How fashion is self-expression – and scrutiny – for Black men in the US

The various looks of F1 driver Lewis Hamilton, one of the co-chairs of this year's Met Gala. The event will focus on the influence of Black style in menswear. Photo: AP

Growing up on the south side of Chicago, the reverend Dr Howard-John Wesley was given the message early on: What one wore as a Black man mattered.

Wesley’s pastor father, who migrated from Louisiana after World War II in search of more opportunities than those readily available to Black people in the Deep South, "always had an impeccable sense of shirt and tie and suit”.