ROME (AP) — Behind a rusty gate near Rome’s Circus Maximus is a building passed daily by hordes of tourists. They’re oblivious to the fact that behind its faded, flaking paint is a hive of activity sustaining one of Italy’s grandest cultural institutions.

It was a pasta factory until almost a century ago, when the Rome Opera House transformed the four-story building into a sprawling warehouse and workshop. It is home to a trove of scenic backdrops and 70,000 costumes from over a century of performances. Even more are being created — the traditional way.

For this year, the opera house’s costume designers, tailors and seamstresses have been scouring archives and working to reconstruct the original outfits of Giacomo Puccini’s Opera “Tosca.” It is a tale of passion, cruelty and deception set in Rome in the 1800s, featuring a dark-haired beauty forced to commit murder to protect her dignity and the man she loves. This year marks the 125th anniversary of its first-ever performance.

“Fortunately, all the sketches for each costume exist and are very detailed and we have reconstructed them, respecting as much as possible the taste of the time from the point of view of the fabrics, the shapes and all the materials used,” Anna Biagiotti, the opera house’s costume director, said in an interview inside the warehouse.

Behind each sketch Biagotti found detailed notes. She compiled a binder her team refers to as “the bible,” filled with copies of the originals. To help her roughly 30 tailors, Biagotti painstakingly transcribed the tightly scrawled cursive notes of then-lead costume designer Adolph Hohenstein into legible, capital letters.

They work in a cramped space above the opera house — sewing, pinning, stitching, cutting, ironing. Each year, they churn out some 700 costumes for opera and ballet performances, which are later stored in the warehouse, hanging inside plastic dry cleaning covers. There is no digitalized system to track them once there; they can only be located by the designers and tailors who have spent their lives in the trade.

And on the warehouse’s top floor, set designers in a giant loft space walk atop a canvas, dragging grey wagons loaded with buckets of paint. On April 10, they used brushes with handles so long they looked like brooms to paint ancient doors, archways, statues and frescoes to conjure a three-dimensional Roman palazzo upon the flat surface. An overhead walkway provided a view to ensure the optical illusion was coming out just right.

It’s a dying craft, said Danilo Mancini, director of set production. In other places, painted sets have been replaced by LED walls, projections and back-lit screens — but not at the Rome Opera House. For Tosca, set designers also worked off Hohenstein’s sketches for the original show.

Both Mancini and music director Michele Mariotti credit Puccini for keeping their passions alive.

“Puccini was a genius, not only in terms of the beauty of the music, but precisely because of the theatrical and cinematographic flair he gives to his works,” said Mariotti. “If we are all here, we must be grateful to him, not so much for the rebirth of the work, but for its survival. Because he understood that if it was not regenerated in some way, opera would have disappeared.”

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Black dandyism is taking center stage at the Met Gala, with cultural powerhouses leading this subversive, sharply tailored style into the global fashion spotlight.

As a gala host committee member, Janelle Monáe and other trendsetters are helping shape the conversation, framing Black dandyism as a proud tradition — rather than a mere trend — claiming its long-overdue moment of visibility.

“It’s always important to educate and reeducate to the world as much as we possibly can through art and through our greatness,” said Monáe, the Grammy-nominated performer who had made dandy style a signature of her fashion.

Monáe, inspired by family members who proudly sported the look throughout her upbringing, views the spotlight as an opportunity to pay homage to the past and inspire the future.

“Dandyism is pretty much a part of my fashion DNA through tailoring and suiting,” the singer-actor said. “I’ve honored my ancestors and my family who wore their uniforms, wore their suits to serve our community. It fell right in line with who I am, and the people I want to bring with me that helped build this country.”

On Monday, with the world watching, a wave of fashion disruptors and stylists will usher Black dandyism from the margins to the Met Gala, as the Metropolitan Museum of Art unveils its new costume exhibit, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style.” It marks the Met’s first show centered exclusively on Black designers and the first in more than two decades to spotlight menswear. It’s also a tribute to the rich legacy of dandyism, a style that has long carved space for radical self-expression, especially for those overlooked or misunderstood.

