The Met Gala 2025 leaned into dandyism and sculptural tailoring May 5, an annual reminder in the form of a celebrity-studded New York museum fundraiser that fashion can be spectacle. Meanwhile, in our cities of Nobel laureates and farmers markets, the prevailing look is less Oscar Wilde, more Oregon Trail. As we have discussed in the past few weeks, cowboy boots stomp past Harvard Yard and denim skirts and bolo ties slip into cafés where Derrida is still discussed over cold brew, but why is it that we cannot have common ground when it comes to dressing upscale?
My guess is, ironically, Met Gala styled-suits and the traditional business suit are too loaded for Cambridge and Somerville. They speak of institutions, power and capitalism, systems that many in this intellectual enclave critique daily. It’s not uncommon to see men here in children’s graphic tees and Birkenstocks (even in the rain), their hair in buns. Their outfits may carry no overt political message, but their café conversations betray that. The ever-present Patagonia fleece is outerwear that symbolizes a different kind of uniform, one grounded in logic and control. It’s still a function of hierarchies, it just pretends to compost between meetings.
In contrast, I have yet to see a dandy-styled Camberville resident, something I often encounter on the streets of New York City, even though dandyism should be at home here; it has radical origins. Emerging in late 18th and early 19th century Britain and France, it offered men a way to express resistance through elegance, tailored simplicity and poetic detachment from aristocratic and bourgeois norms. Something we could use more of, some might say.
A stronger
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