The Power of Perception 

The power of fact comes through images as much as words. Frederick Douglass knew this when he published his first autobiography along with a portrait of himself - a portrait which features in Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, this year's summer exhibition at the Costume Institute. Some people need to see to believe when it comes to Black suffering and Black agency. With self-determination in mind two photographers took the new technology of the camera and ran with it: James Van Der Zee on one side of the Atlantic and Malick Sidibé on the other.

Van Der Zee was central to the documentation of Black style during the Harlem Renaissance. Several works from his vast archive of over 50,000 prints, negatives, and ephemera at the Met were included in last year's exhibition in collaboration with the Studio Museum in Harlem, The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism.

James Van Der Zee was born in 1886, 21 years after slavery was abolished in the United States. Van Der Zee was a fly guy. A charmer, but not a rake. A family man, with feeling, and affection, and deep passion for the ones he loved, but also a pragmatist. In a self-portrait from 1918 the handsome artist wears white trousers that look to be in an unwrinkled linen. His striped shirt is rolled up to show off capable arms; a knit tie is pinned in place around the third button. His head and hat are cocked casually to the side, as he points with two fingers at an Indianapolis newspaper headline that begins with Colored Troops Capture.

This is a proud man whose pride isn’t a performance. He sits with the nonchalance of the truly cool, a descriptor requiring a lack of interest in external praise. Interestingly for someone who privileged photography as a medium, Van Der Zee seems concerned with perception only insofar as it proffers power, especially power over oneself. 

The self-actualisation of all his sitters is apparent before we even sit to study them. In one Van Der Zee photograph from 1925 a caramel-skinned, high cheekboned flapper peers from behind an enormous feather and pearl headdress, donning a sequined vest and harem pants, with an overall effect somewhere between Scheherazade and Joan of Arc. In another image from 1923 another young woman, this time in profile and nude but for a similar headdress, stares longingly into a painted fire, perhaps reminiscing about an equally fictitious lover. Both beauties are exceptionally self-possessed.

Van Der Zee ran a photo studio in Harlem. His neighbors, friends, and fellow artists would come in for a visit, talk through how they would like to be immortalised, and leave the rest in Van Der Zee’s dexterous and experimental hands. Occasionally Van Der Zee would encourage his subjects to borrow from his prop closet. As an early pioneer of photo editing, he would even draw jewelry onto his negatives by hand before printing, affording his sitters the bounty that was rightfully theirs. This was a loving gesture, aimed at lending his subjects the grandeur of spirit that they were denied materially. It follows that in this uplifting atmosphere true individuality emerged, leaving us with a wildly varied and emotionally honest snapshot of Black American life in the first half of the 20th century.

In one image from between 1907 and 1938, four Black men of varying ages all dressed dapperly in black suits, lean back on their heels, arms at their sides or crossed behind them, bringing to mind every slick Black man with swag who has ever looked into a camera. This could be a family at a christening in 1910 or the men in my neighborhood in Crown Heights running to grab something from the bodega on their way to a housewarming.

Born 50 years after Van Der Zee, Malick Sidibé similarly ran a studio out of Mali, but took photographs at functions, clubs, and the streets as well. Where Van Der Zee’s portraits are more involved, more formal, reflecting the early stages of photographic customs, Sidibé’s are freer and less formulaic. Born Fulani - a people known for their extremely refined facial features, overall grace, and tall, slender builds - perhaps Sidibé had a head start on finesse. But if he did, so did his subjects. One image of three teenagers from 1977 shows the trio in tight shirts and flares, leaning back, with the self-aware frowns of adolescence and steely gazes. Who dared approach them in the cafeteria? Another image from 1962 shows seven young men posing haphazardly around their centre, their sun, a beautiful woman, the picture of health, with a feather in her cap. Her smile is the largest of them all; you could argue this image is proof of her agency and joy in womanhood. The men surrounding her are co-conspirators. 

Another portrait by Sidibé of a man bedecked entirely in white from 1976 shows his gorgeous face - wide nose, full lips, half-moon eyes, and a pencil thin moustache to top it off - staring directly at the viewer. The folds and many layers of his outfit disappear the longer you look at them, leaving you with just an impression. But a powerful impression. One of heft, movement, and purpose.  

It is no secret that Black people have led American innovation in several areas since we first began to immigrate here against our will and later of our own volition. With Superfine: Tailoring Black Style we are left to consider, hopefully not for the first time, what it is in the Black consciousness that leads to such a consistently exciting sartorial history. As a contemporary Black American with access that previous generations of my colour in this country couldn’t dream of, I still think of good style as a protective gesture. It’s much more than just looking sexy on a date or professional for an interview. When I put on clothes I put on purpose. This is something I know many Black people do. We dress to protect ourselves and define ourselves, emphasising the complexity of our minds and spirits. A side effect of this strategisation of style is that we are often the most powerfully stylish or unique figures in a room, and if it’s a room of just fine Black people, well then that’s what we call sensory overload.

At the core of Van Der Zee and Sidibé’s success as artists is their understanding that the words “cool” and “Black” are indivisible. Merriam-Webster defines cool as “marked by steady dispassionate calmness and self-control”...sound familiar? It certainly looks familiar.