“It’s been a long time coming,” said Kyle Smith, the NFL’s first-ever fashion editor, who has styled the league’s top players, including Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, Los Angeles Rams wideout Puka Nacua and receiver Kenny Stills.

“It’s great to see the recognition that Black culture is having or has in fashion for years,” Smith said. “It’s been there and very subtle, or just not recognized. I think this year’s theme is long overdue. I’m excited to see everybody’s outfits and how they interact with the idea of Black dandyism.”

Pillars of Black dandyism

This year’s Met Gala co-chairs include Pharrell Williams, Lewis Hamilton, Colman Domingo, A$AP Rocky and honorary chair LeBron James, with Monáe joining the host committee alongside the likes of Simone Biles, Spike Lee, Ayo Edebiri and André 3000.

“I think honoring minorities, honoring Black and brown people in these spaces and outside every day, is important,” said Monáe, who plans to use the red carpet to debut an exclusive collaboration with 1800 Tequila. “The ones who have dedicated their lives to this country to serve, build and give us art to sustain us for a lifetime. We should continue to honor them and push forward and stand on their shoulders.”

Several trailblazers helped popularize Black dandyism, a style whose roots trace back to the trans-Atlantic slave trade. From the beginning, dandyism served as a sartorial declaration, reclaiming elegance and luxury as tools of empowerment, challenging stereotypes and honoring Black legacy.

This Met Gala moment stands on the shoulders of icons like Frederick Douglass, who wielded sharp dress as a form of power, and Duke Ellington, who transformed suiting into cultural brilliance.

Host committee member Dapper Dan reimagined Harlem fashion, remixing luxury into bold statements of Black pride, while the late André Leon Talley — with his capes and commanding presence — redefined fashion authority.

Today’s Black dandies carry that legacy forward, blending tradition and rebellion in every lapel for a style that speaks volumes before a word is ever spoken.

“We are the walking versions that they imagined,” said El Lewis, an Atlanta-based stylist, who has worked with several entertainers including Usher, Young Thug, Chloe and Halle Bailey, and Justin Skye. “A lot of these people died not being able to have these realities come to fruition. We have a lot of autonomy to ourselves, and I think that’s what they were probably seeking. They wanted to be able to do anything at any moment at any time. And I think that’s what they get to see us do.”

Met Gala pushes dandyism forward

Stylist Brian Robinson said that if Talley were alive, he would have left an unforgettable mark on the gala’s defining looks.

“He would definitely be behind conversation pieces underneath the restraint to educate,” Robinson said of Talley, the influential former creative director and editor at large at Vogue magazine. He died at the age of 73 in 2022.

“He would have been able to put dandyism in a positive light for people to understand the importance of being able to celebrate and highlight our culture,” said Robinson, who has worked with Keyshia Cole and Naturi Naughton. “He would push for the understanding of the agricultural aesthetic of style, being able to understand how it highlights not only your personality, but how it can also make you feel good as a person.”

Smith hopes the Met Gala inspires people to embrace the joy of dressing up, because that’s the heart of dandyism. He’s eager to see that spirit reflected both on the streets and in the player tunnels at professional games.

“I want to see it more in our tunnel fits in the NFL,” he said. “Take some fashion tips from the Met. Look at what everybody’s wearing and how they’re exploring fashion. I want to see how everybody expresses themselves and how they leave their mark in the fashion world.”

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For more coverage of the Met Gala, visit https://apnews.com/hub/met-gala.

NEW YORK (AP) — When the enigmatic street artist Banksy spray-painted a heart-shaped balloon covered with a Band-Aid on the wall of a Brooklyn warehouse, the nondescript brick building was instantly transformed into an art destination and the canvas of an unlikely graffiti battle.

Almost as soon as Banksy revealed the piece back in 2013, an anonymous tagger brazenly walked up and spray painted the words “Omar NYC” in red beside the balloon, to the dismay of onlookers.

Days later, someone stenciled “is a little girl” in white and pink beside Omar’s tag, followed by a seemingly sarcastic phrase in black: “I remember MY first tag.” Some think it was Banksy himself who secretly returned to the scene to add the rejoinder.

