Owning it: black dandies – in pictures

Flares and jumpsuits, dickie bows and boaters ... for centuries, these natty dressers have confronted racism with fashion and kicked against masculine stereotypes with a sequinned platform boot

Main image: Afrikan Boy, 2012 by Hassan Hajjaj Photograph: Hassan Hajjaj

  • Young Man In Plaid, NYC (1991)

    For decades, black dandies from New York City to Kingston, Jamaica have expressed themselves through their style choices• Made You Look: Dandyism and Black Masculinity is at The Photographers’ Gallery, London, 15 July – 25 September 2016
    Young Man In Plaid, NYC, 1991

  • Untitled from the series B&W Prints (1976/77)

    Dandies dress to flout conventional notions of class, taste, gender and sexuality
    Untitled from the series B&W Prints from the 70s 1976/77

  • Afrikan Boy (2012)

    With his brolly, brogues and sharp suit, rapper Afrikan Boy models a kaleidoscopic update on traditional African prints
    Afrikan Boy, 2012

  • Unattributed (circa 1904)

    As this dapper Victorian pair demonstrate, black dandyism has a long and distinguished history
    Unattributed, circa 1904

  • Untitled (Kingston) from the Black Balloon Archive (2007)

    Curator Ekow Eshun argues that black men are ‘simultaneously hypervisible and invisible to white society’
    Untitled (Kingston) from the Black Balloon Archive, 2007

  • Au cours d’une soirée (1964)

    After Malian independence in 1960, photographer Malick Sidibé captured the energy and confidence of the country’s youth culture in his Bamako studio
    Au cours d’une soirée - During a party: the poses, 1964

  • Wayne Swart from the OATH lookbook (2015)

    This recent fashion shoot by South African photographer Kristin-Lee Moolmann captures the androgynous township style of 80s Soweto
    Wayne Swart (from the OATH lookbook), 2015

  • Lebohang Otukile (2016)

    Dressing her models in wigs and jumpsuits, Moolmann explores the idea of masculinity as performance
    Lebohang Otukile, 2016

  • From the Black House (1973-1976)

    For Eshun, these men go to ‘a place beyond the white gaze, where the black body is a site of liberation rather than oppression’
    The Black House, 1973-1976
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