Getting Dressed Is Medicine
Some thoughts on the 2025 Met Gala, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” and how my dad shaped my view of dressing as wellness, along with articles, podcasts, and social media stuff.
Happy Sunday. Today, I’m headed to see Glory to Glory (A Revival For Spiritual and Devotional Art) at Eldorado Ballroom, Curated by Solange Knowles for Saint Heron at The Walt Disney Concert Hall. And this week, I can’t stop thinking about the Met Gala, thoughts typically reserved for May.
As a hobbyist, I’ve commented on the Met Gala, its annual themes, and its looks for the past six years. I don’t work in fashion and didn’t study its history in undergrad, but it tickles my playful spirit like Halloween does.
The Met Gala is the ultimate act of getting dressed—more so than any red carpet, courtside moment, or music video look. Like the Gala, which celebrates the Costume Institute's exhibition theme each year, I’m driven by a strong narrative or story when I get dressed. There’s a standard of excellence when dressing to a theme—it’s fun to witness, chat about, and brings people together, whether fashion enthusiasts or not. After the Super Bowl, the first Monday in May is one of the most unifying cultural moments of the year.
This year's theme, Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, explores Black dandyism and draws from Monica Miller, professor and chair of Africana Studies at Barnard College, and her book Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity. Curated by Miller and Andrew Bolton from the Met Costume Institute, the exhibit, and attendees’ attire will explore how fashion intersects with Black identity and expression.
Immediately, I thought of Janelle Monáe’s style, particularly her suiting, which pays tribute to her parents and Black working families. There was a time when Monáe solely wore black and white suits. “They wore uniforms, and so I wore black and white as my own uniform to pay homage to them,” she told Access Hollywood.
Or, internationally, there’s the Congo’s culture of La Sape or Sapeurism, which would be a fitting inspiration for Solange’s “Losing You” video.
There’s the urban legend that Kanye, Don C, and Virgil Abloh, among others, tried to attend the LV show at Paris Fashion Week in 2009 but were told to leave, resulting in this iconic photo.
I can’t forget how OutKast created dissonance between their Southern rap aesthetic, which struggled to find respect in a culture obsessed with the East Coast versus West Coast rivalry, and stereotypes of Black male rappers through dandyism, as seen in several of their music videos and the group’s 2006 film Idlewild.
Consider the campaign for Polo Ralph Lauren's 2022 HBCU-inspired collection, designed by Dara Douglas and James Jeter, who was named the first Black Creative Director for Polo Ralph Lauren this year.
If you still don’t get it, Black dandyism is, at its core, a sartorial form of protest. It asks how elegant or refined clothing and tailoring can challenge social norms, power structures, or cultural expectations.
The tradition of the Black dandy tells us there’s personal power and solace in dressing how we want to, rather than conforming to who society tells us we are.
While we can’t dress our way out of oppression, nor should we conform to evade it, getting dressed—especially for Black people—becomes a profound wellness practice. It’s a means of reclamation, autonomy, and self-expression.
In an edition of her essential Substack, A Sunday Journal, Jesica Elise writes about the criticism of Kamala Harris’ costly but fitting accessories and how “white people introduce and reinforce inferior, suspicious, or otherwise outsider status onto Black Americans,” especially through critique of style. Her writing illustrates how the fashioning of Black identity is met with scrutiny, yet it underscores the importance of reclaiming that narrative.
In my own life, I grew up in a covertly fashionable and undeniably Black city—Washington, D.C.—with a father who dressed ritualistically: a suit, suspenders, socks too fancy for my young self to understand, and polished dress shoes. From an early age, I understood that clothes weren’t just clothes; they communicated something about the self. However, it wasn’t until later in life that I grasped precisely what they were communicating for my dad.
I can't help but draw connections between his profession as an attorney and the tradition of Black dandyism. At the time of his death, he was divorced and battling serious knee issues that ultimately led to his passing. During my teenage years, he lost several of his siblings and his mother and struggled to maintain his private practice during the recession. Yet, despite what life threw at him, even as trends evolved, the suiting, the tailoring, and the dress shoes never wavered. There remained glitter in his eyes, hope, and optimism every time he got dressed.
With him in mind and reflecting on the broader (negative) societal perceptions of Black people, particularly Black men, I've come to understand that Black dandyism is not just about style or protest; it frames the act of getting dressed as a vehicle for self-expression and a pathway to better mental health and wellness.
Audre Lorde tells us that “caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation…” If we view style, getting dressed, and fashioning ourselves as forms of self-care within that framework, Black dandyism—where Black men and others dress ostentatiously and boldly, taking up space—becomes one of many acts of preserving ourselves against personal and political perils.
There are so many things I wish I could ask my dad about; today, it’s how the ritual of getting dressed, the suits, the loafers, and the suspenders served as a salve for his spirit.
If you want to read more about Black dandyism and explore this year’s Met Gala theme, join me in reading Monica Miller’s foundational text, Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity. This month, I’m also reading Law Roach’s How to Build a Fashion Icon and, of course, The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Following the Met's announcement of the 2025 theme, I revisited the aforementioned essay, "Presentation: A 'Progressive' Problem," by
. This Paper Magazine feature on Black dandyism, a breakdown of André 3000’s style evolution from Red Bull Music, and the CFDA's exploration of Black women’s Sunday best.Now for the recommendations.
First and foremost, I must recommend Piece by Piece, Pharrell's Lego documentary. I can admit that I’m grudgeful against Pharrell and came in thinking it would be a vanity project, but he pushed the bounds of what documentary storytelling can be. It's fun; you can sing along and see Snoop Dogg, Gwen Stefani's abs, and Teddy Riley in Lego form. Where the film falls flat, it intimately addresses zero conflict in his creative journey and sums his career pitfalls up to a group of evil men in suits.
Too many of us are focused on the hundreds of bottles of baby oil and the perceived punches in the Diddy sex trafficking case. Craig Jenkins writes about how we lost the plot for Vulture.
The Snoopy fandom community isn’t pro-Trump; read about it from Rolling Stone.
Ghetto Gastro teamed up with Gwyneth Paltrow! Culinary excellence.
A$AP Ferg on
pod! Does this mean Renell Medrano is next?
Your producer’s favorite producer, Raphael Saadiq, was a guest on the Broken Record podcast.
Kendrick’s “Alright” seemed like the peak of modern protest music. What happened to the tradition? Read about it here from Ivie Ani.
I just started listening to Into Healing’s second season, which kicks off with an episode on reimagining Black masculinity and writing to heal with Joél Leon.
I’ve had a few no-buy months this year, and it's given me a greater appreciation for my own closet and my taste, even the things I don’t own yet. From , read about the Romance of Slow Burn Shopping.
That’s all for today!
Please share this newsletter with friends, haters, colleagues, and important people who could potentially pay me to write more. Most importantly, download the Substack app!
Is there anything specific you’d like me to write about? Article recs? Please email me: ellisellice@gmail.com.
I love seeing these pics of my fly uncle 🫶🏾
In regards to the title of this post I definitely can say that getting dressed is medicine, because, getting dressed is what preserved my sanity during the height of the pandemic when we were on lockdown down.