It’s been a while since we lasted posted. Your correspondents have been busy, mostly answering the dolorous call of that cruelest of pagan idols, Mammon. Such is the frenzy of the modern world. But we do have news of a dandiacal nature to impart to our faithful myrmidons around the globe.

First up, D.net founder and Ivy-Style.com impresario, Christian Chensvold, has re-invigorated the pages of The Huffington Post with a new style column. Last week, Chensvold posted a piece headlined “Old Hat: Broker’s Gin and the Fate of the Bowler.” It’s a charming column for a number of reasons. Written in the inimitable Chenners Deadpan Style™ one is hard pressed to know whether he’s serious or having us on for a lark. (We suspect a little of both.) The hook, which is that Broker’s Gin—capped with miniature bowler hat—is currently the fastest selling gin in U.S., dovetails nicely with a chat about the fate of said headgear in the contemporary world.  Your correspondent was honored to be gently pilloried for recently having bought and even occasionally wearing a Christy’s bowler (or derby or coke if you prefer) on the town and for special occasions.

Next, our friend, that redoubtable dandizette, Rose Callahan of The Dandy Portraits fame will be offering her unique photographic perspective at Dandy Talk, a seminar to be held October 5, 2012 at the elegant National Arts Club in New York City. She’ll be joined by Matt Fox of the Fine and Dandy Shop, manners expert Thomas P. Farley and Nathaniel Adams, a writer and the manager of Against Nature Atelier. Admission is free but be sure to RSVP. Nonplussed by idle dandy chatter? Never mind, the event is sponsored by Hendrick’s Gin, which will be providing cocktails.

And finally, if you haven’t seen it already seen it, the Ivy Style exhibit at the Fashion Institute of Technology opened in New York City on September 14. It explores the golden decades of upper-crust, Ivy League college style—that conspicuously casual and uniquely American form of dandyism. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because ol’ Chenners, noted above, is heavily involved in it. Also on the hook for the history notes is Richard Press (of J. Press fame), curator Patricia Mears, Christopher Breward, Masafumi Monden and others. Click over to Ivy-Style.com for more details and updates. The exhibit runs through January 5.

Can’t make it to the Big Apple? Watch the video embedded below…

…or buy the book.

You can’t watch the Academy awards. Not in person, in any case, unless you’re a seat-filler. It’s by invitation only, to Academy members, and the Academy determines the guest list. So how do you get to be a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences? Why, your name is endorsed by your Academy branch’s executive committee, then you are sponsored by two existing Academy members, and membership is by invitation of the Board of Governors. So when it seems like the judging criterion is a bit biased, that’s because it is, thank you very much. And if you don’t like it, well, we’ll just pass you over for membership this year.

But they do throw a heck of an awards show. Actually, they throw four, but only one is televised; because who wants to see overweight, balding technicians get Oscars for Science and Technology?

The Oscars is supposed to be a classically formal affair. Dinner dress has been the norm, but full dress has not been unheard of. (On the Awards Parade Formality Continuum, the Academy Awards fits in somewhere between the snooty Tonys and the extravagant Golden Globes.) Before we go further, let’s set the bar high with Kirk Douglas at the Oscars in 1950. That’s how it’s done.

No one opted for dress suits at this year’s Oscars. Well, host Billy Crystal tried. (No, Zach Galifianakis and Will Farrell, presenters in all-white dress suits and cymbals, don’t count.) Billy Crystal’s suit was just awful. The jacket was cut well enough, but everything under it was four shades of wrong. White tie is an exacting mistress who will not tolerate tepid commitment. Crystal could tell something was wrong, too; he seemed uncertain and ill at ease wearing it. It seemed as if the clothes themselves shamed him into dressing down into a less-distracting dinner suit for the second half of the show. That’s too bad, really; Crystal’s age and gravitas have grown him into the role of Oscars host, one who should be able to confidently wear proper white tie. The brash young outsider joking his way through the show has matured into a latter-day Bob Hope, who gives the Oscars the self-deprication it so desperately needs to be accessible to Joe America, and keep it from sinking into a self-congratulatory event for Hollywood insiders who take themselves far too seriously.

(more…)

Dandyism.net founder and erstwhile editor-in-chief, Christian “Chenners” Chensvold has cracked the code that lies at the four-point crossroads of contemporary dandyism, trad, preppy and Ivy League style—in Japan. He was recently profiled in the Japanese magazine, Free & Easy.In 2008, Chensvold founded Ivy-Style.com, a website devoted to the Ivy League look, its history and its place in American—and, indeed, international—culture. Two years ago, Chensvold pulled up his California stakes and moved his operation to New York, to be nearer the epicenters of publishing, culture and style. There he met classic men’s style greats like G. Bruce Boyer and Richard Press. And Ivy-Style.com thrived. Recently, he was appointed an editorship at the venerable New York high society magazine, Quest.

