dandies

In France, a new dandy supplanted previous notions of this masculine mode. Count Alfred d’Orsay was a sensation in London and Paris of the 1820s and 30s. His great physical beauty, dandified dress, and elegant manners had men and women stopping in the streets to stare after him. His private life—he came from an impoverished branch of French aristocracy—proved scandalous when he was “adopted” by a wealthy English Earl and his wife, and no one was exactly sure whose boyfriend he was.

The Count’s dandyism was less restrained than Brummell’s. He favored velvets and coats cut with a dash. Like many members of the cult of celebrity, however, his popularity faded before he was ready to admit this was so. While d’Orsay epitomizes the dandy as popular idol, his fall shows just how ambivalent men felt about dandyism. Young boys across France emulated his modishness, but by the end of the 1830s masculine fashion had moved on.

Dandies were viewed with a little more skepticism across the Atlantic. The upheaval in Europe created by Napoleon’s rise and fall brought a steady stream of tailors and would-be dandies to America’s east coast cities. Yet in keeping with a country with more than its fair share of rough edges, the niceties of modish dress were something to regard with suspicion. Nor did it help that the largest showing of dandies regularly turned up in the U.S. Congress.

The ambivalent attitude of men in the New World toward Old World dressing didn’t stop them from pursuing similar fashionable looks. Despite a recent war, the ties between Bond Street and Wall Street remained. American cynicism, however, would be an important ingredient in the changes of the century ahead.

Men’s clothing would never be what it is today without George “Beau” Brummell (1778-1840). This ingenious man, the father of the modern dandy, was initially a court favorite who fell from grace. He was a walking advertisement for the modish man. Although he took only one dip into literature, his reformation of masculine style was transformative.

One of the things I find most interesting, however, is how few portraits exist of him. The one or two of those that have come down to us are actually suspect likenesses. And this in an age when English printmakers were at their most vicious and satirical…

That Brummell’s influence endured throughout the nineteenth century is the subject of an essay by a Frenchman, Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly. The Anatomy of dandyism kept the Brummell legend alive. The author’s study of masculine dress taste would prove influential indeed.