Once all the spilled champagne has been mopped up from this year’s Met Gala, the exhibition that it’s toasting, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” will examine Black dandies, bespoke suiting and the Black men who so often set the standard of what it means to be stylish.
Black fashion lovers may feel the celebration is long overdue, but the show provides an opportunity to consider all that “tailoring” can mean — especially to Black people in the United States.
Ahead of the Costume Institute show, Black craftspeople across the country — a milliner in South Carolina, men’s tailors in Chicago, a jeweler in Los Angeles — reflected on the power and joy that can be found in tailoring.
Custom Clothiers
Christopher Brackenridge and Milton Latrell
Two sons of seamstresses help men look their best at Agriculture, a boutique in Chicago.
Photographs and video by Nolis Anderson for The New York Times
“We’d both seen how confident the clients of our moms became when they wore custom clothing. They had confidence. They walked a certain way. Their posture changed. And we was like, ‘If that makes a Black man feel good, why not be a part of that?’” — Milton Latrell
The boutique’s clients include famous Black actors, pastors and musicians, as well as local students getting outfitted for prom.
Mr. Brackenridge said he especially loved working on pieces that clients have had in their families for generations and finding new ways of updating them so they feel modern. A 60-year-old jacket that once belonged to a client’s grandfather was a particular highlight.
“I love when a client is able to come in and bring a piece that their grandfather may have worn and we are able to update that style to now.” — Christopher Brackenridge
“We like to put things like hidden watch pockets and coin pockets” for a little surprise, Mr. Latrell said.
“When you’re wearing something custom or just customized to you, you feel debonair — extraordinary, even — like you can accomplish anything,” said Milton Latrell, co-founder of Agriculture, a Chicago boutique specializing in custom suiting and styling for men.
For many Black people, having a tailor is not an extravagance, but a necessity. The right tailor can take an ill-fitting pair of pants and make them flatter every contour of the body. The right tailor can transform scraps of fabric into a treasured dress, skirt or jacket — all while leaving customers looking and feeling their best. And when customers feel their best, they exude a swagger and confidence that feels like a natural part of being Black.
Tailor
Cheryl A. Lofton
A third-generation tailor in Washington initially wanted nothing to do with the family business.
Photographs and video by Simbarashe Cha/The New York Times
“My niche in the business was alterations. I wanted to make sure that women knew that they could come in and have the same treatment that the men got in a tailoring business.”
Scissors originally belonging to JC Lofton, Ms. Lofton’s grandfather who started the business in 1939. Black Tailors
J.C. Lofton, left, in Washington D.C. in the 1940s, who founded Lofton Custom Tailoring in 1939.
“My mom dressed up to go to the grocery store. She did not go out of this house without a nice, well-fitted dress, her makeup done, and her high-heeled shoes. Never, ever did my mom go out without being dressed up, as did all of the grown-ups in our family. They were always well dressed.”
Cheryl A. Lofton and her grandfather, Joe Cephus (J.C.) in the 1970’s.
Like Ms. Lofton, I have family in the business. For most of my own childhood my mother was a tailor, making wedding gowns, bridesmaid dresses and suits in a room in the back of our house in Harare, Zimbabwe. Her customers, a mix of friends, family and strangers, always seemed to leave her de facto studio feeling joyful. It was in that back room that I found an affinity for tulle and feathers, and learned just how special clothes made just for you could make you feel.
When my family arrived in the United States, my mother stopped sewing professionally, but she always made time to ensure that my clothes — most of which were thrifted or hand-me-downs donated by our new community — felt one of a kind. She would swap out a plain black button for a fun mismatched pink one, extend a hem on pants that were a tad too short, use extra fabric on a skirt that was too big to create pleats and ruching. Even when my clothes weren’t new, they felt special.
Costumer
Laron Nelson
The owner of Opulent Designs in New Orleans says his goal is to make outfits that are “more costume than fashion.”
Photographs and video by Camille Lenain for The New York Times
“I use a lot of sequined fabrics — a lot of velvet, satins, lamés, lace, brocade, rhinestone fabrics — because for Mardi Gras, everything is all about the glitter and the shine. The glitz.”
Locally, Mr. Nelson is best known for his custom wire working and feather collars, worn by participants in New Orleans’s famed second lines and pageants.
“I started creating it so I wouldn’t have to spend the type of money it cost to buy from other people,” Mr. Nelson said.
Mr. Nelson’s mother and sister help with the business, whose studio is in the Gentilly neighborhood of New Orleans.
“A lot of men are deterred from wearing what they want to wear because they may feel like something is not masculine. But my thing is, if you’re masculine, it doesn’t matter who you are, what you are and what you wear.”