(more…)

Fashion cycles come and go, sometimes over centuries. Brioni has apparently raided the 1880s wardrobe of Oscar Wilde for inspiration. Its latest advertisement in Men’s Vogue features this Bunthornian velvet topcoat with shawl collar and embroidered button fastenings.

Of course, “Oscar Wilde Topcoat” is kind of a misnomer: “Bottomcoat” is more like it.

During my apprenticeship of the dandy art, I’ve learned that dandyism is not defined by a specific look from a certain era, but instead is an approach to wearing clothes, independent of time and place, that produces an effect we call dandyism. There is no one way to dress like a dandy, only ways that succeed or fail to varying degrees. And nowhere is the attempt to adopt a standardized dandy uniform more futile than in the attempt to replicate the way dandies dressed a hundred years ago.

No, instead a man simply dresses in his own particular way, and his movements and demeanor animate his clothing. And crystallized within the elusive effect of this combination of man and clothing is that certain something we call dandyism.

Now ours is an age of overstatement. I have it on good authority from a journalist, and journalists can always be trusted, that when a certain dandypunk removed his pustule-spangled mantool from the nearest harlot long enough to answer some questions (about himself) for an article, he was wearing a suit pockmarked with shiny red sequins.

Yet according to Max Beerbohm, part of the magic of dandyism lies in producing the supreme effect through the least extravagant means.

So while I still find pleasure in donning full dandy regalia for a night at the opera, lately I find I take greater sartorial pleasure in outfits whose dandy factor is far less obvious.

(more…)

Pictured are Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Adolphe Menjou. Both movie stars, both sophisticated, both with extensive wardrobes, both well dressed, both mustachioed, both dandies.

Yet when we look at them today, Fairbanks remains vibrant and stylish, while Menjou looks fussy and fastidious. Fairbanks could walk into a cocktail party today and charm the ladies and make the men envious. Menjou would come across as a relic.

Why? In a word, sprezzatura.

As Count Ludovico says in Castiglione’s “Book of the Courtier,” sprezzatura “is an art which does not seem to be an art. One must avoid affectation and practice in all things a certain sprezzatura, disdain or carelessness, so as to conceal art, and make whatever is done or said appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it. Obvious effort is the antithesis of grace.”

Dandies by definition take great care choosing their attire, and as a result are prone to looking too perfect. The Beau’s injunction against looking too tight and too stiff is even truer today than it was two centuries ago. The goal, as we see it, is to emulate Dougie Fairbanks and avoid being mistaken for Adolph Menjou.

We asked the D.net Junta how they employ the maxim ars est celare artem in their everyday attire. Peruse their responses below, then use the leave-comment feature to share your own secrets for making a carefully arranged outfit look effortless.

(more…)

The rich man can pull out his checkbook and easily commission a well fitting suit. For the impecunious dandy, selecting a proper suit is more of a challenge.

But rich man and poor man face an equal challenge in choosing a necktie, without doubt the sartorial selection most fraught with peril.

For just as the most luxurious suit is ruined by a bad fit, so is an otherwise flawless outfit marred by a necktie that draws excessive attention to itself. Equally bad is the light necktie swallowed by shirt, as the otherwise dapper Fred Astaire illustrates at left.

One has only to look at news anchors and television hosts — men who don neckties nightly for the scrutiny of millions — to see how perilous is the selection of a proper tie. For in 99 percent of cases the TV personality’s tie falls somewhere between poorly chosen and downright ugly.

There is no place for creativity in the choosing of a tie. A tie should not make a statement. It should not be artistic. Instead, it must somehow pull off the contradictory feat of being boldly elegant yet not visually distracting. (more…)

Los Angeles Times, January 19, 2005

Michael Henry Adams’ epiphany came in the quiet stillness of the Akron Public Library. Hanging on the wall were photographs of the Harlem Renaissance era by James Van Der Zee. “There were images of blacks who were every bit as polished and elegant as Clark Gable or Cary Grant,” Adams says. “That was a revelation for me, and also a justification. Before that, I would have felt that to identify with the style of Fred Astaire would have not been something that reflected blackness.”

In an age when T-shirts and jeans are the closest thing to world democracy, true style icons are rare. But in October, Esquire magazine crowned OutKast frontman Andre 3000 as the best-dressed man in the world. With urban street wear firmly lodged in the mainstream, Andre 3000’s penchant for hats, vests and Savile Row tailoring suddenly appeared less a personal idiosyncrasy than the result of a man who had found a kind of sartorial enlightenment.

An increasing number of African American men, in fact, are embracing classic gentlemen’s attire, riding the forefront of fashion’s return to luxury and timeless classics while adopting a mode of expression that subverts stereotypes of black style. In contrast to the mostly white metrosexual phenomenon — a fop-fest of manicures, grooming gewgaws and trendy designer wear — today’s renaissance of black elegance seems a striving for dignity and good taste in an era not exactly known for either. (more…)

The following is the full transcript (with minor edits for length and clarity) of Christian M. Chensvold’s interview with Fonzworth Bentley for his “Elegance in Black” article for the Los Angeles Times. The interview was conducted in December, 2004.

