big magazine.

Everyone s gonna pay attention to.

[A$AP Rocky] I feel more than lucky.

I feel blessed. I can shed a tear.

[Keith] It just feels revolutionary honestly.

[classical music]

My name is Monica Miller,

and I m the guest curator

of Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,

and a professor of Africana Studies

at Barnard College, Columbia University.

Black style is really related

to thinking about how fashion and power connect.

The way that people are styled,

are fashioned or fashioned themselves,

in response to the degree of agency that they feel.

Silhouettes change, use of pattern, color,

all of those things change in relationship to time,

and relationship to history.

So fashion, power, aesthetics, politics,

those are all wrapped up in one way

that we can see the world.

I chose to focus on dandyism.

What is Black Dandyism?

Gosh.

It s a little hard to describe.

Dandy, I m feeling quite dandy.

I think dandyism is about individuality.

Excellence.

Freedom.

Wit.

Elegance.

It is tailoring.

It s a frequency.

Dandyism to me is really about expression,

black expression.

Dandyism means confidence to me.

Somebody that celebrates living

in a one of a kind body,

and tailors everything to that body.

I think that the dandy is essentially an honor case.

Dandyism, can t say.

I didn t even hear the word until the Met Gala.

I just thought it was black excellence.

I was like,

Oh, the theme of this year is A$AP Rocky.

Okay, I get it.

The kind of dictionary definition of dandyism

is somebody who studies above all else,

to dress elegantly and fashionably.

When the dandy is black,

we get to see the dandy as a figure

that really encapsulates a kind of matrix of identity,

race, gender, class, sexuality and sometimes nation.

I m really interested in thinking about clothing,

dress, and fashion as a tool, as a critique,

and also as a creative mode of thinking about liberation.

I m from the poorest neighborhood in Harlem.

Goodwill s was our Macy s.

But when I got dressed,

even in clothes that wasn t mine,

nobody knew how poor my family was.

And that for me was the birth of dandyism,

because I saw the power of transformation

that could take place with your clothes.

Instantly, you can become somebody else.

[camera shutters]

[bright music]

There s nothing more dandy than an African man

like dressed to the nines.

Really the first person I thought of was my dad,

who was not, well, you know,

to me he is a historical icon.

When I think about dandyism,

I think about my family.

Who comes to mind are actually my mother and father.

I think of black folks going to church.

I think a lot about the jazz musicians.

Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Nat King Cole.

[Actor 1] Andre 3000 for sure embodied it.

[Actor 2] Jack Johnson.

The honorary chairman himself, Lebron James.

Tyler the Creator is a vision of a modern dandy.

[Actor 3] Andre Leon Talley.

[Actor 4] Prince was a dandy.

Dapper Dan.

That s right.

There s a very famous pimp named Magic Don Juan.

We grew up seeing him everywhere,

seeing him pull up in his green Cadillac,

and I think that for me,

is the ultimate expression of dandyism.

Even though it s negative,

it had such a huge impact on the way

we presented ourselves growing up in that city.

I look at pretty much every young kid in Africa

that mixes colors, and tailoring, and track suits.

It takes a lot of confidence to wanna stick out,

to want to go against the grain,

and against trends, and the status quo.

You kinda tell your story through your clothes.

And it was important for me

to bring that into to this project.

[wheels whooshing]

[intriguing music]

Today was the first day of shooting

for this amazing story that is connected

to the theme of the Met Gala.

If we re being completely honest,

you just don t know what you re gonna get on the day.

And I do remember feeling like,

Wow, this is very special.

The energy on set today was just so amazing and so joyful.

I feel like everybody was excited to be here.

I was with John Batiste and Jeremy Pope.

But it was magic.

I mean, John was like singing.

Both of them were like singing.

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah. ♪

So we all got a free little serenade,

which was pretty magical.

Law is very specific.

When he needs you to express anything with your body,

or your like posing in anything,

he ll get on set and just do it.

He ll let you know.

Tyler really knows what he wants,

so once he gets the frame right,

and everybody where they need to be, he s just shooting.

And it is just like you gotta be ready.

Nice. Yeah, that s great.

That was great, Jewels.

The actual photography aspect of it

was just to channel this amazing portfolio

of very talented people in today s landscape.

And the way we could unify all that

was to make a very simplistic set actually

only containing a few elements,

certain colors in a color palette

that was primarily pastel.

And then elements or hints of wood.

That s great, Hunter.

Other black photographers, James Van Der Zee,

Gordon Parks, Roy DeCarava.

Those were sort of the references.

[upbeat music]

When the Met announced the theme,

like I already had so many references, right?

I think I am kind of a purveyor

of my culture and my history.

I ve already built out this incredible

database of images and memories

all the way from slavery to modern day.

I have been studying,

and waiting for this moment,

you know, almost all my life.

[upbeat jazz music]

The moment that you saw, and that we had,

as like Tiana and myself,

it felt very intimate and like sister like.

[gentle music]

Yeah, and even the vibe [indistinct] set, it s so cool.

It s so, so exciting and beautiful.

It s a beautiful thing

getting to celebrate each other and learn about each other.

You don t wanna leave.

