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.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Diego Boneta had grown tired of Hollywood’s obsession with narco storylines for Latinos. The actor decided he would provide some new source material with his debut novel, out Thursday, a self-described “murder mystery, sexual thriller” set around a fictional business dynasty.

“As someone who’s from Mexico City, seeing all these stories that are Mexican stories, most of them have been about narcos or border crossing. And that is part of our culture. But that’s only this,” the actor said, gesturing to indicate it only makes up a small portion of Mexico. “So why don’t we show the other stuff?”

Boneta, best known for portraying Latin pop icon Luis Miguel in Netflix’s 2018 biopic series and co-starring in “Rock of Ages,” is now fighting against these stereotypical portrayals by unveiling his debut novel, “The Undoing of Alejandro Velasco.” The Amazon Crossing book is publishing in English and available in Spanish on digital and audio formats. It is also slated for a television adaptation.

“I feel weird calling myself an author. I feel like I’m a storyteller,” said Boneta, 34, who is also a producer and a musician. “It’s the most personal thing I’ve ever done, so it’s really close to my heart.”

The novel centers on a mysterious man named Julian Villareal, who sets out to solve the mystery behind his friend and tennis rival Alejandro’s sudden death but finds himself in a series of twists and turns thanks to the Velasco family’s wealth and business ties.

“It’s in the vein of ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’ meets ‘Match Point,’ set in San Miguel de Allende, full of plot twists,” Boneta said.

Boneta says he wanted to set the novel in San Miguel de Allende to showcase a different side of Mexico to mainstream audiences. He grew up visiting family in the historic city and calls it the “Florence of Mexico.”

“I really wanted it to feel like it was coming from my heart. So, I had to write about things that I was really passionate about, and San Miguel is one of them,” he said. “It’s truly a magical town.”

Boneta did not plan on adding author to his list of attributes, until his sister and producing partner, Natalia González-Boneta, suggested that they create their own intellectual property. Boneta will star as Julian in the Amazon Studios MGM series adaptation, which is currently in development. The actor and his team developed the novel and the series in tandem, though they put a pause on the series during the 2023 Hollywood strikes. Boneta says that he crafted the character to challenge himself when bringing the story to the screen.

“I love transformative roles. I love the chameleon aspect of acting,” he said. “That’s what we tried to do with Julian and having the con man not be the introvert, but be like this like bon vivant guy. He’s so worldly and says he has so much money, but is he really who he says he is?”

Julian is a role Boneta dreamed about as a kid when he failed to see himself represented on screen. He still remembers growing up and wondering why Batman wasn’t someone who looked like his family members.

“To me, that’s the most powerful way of creating an exclusive environment,” he said. “If you’re like, ‘Oh, we’re doing the Latin Batman, and he’s gonna have a mariachi, sombrero and a lucha libre mask and maracas.’ I’m like, ‘Dude, I don’t wanna see that.’ I want the real Batman to happen to be a Latin guy. You don’t even have to make a thing out of it.”