Turning Style into Power

Richard Thompson Ford | The Yale Review | 20th May 2025

In the late 1700’s, men’s fashion shifted to a more restrained look. London’s much admired Beau Brummell exemplified a new idea – the dandy, someone who cut a striking figure.  Black men saw being a dandy as a way to assert their individuality and sensuality. Further, elegant attire was “a quiet but confident assertion of self-respect”. Musicians like Miles Davis created a “hip, tailored style” that was widely adopted. A distinctive Black sartorial aesthetic had successfully “subverted … the racial hierarchy”.