You don t wanna leave

because it just feels full of love.

And that type of feeling

you don t wanna let go of, you know.

As much as today is so beautiful,

it s unfortunately still an anomaly

to walk into a space and to see so many of us.

I think many of us here are used to being

one of the only brown faces on a set,

and being the representation and being the diversity.

I mean, even this is only a sliver of just how beautiful,

and the depth and breadth of what it is to be black

and celebrate our blackness.

Fine line tailoring, and like dandyism in general,

what it represents us,

us reclaiming our individuality and our pride,

creating a safe space for black people

to really just express themselves

in a way that went above and beyond societal limits.

[bright upbeat music]

One of the ways that we can think about

dandyism is through tailoring.

We can see it as a kind of mode of control.

What I think African Americans might call,

you know, Coming correct.

Good tailoring defines a person.

Right now I m wearing Fear of God

and a Jerry Lorenzo.

It s pretty cool, and it makes me feel powerful.

Right now I m wearing

a three-piece double breasted suit

designed by yours truly.

You gotta get a good look.

Can I stand up for a minute?

You getting it? Look at these shoes, man.

Just zoom in on those.

Fuck the outfit.

There s something about a tailored suit.

This badass boss lady feeling that I get when I wear suits.

This suit makes me feel confident, important,

singular, because it hasn t indeed been tailored

within an inch of my life to my exact body.

No one else can wear the suit now.

[laughing]

I don t have like the kind of body

that you can just buy something off the shelf.

When you get a tailored suit,

or a tailored shirt, it fits better.

You look better.

My body does not fit the status quo proportions

of an average person.

Just so many different people are hands on to,

you know, making us look good.

You know, making the clothes fit well.

Historically made-to-wear clothing

was not as available for black people.

So the tailor became an very,

very important person in a community.

People would go to tailors to have their clothes made,

or to have clothing modified.

The tailor in black communities was somebody

who would know about people s lives

because of the ways in which they would

visit the tailor for these special occasions.

I really like tailoring

because there s a real intention that goes into crafting

a silhouette in in relation to the body.

So I feel like it s a very close relationship

that you can have with someone as a designer.

There s a kind of responsibility within that as well.

When I think of dandyism in particular,

it s taking on that suit,

and giving us our own aesthetic.

And from that, so much has blossomed.

[gentle music]

One of the important stories,

is about a fight for an increasing

ability to self represent.

The Harlem Renaissance, for example,

is one of these moments

when black people really had the ability

to change their image in the eyes of others.

The tailor did that on a small scale.

You see a lot of creativity in the history of black style

because it s our armor, you know,

it s a tool in our toolbox to get through life,

to make it easier to get into certain rooms.

[gentle music]

In 2023, when we had our first show with Vuitton,

Anna saw the show,

and afterwards immediately said,

I want you to chair for the Met Gala in 2025,

but we have to keep it secret.

[Interviewer] How does it feel to be one of the covers?

I think it s an honor.

Henry s a fantastic artist, crazy life story.

And he s just writing new chapters as we speak.

He s one of the most coveted artists in the space,

and is just alive, well, kicking it and crushing it.

Van Gogh never got to see the world revere him.

Henry s alive to experience people appreciating his work.

I often used to ask myself, Why I am?,

Where I am?

Why the universe has placed me where it s placed me?

But then I realized like the reason why

the universe is allow me through these doors,

is because I m supposed to hold them open for others.

We climbed the ladder together.

That is black history.

[air whooshing]

[gentle piano music]

[camera shutters]

Lovely.

Yes.

[camera shutters]

Lovely.

All four co-chairs are gonna have the covers,

which is kind of awesome.

It s a historic moment,

and it s an epic moment in my life,

and the life of Vogue.

[gentle piano music]

We re literally going deep into history.

Something that has always seemed to be challenged right now.

I think Ike s brilliant.

He s such a brilliant thinker.

He s distilling culture

across the diaspora in such an extraordinary way.

I learned about Ike probably 25 years ago,

and was just astounded.

Right there in front of me,

somebody was living and working as a dandy.

[camera shutters]

The portrait session went well.

When I began, I was trying to direct him.

At some point, he paused.

He said, You know, I m not a fashion model.

I am an actor.

Let me film this story,

and I gave you whatever you want.

It s me, and the camera, and Ike,

and we re having this moment together.

All the people around me

that have come before me are with me in the room.

I like to make sure that it s never just about me,

but it is about where I come from,

it s about my ancestors, it s about my family.

So I want to bring them into the room.

[gentle music]

We re here in London.

We ve shot the cover of Vogue today,

which is very surreal for me.

It really hits home when I think about my heritage,

or I think about my father, or my grandfather,

my ancestors who came before.

[gentle upbeat music]

Black Mirror experience from back then

is very similar to today,

in how they would present themselves through fashion,

how they would turn up.

We really sort of imagined

this idea of a group of friends going to a studio

to get their portraits taken and they re very proud.

I use canes in this shoot,

and I think there s a sense of pride

when the men in the street in like Congo,

in Sierra Leone, in Gambia, in Nigeria.

They will come out in great tailoring

and have their photos taken.

