From Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, 1862 Article unsigned MR. THACKERAY tells us that having, as he supposed, created his famous Captain Costigan out of innumerable […]
Category: Columns
All Hallow’s Eve
At a shopping mall near you, on a cool autumn night when all the world was fast asleep, there suddenly materialized a temporary pop-up shop […]
Chic Sheik
“Dark Lover,” by Emily W. Leider, is an eminently readable, very sympathetic account of the life and work of Rudolph Valentino. The subject comes across […]
The Jockey Horror Picture Show
While strolling the museum, I recently made the acquaintance of a top-hatted and mustachioed gentleman, who was lounging within the confines of Edouard Manet’s “Bar […]
Dancing Chic To Chic
Fred Astaire lounges in a swank London flat, attired in a speckled dressing gown and cravat, musically daydreaming about the girl he’s just met. He’s […]
Edge Of Reason
Laren Stover’s “Bohemian Manifesto” is not a manifesto at all. It does not hail the wave-like crash of a mighty new movement against the rocky […]
Romp And Circumstance
Despite doing his best work while wearing no clothes, Giacomo Casanova has been anointed a sort of patron saint of dandies. Stephen Robins, in his […]
Brideshead Relinquished
Outrage against cultural debasement becomes a dandy as much as a good pair of white summer flannels, but the film adaptation of “Brideshead Revisited” stirred […]
The Fake’s Progress
Every era gets the dandies it deserves. The Regency got Brummell, a true sartorial innovator whose wit was as crisp as his country-washed linen. Count D’Orsay […]
Cutting A Dash
In the 2011 BBC production of Charles Dickens’ “Great Expectations,” the protagonist Pip, who is newly risen from poverty by an anonymous benefactor, is told […]
At Least They’re Not Boring
One of the more frequent visitors to D.net HQ is a certain Lady Friend who hails from Japan and has spent much of her career […]
Astaire Master
The dandy reveals himself by what he wears. His essence is external display. Photographs, therefore, inherently constitute a better medium to communicate the significance of […]
Interminable Ennui
What Never Dies By Barbey D’Aurevilly, translated by Oscar Wilde (as Sebastian Melmoth) In addition to penning the breviary of dandyism, Barbey D’Aurevilly wrote volumes […]
The Royal We
I most heartily recommend you rush out and purchase Natty Adams and Rose Callahan’s collaboration, “We Are Dandy: The Elegant Gentleman Around the World.” Their […]
Michael Mattis, Dandy Of The Year 2014
This year Dandyism.net bears the sad honor of awarding its first posthumous title of Dandy Of The Year to the late Michael Mattis, who died […]
The Eyes Of John Bull
If John Bull turns to look at you, you might be smoking his pipe tobacco — which, by the way, rather like John Bull himself […]
Dandy Of The Year 2013: Nathaniel Adams
For services rendered to the understanding and misunderstanding of dandyism, as well as perpetually cutting a dashing figure, Dandyism.net is pleased to award Nathaniel Adams […]
Hazlitt’s Dandy School
The Dandy School By William Hazlitt The Examiner, 1827 Vivian Grey is dedicated to the Best and Greatest of men, as if the Illustrious Person […]
Last of the Dapper Politicos
If politics make strange bedfellows, the strangest must be the dandy and the politician. Yes, there is a long tradition of political dandyism from Alcibiades […]
Murphy’s Law
“The true dandy was not the most foppishly dressed, the most stylish, the most flash-mannered; he was primarily an artist of talent.” — From […]
Dandy of the Year: Sebastian Horsley
When Oscar Wilde arrived in the United States, he said, “I have nothing to declare but my genius.” When Sebastian Horsley arrived, he said, “I […]