The apparent graffiti battle didn’t end there. Another tagger also attempted to leave his mark but was stymied by security guards. Today the phrase “SHAN” is still visible in light purple paint.

Maria Georgiadis, whose family owned the now-demolished warehouse and ultimately removed the section of wall to preserve the artwork, says the graffiti pastiche is quintessentially New York.

“It looks like a war going on,” she said recently. “They’re literally going at it on the wall.”

Artwork up for auction

The preserved wall, dubbed “Battle to Survive a Broken Heart,” will be going up for sale May 21 at Guernsey’s, the New York auction house.

Georgiadis, a Brooklyn schoolteacher, says the sale is bittersweet. Her father, Vassilios Georgiadis, ran his roofing and asbestos abatement company from the warehouse adorned with the balloon.

He died four years ago at age 67 from a heart attack, which is why some of the proceeds from the sale will be donated to the American Heart Association.

“It’s just very significant to us because he loved it and he was just so full of love,” Maria Georgiadis said on a recent visit to the art warehouse where the piece was stored for more than a decade. “It’s like the bandage heart. We all have love, but we’ve all went through things and we just put a little Band-Aid over and just keep on moving, right? That’s how I take it.”

The nearly 4-ton, 6-foot-tall (3.6-metric ton, 1.8-meter-tall) wall section is one of a number of guerrilla works the famously secretive British artist made during a New York residency in 2013.

At the time, Banksy heralded the work by posting on his website photos and an audio track recorded partly in a squeaky, helium-induced voice.

Banksy may not have painted response to tagger

Guernsey auction house President Arlan Ettinger said it is impossible to know for certain because Banksy works clandestinely. But he said the neat stenciling and wording “strongly suggest that this was a gentle way for Banksy to put the other artist in his place.”

Ulrich Blanché, an art history lecturer at Heidelberg University in Germany, called the piece a “very well executed” stencil notable partly because of Banksy’s decision to place it in Brooklyn’s port area of Red Hook.

“This part of NYC was not easy to reach at that time,” he said by email. “Banksy wanted people to go to places in NYC they never have seen and love them as well.”

But Blanche questioned whether the additional stenciled text was truly the work of Banksy, saying the word choice and design don’t appear to comport with the artist’s style at the time.

“To call a graffiti guy a ‘girl’ is not something Banksy would do in 2013. This is misogynic and immature in a sexist way,” he wrote. “Three different fonts that do not match and three colors — why should he do that? Too unnecessarily elaborated without reasons. So I think this was added by someone else.”

Blanché also said he is ambivalent about the pending sale, noting Banksy usually doesn’t authorize his street pieces for sale. At the same time, he understands the burden placed on property owners to protect and maintain them.

“Banksy’s works should be preserved, but for the community they were made for,” he said. “They should not be turned into goods. They are made and thought for a specific location. Not portable. Not sellable.”

Spokespersons for Banksy didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.

Difficult to determine price

Maria Georgiadis’ brother, Anastasios, said his father had also hoped to keep the piece in Red Hook after having cut it out of the wall and framed in thick steel for safekeeping.

The elder Georgiadis, he said, envisioned the work as the centerpiece of a retail and housing development on the property, a dream he didn’t realize. The property has since been sold off by the family.

Ettinger said it is difficult to say what the piece might fetch. There is little precedent for a sale of a Banksy piece of this size, he said.

In 2018, a canvas that was part of Banksy’s “Girl With Balloon” series sold in London for 1.04 million pounds ($1.4 million), only to famously self-destruct in front of a stunned auction crowd.

Maria Georgiadis said she hopes whoever buys the ”Broken Heart” finds the same beauty and meaning her father drew from the piece.

When Banksy painted it, the family business had been recovering from destructive floods caused by Hurricane Sandy the prior year. Georgiadis recalls her father had no idea who Banksy was but was moved by the simple image.

“My dad had it in his head that Banksy knew what we went through,” she said. “He goes, ‘Can you believe it Maria? It’s a heart.’”

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Follow Philip Marcelo at twitter.com/philmarcelo.