Groundbreaking exhibition features more than 50 garments, including looks by Spencer Badu, Patrick Kelly, Christopher John Rogers, Bianca Saunders and Rachel Scott
Exhibition reveals historical roots of contemporary Black diasporic style, from Frederick Douglass to André Leon Tally to Greta Constantine
Garments shown in dialogue with artworks by Derrick Adams, Jorian Charlton, Sasha Huber, Rashid Johnson, Melodie McDaniel, Gordon Parks, Gordon Shadrach and Amy Sherald
TORONTO — This fall, the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) is serving looks as it explores the historical roots and enduring power of Black style in the new exhibition Sunday Best: The Power & The Glory of Black Style. Charting self-fashioning across the African diaspora from the 1880s to the present, Sunday Best features historical, high-fashion garments, contemporary art, ephemera, accessories and time-based media from Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Caribbean. On view from October 7, 2026, to February 28, 2027, the exhibition is conceived and curated by Julie Crooks (Curator, Arts of Global Africa & the Diaspora, AGO) and Dr. Jason Cyrus (Associate Lecturer, London College of Fashion), with Amanda Bock (The Lynne and Harold Honickman Assistant Curator of Photographs, Philadelphia Museum of Art), and Clare Sauro (Cara Keegan Fry Curator at the Robert and Penny Fox Historic Costume Collection at Drexel University).
Fashion has been instrumental in shaping African diasporic identities throughout history. 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. During and since, across the African diaspora, this ritualized approach to dressing has endured as a form of self-fashioning, resistance, and community building.
Tracing the histories of migration, activism, and self-representation woven into high fashion, art, everyday clothes, and accessories, Sunday Best presents fashion as an enduring weapon in the battle against exclusion and subjugation on both sides of the Atlantic.
“Beneath the beauty of these garments and the power of these artworks lies a deeper history of resistance and self-determination. By situating Black style within histories of enslavement, religious life, migration, and liberation, this exhibition reveals the political conditions out of which new aesthetic narratives emerged,” says Julie Crooks, Curator, Arts of Global Africa and the Diaspora, AGO.
“This exhibition is the first by a major North American museum to document and explain a concept as universal yet nebulous, as Sunday best. It documents its myriad manifestations, moving between the historic and contemporary, the personal and communal, the everyday and the couture,” says exhibition co-curator Dr. Jason Cyrus.
Organized into five thematic sections—Origins, Church, Migration, Liberation, and Call & Response—Sunday Best features 50 garments, 70 photographs, 10 paintings, and time-based media alongside accessories and artifacts from private and public collections across North America, the United Kingdom, Europe, and the Caribbean. Since the spring of 2025, AGO fashion conservation experts have been hard at work stabilizing objects and preparing them for display.
Mirroring fashion’s own dynamic interplay of past and present, local and global, the artists and objects on view speak to each other across time and place, bound by threads that stretch from the church pew to the queer ballroom scene and onto the high-fashion runway. Brought to life by JA Projects, led by designer and architect Jayden Ali, the AGO’s exhibition design for Sunday Best, is inspired by “the spatial qualities found in places where Black communities have traditionally come together, whether that be the church hall or the dancefloor,” says Ali.
Throughout, the exhibition pays homage to individuals whose artistic practice embodies the ethos of Sunday best dressing. Among them are the preeminent studio photographer of the Harlem Renaissance, James Van Der Zee; Harlem-based fashion icon Lana Turner; Toronto-born fashion model Linda V. Carter; pioneering trans performer Jackie Shane; and in the role of muse, influential fashion journalist and titan of style, André Leon Talley.
Exhibition highlights include:
- A photograph of American abolitionist Frederick Douglass, one of the more than 160 pictures he sat for during his life
- Amy Sherald’s powerful portrait Listen, You a Wonder. You a City of a Woman. You got a Geography of Your Own (2016), inspired by the poetry of Lucille Clifton
- Mickalene Thomas’ rhinestone-encrusted mixed-media portrait, Qusuquzah, Une Très Belle Négresse #3 (2012)
- Cocktail dresses by renowned Canadian fashion brand Greta Constantine
- A silk ballgown by American designer Christopher John Rogers, inspired by Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley, personal dressmaker and confidante of Mary Todd Lincoln
Publishing in tandem with the exhibition, from the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Philadelphia Museum of Art in association with Yale University Press, comes Sunday Best: The Power & The Glory of Black Style, a 224-page hardcover catalogue. Co-edited by curators Julie Crooks, Dr. Jason Cyrus, and Suzanne Boyd, Editor-in-Chief of Zoomer Magazine, this richly illustrated volume includes 18 essays by esteemed fashion and art historians, scholars, style influencers, curators and fashion creatives. The catalogue will arrive in the AGO Shop in October 2026.
On view on Level 5, AGO Members see Sunday Best first, beginning October 7, 2026. AGO Annual Passholders can access the exhibition beginning October 9, 2026, at 5 p.m. The exhibition opens to the public on October 13, 2026, and is free with general admission.
Admission to the AGO is always free for Ontarians under 25, Indigenous Peoples, AGO Members, and Annual Passholders. For more details on how to book your tickets or to become a Member or Annual Passholder, visit AGO.ca.
The exhibition will open at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in Spring 2027. Additional AGO programming details will be announced in August.
Sunday Best is organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
@AGOToronto | #SeeAGO
Lead Sponsor
TD Bank Group
Generous Support
Gale M. Kelly
Charles Lesaux, Aaron & Becky Nugent, Ella Nugent
Liza Mauer & Andrew Sheiner
Jack Weinbaum Family Foundation
Contemporary programming at the AGO is supported by
Canada Council for the Arts
About the AGO
An architectural landmark, the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) is one of the largest art museums in North America. The AGO Collection of more than 120,000 works of art ranges from cutting-edge contemporary art to significant works by Indigenous and Canadian artists and European masterpieces. The AGO presents wide-ranging exhibitions and programs, including solo exhibitions and acquisitions by diverse and underrepresented artists from around the world. When the Dani Reiss Modern and Contemporary Gallery opens in 2027, it will present modern and contemporary art from Toronto and the world. With its groundbreaking Annual Pass program, the AGO is one of the most affordable and accessible attractions in the GTA. Visit ago.ca to learn more.
The AGO is funded in part by the Ontario Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Gaming. Additional operating support is received from the City of Toronto, the Canada Council for the Arts, and generous contributions from AGO Members, donors, and private-sector partners.
About the Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Philadelphia Museum of Art is a national and international destination for art, but first, we are Philadelphia’s art museum—for all of the many diverse communities of the city. Through our collections, exhibitions, events, educational activities, celebrations, and more, the museum is a storyteller, and we welcome everyone to be part of the story—our doors are wide open. To learn more, visit www.philamuseum.org
About JA Projects
Founded by architect and artist Jayden Ali, JA Projects is a multidisciplinary studio operating at the intersection of architecture, strategy, art and performance. London-based with a studio in New York City, the practice is focused on designing spaces that serve the people who use them. The studio has built a distinctive body of exhibition and gallery design for leading cultural institutions, including Design Across Time: Exploring the Smithsonian’s Design Collection (2026), a major multi-year installation of the museum’s permanent collection, and the “Why We Make” galleries at the new V&A East Museum (2026). Other notable projects include the Royal Academy’s Entangled Pasts 1768–Now (2024), Fashioning Masculinities at the V&A (2022), and the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2023). JA Projects is currently delivering major projects for cultural institutions across North and Central America.
-30-
For images and more information, please contact:
Andrea-Jo Wilson | Manager, Public Relations
[email protected]
Wendy So | Public Relations Associate
[email protected]