A Field Guide to Nineteenth Century Dandies
(Editors note: The dandy flowers during periods of social realignment. In the first decades of the Nineteenth Century English society was in flux: the world was changing profoundly, to the consternation of the establishment and the delight of a wide spectrum of reformers. The population of London, which had wallowed in the 5 millions throughout the 18th century, would treble by 1841 to 15.5 million. Industrialization and the attendant urbanization was eradicating and creating new modes of life with a bewildering regularity.
It is in this context that new breeds of coxcomb have emerged. As society re-forms, and as new social classes assert themselves, the form of the individual becomes increasingly open, flexible, important. Opportunities arise for self-fashioning: appearances become tools for creating a new selves. The dandy emerges!)
It is in this context that new breeds of coxcomb have emerged. As society re-forms, and as new social classes assert themselves, the form of the individual becomes increasingly open, flexible, important. Opportunities arise for self-fashioning: appearances become tools for creating a new selves. The dandy emerges!)
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The Brummell
(Ascendant between 1800-1816, The War Years. His manner is characterized by a heroic ennui, a boredom of the drawing room during a period when war raged on the continent. French became fashionable in the court of the Regent. Words like ton, coterie, canaille. The Look: Form fitting clothes. Oddly masculine, by all accounts. In general, clothes followed an idealized sense of nature: the body as it ought to be, in some strange universe. Stiffness. Clean lines, sober colors. Brummell favored a dark navy blue. Tight clothes and stiff collars made slouching or looking down impossible. Dancing slippers. Carefully folded, lightly starched cravats. The Attitude: Serene, confident, unflappable, unemotional, occasionally scathing: biting irony employed to keep social distinctions clear. Preferred Media: Scandal sheets. Gossip rags covering the exploits of the rich & famous. Hang-outs: Almacks', dinners and dances put on by the Regent. Past-times: late breakfasts, being bored, gambling, never working, getting dressed (the toillette), collecting snuff boxes which were rarely used (snuff itself being antiquated, a relic of pre-revolutionary aristocracy). Technology: The cool acceptance of the fruits of early industrialism and trade: better glass for mirrors, rudimentary air-conditioning. The Style's Fate: Doesn’t age well. Brummell himself withers away in France, poor and slightly loopy and more or less forgotten. The style lingers, increasingly awkwardly, in the affectations of dancing masters and Turveydrops. |
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The Pelham
Conceived by Bulwer-Lytton in 1828, first appearing in a novel bearing his name. Crucial Player: Henry Colburn, publisher. His profitable idea was that a literature written by exclusives, about exclusives and for exclusives would be voraciously consumed by those who were certainly not exclusive but eagerly desired to be exclusive. The first one: Tremaine, or, The Man of Refinement, by Robert Plumer Ward (1825). Ward was sixty when the novel was published, and so had his roots firmly in the 18th Century. The Book: Pelham; or, The Adventures of a Gentleman (1828). Came out in the typical Regency Gentleman's format: three slim pocket sized volumes each with enormous margins. B-L knew what he was writing about, to a certain extent; the youth of this fellow was wealthy and privileged enough, and was marked by a self-conscious appreciation of Byronism, Brummellism, etc. Unlike Tremaine, Pelham is written in first person: a world-view is offered up by its dandy hero, who is a bystander and observer of the so-called "plot." The Look: Early form of the "exquisite," the "butterfly dandy." Less restraint than Brummell, a more effete, luxurious (though precise) sensualism. The Attitude: Self-love. A "cold, grey, scrutinizing eye." Impudent, satirical, cynical. Like Brummell, he disdains nature for fashion & style (artifice, really). Temperance of emotion -- it made Byronism unfashionable. Everything a cool, controlled pose, masking a grab for power: Pelham's maxim is "Manage yourself well, and you may manage all the world." Seriousness covered over by lightness and flippancy. Fashionable Reading: Novels of Society. The Style’s Fate: A moderate liberal, Bulwer-Lytton championed the reform bill of 1833; later recanting & regretting Pelham, he maintained the good grace to become a staid and sober Victorian in later years. |
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The D'Orsay
