Dandy

A dandy^[1] is a man who places particular importance upon physical appearance, refined language, and the cultivation of leisurely hobbies. Historically, especially in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain, a dandy often strove to imitate an aristocratic style of life despite being of middle-class background.

Given these connotations, dandyism can be seen as apolitical protestations against the rise of egalitarian principles — often including nostalgic clinging to feudal or pre-industrial values, such as the ideals of "the perfect gentleman" or "the autonomous aristocrat".

Though previous manifestations, of Alcibiades, and of the petit-maître and the muscadin have been noted by John C. Prevost,^[2] the modern practice of dandyism first appeared in the revolutionary 1790s, both in London and in Paris. The dandy cultivated skeptical reserve, yet to such extremes that the novelist George Meredith, himself no dandy, once defined "cynicism" as "intellectual dandyism"; nevertheless, the Scarlet Pimpernel is one of the great dandies of literature. Some took a more benign view; Thomas Carlyle in his book Sartor Resartus, wrote that a dandy was no more than "a clothes-wearing man".

Charles Baudelaire, in the later, "metaphysical" phase of dandyism^[3] defined the dandy as one who elevates aesthetics to a living religion,^[4] that the dandy's mere existence reproaches the responsible citizen of the middle class: "Dandyism in certain respects comes close to spirituality and to stoicism" and "These beings have no other status, but that of cultivating the idea of beauty in their own persons, of satisfying their passions, of feeling and thinking .... Contrary to what many thoughtless people seem to believe, dandyism is not even an excessive delight in clothes and material elegance. For the perfect dandy, these things are no more than the symbol of the aristocratic superiority of his mind."

Etymology

The word dandy first appears in a Scottish border ballad, circa 1780, but probably without its more recent meaning. The original, full form of 'dandy' may have been jack-a-dandy, (Encyclopaedia Britannica 1911); it was a vogue word during the Napoleonic Wars. In that contemporary slang, 'a dandy' was differentiated from 'a fop' in that the dandy's dress was more refined and sober than the fop's.

In the 21st century the word, 'dandy' is a jocular, often sarcastic adjective meaning "fine" or "great", nevertheless, 'a dandy' is a well-groomed, well-dressed, and self-absorbed man.

Beau Brummell and early British dandyism

The model dandy in British society was George Bryan "Beau" Brummell (1778-1840), an undergraduate student at Oriel College, Oxford, and an associate of the Prince Regent: ever unpowdered, unperfumed, immaculately bathed and shaved, and dressed in a plain, dark blue coat, perfectly-brushed, perfectly-fitted, showing much perfectly-starched linen, all freshly laundered, and composed with an elaborately-knotted cravat. From the mid-1790s, Beau Brummell was the early incarnation of 'the celebrity' man chiefly famous being a laconically witty clothes-horse.

By the time Pitt taxed hair powder in 1795 — to help pay for the current war against France — Brummell already had abandoned wearing a wig, and had his hair cut in the Roman fashion, "à la Brutus". Moreover, he led the transition from breeches to snugly-tailored dark "pantaloons," which directly lead to contemporary trousers, the sartorial mainstay of men's clothes in the Western world for the past two centuries. In 1799, upon coming of age, Beau Brummell inherited from his father a fortune of thirty thousand pounds, which he spent mostly on costume, gambling, and high living 'til 1816 — when he suffered bankruptcy, the dandy's stereotyped fate; he fled his creditors to France, ultimately, quietly dying in 1840, in a Caen lunatic asylum, just shy of his sixty-second birthday.

Men of more notable accomplishment than Beau Brummell also adopted the dandiacal pose: George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron occasionally dressed the part, helping re-introduce the frilled, lace-cuffed and lace-collared "poet shirt." In that spirit, he had his portrait painted in Albanian costume.

Other prominent dandys of the period were Alfred Guillaume Gabriel d'Orsay, the Count d'Orsay, who had been friends with Byron and moved in the highest social circles of London; and The Honourable Bobby (thb)(1785 - 1827), writer of the famous manual 'Dandyism: An Introduction'(1814).

Dandyism in France

During his heyday, Beau Brummell's dictat on both fashion and etiquette reigned supreme. His habits of dress and fashion were much imitated, especially in France, where, in a curious development, they became the rage, especially in bohemian quarters. There, dandies sometimes were celebrated in revolutionary terms: self-created men of consciously designed personality, radically breaking with past traditions. With elaborate dress and idle, decadent styles of life, French bohemian dandies sought to convey contempt for and superiority to bourgeois society. In the latter nineteenth century, this fancy-dress bohemianism was a major influence upon the Symbolist movement in French literature.

