A new AGO exhibition explores the evolution of Black style, starting with the tradition of ‘Sunday best’

Walking through Sunday Best: The Power And The Glory of Black Style at the Art Gallery of Ontario, it’s immediately clear that one visit isn’t enough to fully absorb the expansiveness of what’s on display.

Spanning from the 1880s to the present day, the exhibition features historical and high-fashion garments, contemporary art, ephemera, accessories and photographs by artists from Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and the Caribbean that reveal the instrumental role of fashion in shaping African diasporic identities.

A concept born out of the transatlantic slave trade, when enslaved people were given only a small allotment of coarse cloth to make their own garments, “Sunday best” refers to clothes reserved for church or special occasions. Across the African diaspora, this ritualized approach to dressing has endured as a form of resistance, community-building and self-fashioning, which refers to the way that one creates an identity and public persona to reflect cultural standards and social codes. Above all, it was a crucial exercise in autonomy – a form of rebellion when so much else was systematically stripped away.

For co-curators Julie Crooks and Jason Cyrus, an exhibition of this magnitude has been nine years in the making.

As for the timing, Crooks pointed toward a broader cultural shift. With the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Africa Fashion exhibition touring globally and the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Superfine: Tailoring Black Style in the cultural orbit, she explained, “We felt that this was a moment to build on those exhibitions and ideas but tell a different story that fits within an African diasporic perspective.”

The goal, according to Cyrus, was to capture Black style’s “myriad manifestations, moving between the historic and contemporary, the personal and communal, the everyday and the couture.” To do that, the show is organized into five thematic sections: Origins, Church, Migration, Liberation, and Call and Response. The curators collaborated with architect and artist Jayden Ali of UK-based JA Projects on the exhibition design.

Ali described the spatial layout as bookended by the motif of the spotlight. The opening sequence features the signature tailcoat and top hat of abolitionist Frederick Douglass, alongside a recreation of the wedding dress worn by his first wife, Anna Murray Douglass, crafted in plum-coloured silk by Harlem designer Cassandra Bromfield.

Then, Ali notes, in the finale, “the matte silk ball gown by Christopher John Rogers occupies its own pool of light.” As Cyrus explains, the Black, queer designer from Louisiana takes the antebellum Gone with the Wind silhouette – a shape historically designed for white Southern women to take up space and project plantation wealth – and reimagines it. In striking contrast to those small allotments of coarse cloth forced upon his ancestors, Rogers uses yards of vibrant fuchsia silk to actively reclaim that physical and cultural space. He uses joy as resistance, honouring his Southern roots without letting them define him.

Between those moments, the two largest galleries in the exhibition continue to play with the qualities of light. “We situate the garments beneath the skylights of Frank Gehry’s architecture, congregated together at the centre of the room,” Ali said. “That idea of congregation is itself a nod to the curatorial sections Origins and Church, while also speaking to togetherness: holding space for oneself and holding space for each other.”

That space holds an extraordinary amount of talent. The exhibition brings together the roots of contemporary Black style, housing the dramatic cape of late fashion editor André Leon Talley – displayed on a mannequin moulded in his likeness, alongside his signature Manolo Blahniks – and the eclectic onstage wardrobe of Toronto transgender soul icon Jackie Shane, as well as 1970s Ebony magazine issues from actor Linda V. Carter’s collection. It puts them in dialogue with recent designs by Diotima and Proenza Schouler creative director Rachel Scott and powerful visual artworks by Sasha Huber.

Yet this celebration of Black style isn’t confined behind museum glass. The AGO has partnered with Canadian label Greta Constantine to present a live fashion show celebrating Black style and sartorial innovation. Led by Kirk Pickersgill, the brand’s designer, Greta Constantine marks its 20th anniversary on Oct. 16 with the special event, accompanied by a live soundtrack from Toronto-based vocal group Echo Collective.

For Pickersgill, the runway presentation is anything but a standard retrospective. “This couldn’t feel nostalgic; it had to foster a sense of hope and opportunity, aligning with the exhibition itself,” he said. To achieve that, Pickersgill selected pieces that highlight the label’s signature DNA – voluminous, structural and expertly constructed – designed entirely in white, a considered choice meant to convey purity and peace. Between the DJ and the choir, he noted, the music also bridges two distinct worlds, helping champion Black arts and culture in all of its forms.

As a Black designer and the son of Jamaican immigrants, Pickersgill feels a profound significance in being part of the AGO’s first major fashion exhibition. “This exhibition is a reminder of where I’ve come, hardships and challenges included, and a reminder of what can be achieved with discipline, hard work and creativity.”

When the choir’s voices fill the museum, the runway echoes the core themes of Sunday Best, proving that self-fashioning remains an active, ongoing symbol of hope and resilience.

Sunday Best: The Power and The Glory of Black Style runs until Feb. 28, 2027