This week is your last chance to see The Met's 'Superfine: Tailoring Black Style' fashion exhibit

Glittering ball gowns, tailored skirts and ornate jewelry usually fill most fashion exhibitions—but not this show at The Met. Instead, the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute's fashion exhibition this year focuses on menswear, featuring sumptuous suits, perfectly tailored pants and patterned outerwear. 

For the past six months, the sprawling exhibition has drawn crowds to the Upper East Side museum, but now the show is nearing its finale. It's your last week to see "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style" before it closes on Sunday, October 26. 

RECOMMENDED: The best museum exhibitions in NYC right now

Expect to explore more than 300 years of Black style through the concept of dandyism. The exhibition begins with a grounding in the 18th-century Atlantic world where a new culture of consumption (fueled by the slave trade, colonialism and imperialism) enabled access to clothing that indicated wealth, distinction and taste.

It then digs into how Black dandyism began and evolved—"both an aesthetic and a strategy that allowed for new social and political possibilities," as the Met explained. 

While there's a lot of history and art history to learn, there's also plenty of incredible fashion to admire. You'll get to walk through 12 sections, each representing a different characteristic of the style, such as champion, respectability, heritage, beauty and cosmopolitanism.

Some mannequins and artwork sit at eye level, offering a chance to appreciate every detail. You'll see everything from a vintage 1980s wool tweed ensemble by Jeffery Banks to more modern streetwear looks that you might see while walking through the city.

Other outfits are positioned on floating plinths, creating a visual spectacle and encouraging a double take. For example, what appears to be a black-and-white houndstooth suit by Virgil Abloh actually features an all-over motif of Africa's continent. That's presented next to a tailored white suit with an LV-branded kente-style blanket draped over the shoulder.

Also look for zoot suits, athleisure and some glitzy, gender-bending moments. The pieces featured aren't just stunning to look at. They also explore how the concept of dressing ourselves is a means of distinction and resistance. 

The show was curated by Monica L. Miller (author of Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity), alongside Andrew Bolton, the head curator of the Anna Wintour Costume Center at the museum. As Miller explained in a statement, the show's title of "superfine" doesn't just reference the quality of fabric, it also denotes the way we feel in clothes that express the self. 

"Dandyism can seem frivolous, but it often poses a challenge to or a transcendence of social and cultural hierarchies," she said. "It asks questions about identity, representation and mobility in relation to race, class, gender, sexuality and power."