Baudelaire was deeply interested in dandyism, and memorably wrote that a dandy aspirant must have "no profession other than elegance . . . no other status, but that of cultivating the idea of beauty in their own persons . . . . The dandy must aspire to be sublime without interruption; he must live and sleep before a mirror." Other French intellectuals also were interested in the dandies strolling the streets and boulevards of Paris. Jules Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly wrote The Anatomy of Dandyism, an essay devoted, in great measure, to examining the career of Beau Brummell.

Later Dandyism

The gilded 1890s provided many suitably sheltered settings for dandyism. The poets Algernon Swinburne and Oscar Wilde, Walter Pater, the American artist James McNeill Whistler, Joris-Karl Huysmans, and Max Beerbohm were dandies of the period, as was Robert de Montesquiou — Marcel Proust's inspiration for the Baron de Charlus; in Italy Gabriele d'Annunzio and Carlo Bugatti exemplified the artistic bohemian dandyism of the fin de siecle.

The twentieth century has been impatient with dandyism: the Prince of Wales, briefly Edward VIII was a dandy; it did not increase his public appeal. Nevertheless George Walden, in the essay Who's a Dandy?, identifies Noël Coward, Andy Warhol, and Quentin Crisp as modern dandies.

In Japan, from the late 1990's to the present, dandyism is a fashion subculture (see, Dandy (fashion)), another of the fashions in Japan inspired by past Western fashions.

Female Dandies

The female equivalents to nineteenth-century dandies could be found in the demimonde, in such extravagant women as the courtesan Cora Pearl, while the Marchesa Luisa Casati lived a dandy's career in post–World War I Venice; analogously, the artistic diva might be considered a female dandy. In 1819, the novel "Charms of Dandyism" was published "by Olivia Moreland, chief of the female dandies"; although probably written by Thomas Ashe, 'Olivia Moreland' may have existed, as Ashe did write several novels about living persons. Throughout the novel, dandyism is associated with "living in style".

Royal Dandies

The two best-known royal dandies were both kings of the United Kingdom-George IV and his grandnephew, Edward VII. Both were notorious womanizers and gluttons.

Quotations

A Dandy is a clothes-wearing Man, a Man whose trade, office and existence consists in the wearing of Clothes. Every faculty of his soul, spirit, purse, and person is heroically consecrated to this one object, the wearing of Clothes wisely and well: so that the others dress to live, he lives to dress ... And now, for all this perennial Martyrdom, and Poesy, and even Prophecy, what is it that the Dandy asks in return? Solely, we may say, that you would recognise his existence; would admit him to be a living object; or even failing this, a visual object, or thing that will reflect rays of light....

– Thomas Carlyle, "The Dandiacal Body", in Sartor Resartus

One should either be a work of Art, or wear a work of Art

– Oscar Wilde

See also

• Fop
• Flâneur
• Macaroni
• Metrosexual
• Bourgeois personality

Notes

1. ^ "One who studies ostentatiously to dress fashionably and elegantly; a fop, an exquisite." (OED).
2. ^ Le Dandysme en France (1817-1839) (Geneva and Paris) 1957.
3. ^ See Prevost 1957.
4. ^ Baudelaire, in his essay about painter Constantin Guys, "The Painter of Modern Life".

Further reading

• Barbey d'Aurevilly, Jules. Of Dandyism and of George Brummell. Translated by Douglas Ainslie. New York: PAJ Publications, 1988.
• Carassus, Émile. Le Mythe du Dandy 1971.
• Carlyle, Thomas. Sartor Resartus. In A Carlyle Reader: Selections from the Writings of Thomas Carlyle. Edited by G.B. Tennyson. London: Cambridge University Press, 1984.
• Jesse, Captain William. The Life of Beau Brummell. London: The Navarre Society Limited, 1927.
• Lytton, Edward Bulwer, Lord Lytton. Pelham or the Adventures of a Gentleman. Edited by Jerome McGann. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1972.
• Moers, Ellen. The Dandy: Brummell to Beerbohm. London: Secker and Warburg, 1960.
• Murray, Venetia. An Elegant Madness: High Society in Regency England. New York: Viking, 1998.
• Nicolay, Claire. Origins and Reception of Regency Dandyism: Brummell to Baudelaire. Ph. D. diss., Loyola U of Chicago, 1998.
• Prevost , John C., Le Dandysme en France (1817-1839) (Geneva and Paris) 1957.
• Stanton, Domna. The Aristoicrat as Art 1980.
• Wharton, Grace and Philip. Wits and Beaux of Society. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1861.

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