Digital Media & Contemporary Culture

This section examines how Black dandies are shaping style, identity, and cultural discourse through platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. While traditional fashion institutions once acted as gatekeepers, digital media has allowed a new generation of Black style architects to document, archive, and circulate their aesthetics on their own terms.

Figures like Zaya Wade, Janelle Monáe, Akeem Ali, and social media creators across the diaspora are continuing the dandy tradition as they blend tailored looks, gender non-conformity, and cultural references, but now with global visibility. Their content not only showcases personal expression, but also critiques the limits of binary gender norms, challenges mainstream fashion’s exclusion, and expands the archive of what Black elegance looks like.

This section centers the digital as a legitimate and powerful site of fashion history, style production, and identity formation. Whether through curated outfit grids, editorial-style reels, or playful throwback references, contemporary Black dandies are not just participating in culture, they're creating it. This portion of the exhibit also serves as an archival home for media and commentary created around the 2025 Met Gala. By preserving Black digital responses to major cultural events, we affirm the critical role of social media in shaping contemporary fashion history and ensuring Black voices remain centered in the narrative.