And I think there s a sense of pride

when you hold something and go in somewhere.

There s a sense of bringing

everything you have to the picture.

I have done a lot of photo shoots through my career.

A lot of them.

I would be the only person of color on the shoot.

More often than not,

change was really, really hard to push for.

And it s been something

I ve been really pushing for a long time.

And so slowly start to see that change,

and seeing people come together

from different backgrounds.

It s uplifting for me,

and feels like we re moving in the right direction

when we all come together.

[upbeat music]

I think what we re all trying to get to, telling history,

telling the truth about who we are in the world,

especially as black people.

You know, whether we wanna tell black history or not.

I think we have a great access point

when it comes to style, cause you can t deny it.

[smooth jazz music]

I think it s important to pay attention,

and homage to black style.

Because it s been a kinda force.

It has made us ask questions about who is fashion for.

Dapper Dan changed the way that we think about fashion,

and particularly in relationship

of black people s luxury brands, and luxury in general.

I didn t grow up thinking I was gonna be a dandy,

or wanted to be a dandy.

It was all a matter of me surviving psychologically

what was happening to me at the time, right?

His own personal story is just about ingenuity.

Everything that he was able to do

in the 70 s and 80 s, it changed fashion.

90% of the men in my neighborhood was hustlers.

I m first generation in the migration

that came from the south.

So they came with top-notch skills, but street skills.

I felt like it was a Robin Hood thing, you know,

because I was robbing and bringing it to the hood.

When I started studying all about fashion,

there s no way to separate fashion from music.

So I said, Okay, I m gonna do something

that s gonna transform the community.

So here comes hip hop.

They had no fashion identity,

but they felt this connection to guys like me

who came up hard.

People think that my mission is to dress young bodies,

but that s not my mission.

My mission is to dress young minds.

Fashion is just a platform for me

to reach young people in a different way.

That s why I stay in Harlem.

I would never leave in Harlem.

I want to make sure I was still there,

and telling these stories.

See where we at?

We re in Harlem.

[gentle music]

We are at Langston Hughes s prior residence.

Langston Hughes is the first rapper ever.

From a rapper, take it from me.

All right, 128th and Fifth.

[Male] A$AP, what up baby?

What up, what up?

[male speaking indistinctly]

All in world.

On one of the cover,

I m on the cover actually, yeah. [chuckles]

The best one.

Is this thing on? Guess what I just did?

I just made a dream come true.

I shot all my trunks on the corner

of random corner in Harlem right now.

Tyler, you killing this bro?

Check me out.

I came up with the idea to feature my grandma,

came up with the idea to shoot Langton Hughes s house,

came up with the idea to do dalmatians

cause it s 101 years of the Harlem Renaissance.

So you know, it was a real collective effort

and Tyler and Law was very receptive to my ideas

and we built on top of it and made a masterpiece today.

[upbeat music]

I m not trying to be cocky,

I don t got nothing to talk about.

We gonna let the art speak for itself.

I feel more than lucky. I feel blessed.

I could shed a tear.

I m feeling all of the manifestations

from the Harlem Renaissance.

It is a pleasure to be here, my dear.

In terms of where fashion goes from here,

I m hoping that it becomes more and more inclusive.

How would the final result look like?

There will be sublime in the beautiful

with such chromatic intensity and a touch sexy.

To be a part of this is just,

I m very proud of it honestly.

This moment, especially what s going on in the world

and in our country, this moment seems so important.

This is bigger than us as individuals.

This is bigger than us as actors or actresses or models.

It s the combination of all of us coming together

to create something beautiful for present and for future.

I m not gonna cry, but I wanna cry so bad.

I think I probably will cry when it s out

and everybody gets to see it.

I think this issue is so important on so many levels

because we are taking the opportunity

and moment to highlight blackness, to embrace it,

not in a way that feels like a trope or in a performance.

I hope that people receive it with love

and an opportunity to uplift a community.

That is a beautiful thing

cause I m still standing and I m still here.

I m still black and I still feel very beautiful.

I do think that the main message that we re trying

to get across is really fashion as empowerment.

Fashion as a way to say something about yourself, right?

Or your community that might be new

or that might be outside of stereotype of boundaries.

You are your lineage, you are your history.

That s also why I think this is so beautiful to me.

Even for people who might not be black,

like this opportunity to get to learn this history,

connect to each other, to each other s humanity,

to each other s art.

That s like such a gift.

Our art is precious,

our love for everything we ve contributed to culture

stands the test of time.

The picture goes such a long way.

It s gonna inspire kids globally

and I think that s the whole point we re here,

you know, to inspire people.

It s a real moment to highlight

our own underrepresented voices

and it s something I m so honored

and so proud to be a part of.

The idea of like honoring the black dandy matters,

to look at the history and the impact

that we ve had on culture, on design and art, music,

and I m standing with these incredible brothers

who I admire so dearly.

It s just a beautiful, beautiful moment

and I m very proud to be a part of it.

I think a dandy is, as a dandy does.

Anytime human beings are doing

their thing unapologetically.

It s inspiring and life changing for somebody out there.

Yes, indeed.

[gentle music]