Founded in 2010 by scholar, curator, author and filmmaker, Shantrelle P. Lewis, The Dandy Lion Project began as an exhibition in a pop-up gallery in Harlem, New York. Dandy Lion is the first and largest comprehensive exhibition of its kind. For the past fifteen years, we’ve widely explored the contemporary phenomenon of global Black dandyism. Our curatorial work, which is largely rooted in African-centered methodologies and an Africana Studies framework, allowed us to delve into the subject matter from an almost anthropological approach.

While this is primarily a photography exhibition, this work has been presented in various mediums, as essays, and papers, short films and performances. There is a growing community of scholars, artists, cultural producers who have built upon the Dandy Lion as a conversation. Over the years, Lewis also worked closely with the scholars and photographers who did this work long before me – namely Dr. Monica Miller, the late Daniele Tamagni and Rose Callahan. Shantrelle has always made it a point. to acknowledge and reference the intellectual predecessors of one’s work, something she’s consistently done.

In 2017, Dandy Lion: The Black Dandy and Street Style was published by Aperture. To this day, this coffee table book continues to turn heads globally, much in the same manner as the Black dandies who grace its pages.

The Dandy Lion Project has been featured in The New York Times, CNN, BBC, the Philadelphia Inquirer, The Cut, Nylon, Buzzfeed, OkayAfrica and many other outlets around the world.