This year’s Met Gala marks the opening of The Costume Institute’s exhibition, ‘Superfine: Tailoring Black Style’. Found within the exhibition are two looks by Latimmier, the brand helmed by Finnish designer Ervin Latimer. We talk to Latimer about how his looks found their way into the exhibition and what this moment means to him
The extraordinary looks and star power of the Met Gala are so distracting, one might forget the event’s purpose: to fete the opening of The Costume Institute’s spring exhibition. For spring 2025, that exhibition is ‘Superfine: Tailoring Black Style’. Rooted in the book Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity by Monica L. Miller (who also served as guest curator), the exhibition examines the importance of sartorial style to Black people from the 18th century today through the lens of dandyism. To tell this story, the exhibition casts a wide net, bringing together looks from designers all over the world (not to mention paintings, film and photographs). Among the curation, two vibrant looks from Finnish brand Latimmier’s spring/summer 2024 collection.
The two Latimmier looks from the brand's spring/summer 2024 collection on view at “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photo: Ervin Latimer
Ervin Latimer at the exhibition . Photo: Ervin Latimer
Organised into 12 sections – Ownership, Presence, Distinction, Disguise, Freedom, Champion, Respectability, Jook, Heritage, Beauty, Cool, and Cosmopolitanism – Superfine posits that Black dandyism emerged at the intersection of African and European style traditions in the 18th-century Atlantic world. It was then that Black dandyism was borne of a new consumption culture – fuelled by the slave trade, colonialism, and imperialism – which enabled access to clothing that communicated wealth and taste.
Given the amount of secrecy that surrounds the Met Gala (most notably the guest list) and its corresponding exhibition, Latimer isn’t exactly sure how his looks wound up nestled next to a yellow nylon Bianca Saunders coat and just steps from pieces by Maximillian Davis and Off-White in the Freedom section of the exhibition. However, back in November, Latimer was visiting New York with the Finnish Cultural Institute, at which time he mentioned he planned to come back in the summer specifically to visit ‘Superfine: Tailoring Black Style’. “It’s so close to my practice and so close to what I teach, I had decided that I would go through the trouble of coming back to New York,” says Latimer, who’s also a Professor of Practice at Aalto University. The people he was chatting with asked if he was coming back because he was in the exhibition, and Latimer had a good laugh about the absurdity of the suggestion. “Literally two weeks after that, I got the email,” he says.
It’s so close to my practice and so close to what I teach, I had decided that I would go through the trouble of coming back to New York.
Ervin Latimer
Though the request came in November, some months before the Met Gala, the time frame was quite short; Latimer had just a couple of days to send a few looks chosen to be shot by Tyler Mitchell for the corresponding exhibition book and just a month to send the looks that would feature in the exhibition. “I was not in Helsinki, so I immediately had to arrange with someone who was here to send looks for the shoot,” recalls Latimer, noting that originally they asked for one look and then came back to ask for a second. “I only had a quarter of the pieces myself – we had had sample sales or lent them out.” Ultimately Latimer and his small but mighty team completed the two looks, tracking down a couple pieces from individuals who had acquired them and remaking the rest.
The looks on the CPHFW runway at Latimmier's spring/summer 2025 show.
The two striking looks – one powder blue wool suit and a relaxed Kelly green button-down shirt and skirt set – are from Latimmier’s Wall Street-themed spring/summer '25 show (the last show Latimmier staged at Copenhagen Fashion Week). “What’s interesting is if I would stereotype what’s typically Latimmier, it would be more grey, white, black and beige,” notes Latimer of the looks selected. Dubbed ‘Positions of Power’ the collection found its inspiration in the money-hungry, hyper-masculine characters in films like American Psycho and The Wolf of Wall Street (note the use of ballpoint pens). “It’s so applicable for this exhibition, and, honestly, of this time,” says Latimer. “Not to toot my own horn, but I’ve been thinking about the themes of that collection that was presented now almost two years ago and how scary relevant it feels now.
Speaking of tooting one’s own horn, even Latimer can admit this is a big deal (no easy feat for a quintessentially humble Finn). “I feel like I keep my cool usually, but this is hitting something,” he says. “That exhibition in this socio-political time, me being now an educator in fashion and having a clearer understanding of what I want to do and be – this does feel meaningful.” Yet, in his typical Latimer – and Latimmier – way, he finds himself oscillating between humour and sincerity. “I have this back and forth thing, where I’m laughing and thinking, ‘How can I sneak into the gala?’,” he says. “But on the other hand I get very serious and almost emotional thinking about the themes and telling my dad that I’ll be exhibited there.