Wellington's Protege during the British occupation of France following the defeat of Napoleon. Later moved to England where he sponged off the Blessingtons. Very good looking, very charming, nearly every Victorian seemed susceptible to his good graces, from Dickens and Disraeli to Carlyle and Thackeray (the last two being the era’s leading anti-dandiacals). He was known as the father of Victorian dandyism. He was the New Yorker "butterfly" dandy. No will to power; unlike Brummell who practiced exerting his social control over others, D'Orsay seemed genuinely hedonistic, good-natured, happy to accept the willing tribute of his admirers. Contemporary Chroniclers found it important to emphasize D'Orsay's appeal to the lower classes. While Brummel seemed eager to maintain a rigid distance between himself and the crowds; D'Orsay seemed to enjoy the adulation of the crowd. The Look: Different from Brummell. B's austerity and manliness (form fitting, idealized masculinity) was exaggerated and softened by D'Orsay. D'Orsay replaced the post-Brummellian spiky angularity with curves; his hats were larger, he preferred gold to Brummell's silver; a well-tended beard to Brummell's clean-shaven look. Granted, D'Orsay had different materials to work with. He was an aristocrat, unlike B. He was large, athletic, Herculean in his physique (according to certain of his admirers). He spoke with a touch of an accent to remind the English he was not one of them. He was lukewarm and easy where B was cold and exact. Less eccentric, and less exclusive than B. |
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The Vivian Grey
Conceived by Benjamin Disraeli, first appearing in 1826, in a novel bearing his own name. Modelled after himself, to an extent: Young Disraeli’s friend Bulwer-Lytton described him as wearing “green velvet trousers, a canary coloured waistcoat, low sleeves, silver buckles, lace at his wrists, his hair in ringlets.” The Book: Came out in 1826, published anonymously. As a satire of exclusive circles, everyone assumed it was written by an insider -- and people were rather upset when they learned it was published by a middle-class Jew whose knowledge of society came from scandal sheets and other novels. The Style: very different from Brummell or Pelham. Nervous, energetic, a little adolescent. Vivian Grey’s energies are devoted solely to politics of a special kind: erecting a political party around a disgraced nobleman behind which VG can operate and assert control. He presents a nice contrast to the dandyism of Pelham. Vivian Grey is more of a scoundrel, more openly opposing himself to the world than Pelham. P is cold-blooded while VG is hot blooded; P is cool and VG is tense. P's wit is spontaneous; VG's is carefully calculated. Basically, Pelham is in Dandyism; VG merely uses it. In this sense, VG is not a dandy at all; his ambition, energy and desire for "genuine" political power conflict with the "mastery of self" that P sought. The Look: Far more colorful than Brummell, with a touch of vulgarity about it. Lace ruffles, purple trousers, scarlet waistcoat, lots of jewels and chains. The Style’s Fate: Subsumed by success. Chancellor of England, beginning 1851. Dandyism seems constrained by political office. |
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The Guppy
The Book: Conceived by Charles Dickens, Bleak House, 1852. The Gent: During the 1840's, Thackeray distinguished from the genuine Victorian Gentleman, the Regency genlmn, and a derivative breed known as the gent - a term came from an abbreviation used by shopkeepers to advertise "gent’s newest fashions" -- inherently vulgar & bourgeois and inherently belated, obviously. Trickle downs of D'Orsay fashion, done up with louder, more obnoxious touches. Gents were at the bottom of the respectable classes. Clerks who blew all their money in once-a-month sprees, obsessed with the fashion of their betters, all of which had the names of their idols (Byron ties, albert shoes, everything D'Orsay). Relentlessly mocked and satirized by early Victorians for their shallowness and vulgarity. Dickens, Guppy’s conceiver, started out as something remarkably like a gent himself. A vulgar little lawyer's clerk, obsessed with the theatre and fashionable goings-on about town, obsessed with the city really, as an intriguing character and odd ally in his ambitions. This is the crucial “Man about town” aspect of dandyism, manifest most profoundly in Guppy's explicit pride in knowing the city, inside and out. The Look: Always managed to put off even his most devout admirers in its odd and vulgar theatricality. Dressing up, rather than engaging in the art of getting dressed, characterized his attitude. Dickens was vain, loved the pose, had an actor's concern with exaggeration, effect. This during an era, see, when Men's fashions (the forties and fifties) are hideously ugly: instead of a youthful, masculine form, a portly middle-aged pall-bearer seemed to be the ideal. Everything black, baggy, voluminous. Thanks, Thomas Carlyle. |