Sunday Best opens to the public at the AGO, centering Black self fashioning in Toronto

Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario opens the doors to the public on October 13, 2026 to Sunday Best, The Power and The Glory of Black Style, a major exhibition that traces how clothing, adornment and presentation have shaped Black identity and community across more than a century. Making its world debut in Toronto, the show brings together garments, photography, paintings, accessories and time based media from public and private collections across North America, Europe and the Caribbean.

What the exhibition shows

Curated by Dr. Julie Crooks of the AGO and Dr. Jason Cyrus of the London College of Fashion, Sunday Best spans material from the 1880s to the present. The presentation includes more than 50 garments, accompanied by visual art and archival ephemera that explore rituals of dressing, the politics of appearance and the role of style in activism and social belonging.

The exhibition will be on view through February 28, 2027. A 224 page catalogue has been published in association with Yale University Press and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which coorganizes the project with the AGO.

Programming and public access

The AGO staged member preview periods earlier in October, and opens Sunday Best to general admission visitors starting today, October 13. Public programs planned around the exhibition include an opening celebration in Walker Court on October 16 that will feature a runway presentation by the Canadian label Greta Constantine and live performance programming.

Other scheduled events linked to the exhibition include a teachers workshop set for October 17, a maker night pairing crochet and jazz on November 6, and a film screening and conversation on Viola Desmond Day, November 8, presented in partnership with TIFF Lightbox. On November 18 the AGO will host a salon conversation bringing together designers Rachel Scott, Christopher John Rogers, and Kirk Pickersgill for a public discussion about style, craft and innovation.

Why this matters now

Sunday Best arrives in Toronto at a moment when museums and cultural institutions across Canada are reassessing how they present histories of race, migration and belonging. By using fashion and everyday dress as the exhibition lens, the show shifts the frame away from elite art objects toward lived practices of selfrepresentation. That focus highlights how clothing can be both a form of resistance and a medium for community memory, while foregrounding Black designers, tailors, photographers and cultural workers whose contributions have often been overlooked in mainstream Canadian cultural histories.

Bringing this exhibition to the AGO also extends the museum’s effort to diversify curatorial narratives and to pair major gallery shows with public programming that connects schools, makers and local designers to museum audiences. The inclusion of contemporary designers and a public runway event underscores a practical axis between museum display and the living modes of fashion production and commerce in the city.

Audience and civic impact

Toronto is a global fashion and cultural hub with a large and diverse Black population. For local audiences, Sunday Best offers an opportunity to see the histories and present day expressions of Black style represented at scale inside one of Canada’s largest museums. For visitors from outside Ontario, the exhibition provides a Toronto context for conversations about diasporic fashion histories and the international circulation of style.

The AGO has positioned the exhibition as both celebratory and reflective, pairing garments and artistry with critical material that explores how dress relates to migration, colonial histories and social movements. That approach is likely to shape school visits, community programming, and continued scholarly attention during the exhibition run.

What to know before you go

Sunday Best is on view at the Art Gallery of Ontario on Level 5, and the exhibition is free with general admission. The AGO has offered staggered access for members and annual passholders earlier in October, and public tickets are available through the gallery’s standard booking channels. The show is scheduled to remain on view through February 28, 2027, accompanied by the AGO shop’s capsule collections from contemporary Canadian designers tied to the exhibition.

As the exhibition opens to the public on October 13, it is likely to be a focal point of Toronto’s fall cultural season and a reference for ongoing conversations in Canada about the roles museums can play in representing Black creative histories.