Christian Chensvold
Founder
Michael Mattis, Nick Willard, Robert Sacheli, G. Bruce Boyer, Nathaniel Adams,
Francois-Xavier d’Arbonneau de la Bachellerie
Esteemed Contributors
Darryl Kidder
Scowling Mascot Design
Dot Dakota
Logo Design
Ace Nasir
Website Maintenance
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Like the dandy, Dandyism.net aims to be effortlessly elegant, caustically witty, coldly superior and dryly amusing. Its editorial policy is caprice. As a result, readers have called the site “infuriatingly snooty,” “fusty, philistine claptrap,” “the most self-important review in the history of media,” and “rather pathetic.”
Dandyism.net has received international press, including profiles in L’Uomo Vogue, LA Weekly, Modern Luxury’s The Men’s Book, Vancouver’s The Georgia Straight and Stockholm’s Dagens PS, and has been mentioned in various books and scholarly works.
The site was founded in 2004 by Christian Chensvold as part of his Stickpin Media empire. After a period of dormancy, Dandyism.net received a much needed makeover in January of 2023 and is presently being updated daily, or something approximating daily.
Like many heroes of the fin-de-siecle Decadent Movement, Chensvold — a third-generation Swiss astrologer on his mother’s side — took the left-hand path at midlife and became an initiate into the Mystery Tradition. He presently writes the Spirit column for the weekly newspaper The Bohemian, and created the Soulful Travel project for Sonoma County. He spent five years as contributing editor for The Rake and 12 years as a contributing writer for Ralph Lauren Magazine. Other work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, LA Times Magazine, Robb Report, Esquire.com, and many other publications. More importantly, he was a college fencing champion, danced with Jacqueline Bissett on film, and enjoys improvising Impressionist etudes at the piano. After 20 years in Los Angeles and New York he returned to his hometown in the San Francisco Bay Area.”The Philosophy of Style,” a dandyish collection of essays, articles and fiction, with a foreword by Alan Flusser, was released in April 2023.
“The Sophistocrat” columnist Michael Mattis lived his values — fortunately those were few. In fact, if he could be said to have revered anything at all it would be, as with the dedicated Episcopal churchgoer, a really well cut navy blazer. Before his ultimely passing, Mattis valued a good glass of claret, a dry martini, and an evening of light and convivial conversation. He wrote for a host of publications, most of which went under, and held the titles “content strategist,” ranch hand, and cabaret host. He died unexpectedly in his sleep at the age of 49, dreaming of better times.
A graduate of the Sorbonne’s Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Dandysme, Nick Willard began writing his first (and perhaps posthumous) novel at the age of 70.
With a professional background in the visual and performing arts, Robert Sacheli is the only member of Dandyism.net to have worn a codpiece. He serves as a judge for Washington’s Helen Hayes Awards and is a founding member of the Washington DC International Film Festival. He is fond of 19th-century art, travel, fine dining and cigars, and being called “raffish.”