For Mr. Nelson, more is more.
At 18, I moved to Rome for school, and within days of arriving, found myself wandering through the Termini neighborhood in search of a barber and a tailor. I was tight on cash, but I wouldn’t be caught in clothes that were too tight or too loose. I found a student tailor who shared a studio space with other young designers.
Years later, as a graduate student in New York, I often hauled a bag of thrifted clothes to a Harlem dry cleaner for alterations. The store was next to my barbershop and a few blocks away from the market where I bought fabric for scarves and head wraps — which, of course, was walking distance from my cobbler. In my late 20s in Atlanta, I made sure to find a tailor, a barber and a jeweler to repair my most beloved pieces before I signed an apartment lease.
Jewelry Designer
Maggi Simpkins
A Los Angeles artist who doesn’t want to make earrings or bracelets “just for the sake of making pretty things.”
Photographs and video by Bethany Mollenkof for The New York Times
“We’re creating these pieces with the intention that they’ll be passed down throughout generations and continue to tell the stories of the people that once wore these pieces.”
“I used to have a locket growing up and I loved it and I thought it was magic because you would open up and there’d be a little photo inside of it,” Ms. Simpkins said, “but I never understood why the photos were hidden.”
“My earliest memory of jewelry is my mom going through her jewelry box and taking out pieces and telling me stories about ‘Your grandfather gave this to your grandmother on their 25th wedding anniversary,’ or ‘Your grandfather got this when he was 16 years old during communion.’ So I grew up hearing stories about family members that were no longer alive.”
Ms. Simpkins in her Los Angeles studio.
Although Ms. Simpkins makes all kinds of jewelry, she’s best known for her nontraditional engagement rings.
“From an early age, jewelry was just magic to me because it had the ability to hold these stories from past loved ones.”
You can find Black artisans almost anywhere: on main streets in the bustling part of town, or tucked away in studios in basements, attics, spare bedrooms or even garages. In these spaces, they are constantly experimenting and creating.
I first met Natalie Simmons, a hat maker born and raised in Charleston, S.C., at her store in the West Ashley district of the city in 2019. I explained to her that I was in town for a wedding that called for a hat, but I didn’t know what to get. Days later, she handed me a fascinator with a long black and white feather.
Milliner
Natalie Simmons
A hat maker in Charleston, S.C., who sources materials from Italy and parts of Africa.
Photographs and video by Donaven Doughty for The New York Times
Molds and a measuring tool that Ms. Simmons uses to make all types of hats: fedoras, cloches, boaters, bowlers, sun hats and more.
“My grandmother had hats in every color. If you walked into her closet, her closet was just lined with hat boxes. There were hat boxes up on the shelves. There were hat boxes on the floor. They were just her coveted thing. She had a hat that matched every outfit. She had gloves and handbags, but the hats were something to be cherished.”
“We don’t just take a hat off the rack and just plop it down on our heads,” Ms. Simmons said. “We add a curious little tilt or a feather, or add a pin, or a special detail that just makes it stand out.”
“A hat that perfectly fits your face and fits the structure of your body can bring something to life. It’s the one thing that can really make an outfit stand out and really tell a story.”
In her Charleston studio, Ms. Simmons makes custom hats in addition to restoring older ones.
Designers shared similar early memories of falling in love with their craft at home, where they were surrounded by moms, aunts and grandmothers. Their work allows them to continue to tell their family’s stories.
Western Wear Designer
Dymond Taylor
Dating a cowboy opened her eyes to an opportunity in Houston.
Photographs by Arturo Olmos for The New York Times
“It’s really easy to design for our people because they don’t want to look like anybody else.”
Ms. Taylor loves to design with leather, denim and — of course — fringe.
“When I started this brand, I wasn’t seeing what I wanted in stores. We always set the trends. We always create uniqueness. It’s just deeply rooted in us to do that.”
Sometime around her rodeo-going days, Ms. Taylor realized that the disproportionately white images of cowboys and western life that she encountered weren’t reflective of what she knew to be cowboy culture and history. B Stone was born out of that frustration.
“People might not instantly associate Western wear with suiting and tailoring, but when you go back to the root of it, Western wear has always been presented as a suit — the pant, the hat, the boot and the guitar.”
Ms. Taylor describes her brand as melding “cowboy style and urban style, mixing streetwear with country.”
In shops and studios scattered across the country, the American designers and tailors I spoke with represented exactly what this year’s Met exhibition and gala hope to honor. Each one takes some element of an outfit and elevates it, empowering their Black clients and celebrating their collective history in the process.
