To Create a ‘Portrait of the Modern Dandy,’ the Met Enlisted a Superstar

The 29-year-old fashion photographer Tyler Mitchell had his own ideas about how to shoot the catalog for the museum’s spring Costume Institute show.

Last year, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art invited a young photographer to shoot its highly anticipated spring 2025 fashion exhibition, the museum got something it probably wasn’t expecting: a counteroffer.

That may be because the invitation wasn’t extended to just any young photographer but to Tyler Mitchell, who in 2018 became the first Black photographer to shoot a Vogue cover. (He was 23, and his subject was Beyoncé.) Although he said he would be happy to photograph objects from the exhibition — a cultural and sartorial examination of Black dandies — for a planned catalog, Mr. Mitchell came back to the Costume Institute with a pitch of his own: Instead of just immortalizing the garments in static shots, he would also showcase them as they were worn throughout history.

“The fact that we are for the first time talking about specifically the history of Black men’s wear, this is an embodied conversation, and most of it lives on through photography,” Mr. Mitchell said in a recent phone interview. “So it felt urgent to go beyond simply object documentation and go into real human lifestyle.”

Now 29, Mr. Mitchell has made a name for himself exploring Black life through his work. In 2020, he published his debut photography monograph, “I Can Make You Feel Good”; two years later, he had a solo exhibition at a London Gagosian gallery.

In a 30-page photo spread and accompanying essay in the catalog for the Metropolitan exhibition, called “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” Mr. Mitchell continues his exploration, investigating the ideas behind dandyism and examining its contemporary interpretations. The photos feature models wearing garments from the exhibition, in addition to self-described dandies like Iké Udé, Dandy Wellington and Michael Henry Adams, many wearing their own finery.