Q: Why do you think there’s been a revival of African-American elegance?

A: I look at this time period we’re living in as the Golden Age of Disrespect. It’s really sad. I just got off the phone with my editor at Random House. I’m working on a book about how to raise a lady and a gentleman. It’s going to go through topics from dressing appropriately to, you know… What I think is so important now is cell phone coverage, people on their cell phones. They’re not just anytime minutes, they’re any anytime. There’s nothing worse than being in line and somebody’s on the phone like, “Yeah man, I gotta go pay my child support after I leave here.” I don’t need to hear that. And the phone should just be off at the dinner table. I’m really gearing this book not just for adults, but for teens and young people. We live in this video age where people play video games and don’t read, and they don’t know our history. I’m really proud that it’s gotten to this point where you pitched a story and it’s worthy to be covered. And a lot of that has to do with folks such as Andre and myself being dressed. The reality is when you’re dressed in a suit and tailored clothing, you really have a different demeanor. You’re going to use less profanity. You’re going to walk with your back a little straighter. You’re going to inherently start opening the door for the lady. You’re just going to innately start to do these things.

Daddy Emmett, my great-grandfather, was a deacon in the church. And he was just the most elegant man I’d seen. He always walked with a cane or an umbrella, which is where my love of umbrellas has come from. On the elevator he’d hold the door open with the umbrella, run and get the door for a lady, get to the stairs and walk down before she gets to the stairs. You know, you’re supposed to walk in front of the lady or hold her hand so if she were to fall she would fall on you and not face flat with you walking behind where you can’t do anything. The reality is, hip-hop being a driving force in pop culture — if you look at the Grammys, the guy who got the most nominations was a hip-hop guy. Kanye doesn’t dress like a traditional hip-hopper guy. He’s wearing polos and flipping the collars up with cashmere sweaters. I just like being dressed, and I feel comfortable being dressed. You really dress for the type of success that you want to be. And the reality is, I want to be at the big table talking about the big deal and talking the big money. And this is the way I want to be dressed to be at those meetings. The way I’m dressed is the reason I got in the game. I was able to get past the velvet ropes in New York City because of the way I was distinctly dressed.

The club is a really good barometer a lot of times – I’m just kind of ranting — but when you’re in the club and everybody has on their white tees and jewelry and velour, and I have a suit on. Other men can hear and see when a lady is giving you a compliment, like, “Oh, you look so nice.” And that one time when [the men] put on their nice cardigan or dress shirt or blazer, not only do they feel different, they’re going to get compliments. I’ll never forget, I was in an elevator in New York City going to see my accountant, and I was with a friend of mine who had on sneakers, jeans and a hoodie, and this older woman got on the elevator and she was like, “Wow, you look so nice and so smart and so different than everybody else.” She felt she was giving a compliment, but the other guy that was with me, he didn’t look like it but he was with me, and he got offended kinda, you know what I mean?

Q: For what reason?

A: The reality is, he had on a $2,500 Versace hoodie, some $300 [inaudible] sneakers that come from Japan, and some decent jeans that cost $350, so technically he was — well I mean it wasn’t as expensive as my $2,500 custom-made footwear — he was expensively dressed, but he just disappeared. This is a guy who has kind of thrown away that type of stuff and now is putting on blazers because he gets a different level of respect from the status quo, if you will.

Hip-hop is growing up, for one thing. When I was running around with Puff Daddy and what have you, in suits and stuff, someone that was dressed and talks — people know that I went to Morehouse College and I’ve got a BS and a degree and whatever — someone like me wasn’t normally welcomed necessarily in “the ‘hood.” Someone like me would get smacked upside the head and get sent out, like, “You’re a nerd, you’re a cornball.” But because I was kind of framed with Puff, with the security, with this ghetto-fabulous energy… When he walks in the room, he has the celebrity girlfriends, he beat the trial, he ran the marathon, he’s walking in with all that energy, and his assistant is this guy in a suit and he talks with “formal English” if you will, and I was let in. It was embraced by the ghetto of the ‘hood, if you will. I started really pushing him to get dressed up in suits. I would always call him The Chairman instead of Puffy, because if you call him The Chairman, he’s going to walk with his back a little straighter and he’s going to be like, “Oh yeah, I really am the chairman of the board, not just Puff Daddy.”

Q: One of the things that’s come up in this story, talking to professors and writers about this, is this notion of upholding, especially before the Civil Rights Movement, a sense of black dignity, and often by having to look better than the mainstream in order to get respect. That must be part of your motivation as well.

A: It is. I get so many compliments from older black people who go, “I really love what you’re doing. It makes me proud.” You know what I mean? The reality is, I haven’t really cut out much art yet. My umbrellas hopefully are going to come out at Bloomingdale’s, been doing some recording…

Q: Let me ask you some specific stuff, and a little bit tougher stuff: You were talking about the name The Chairman you gave Puff Daddy, and I believe he’s the one who gave you your nickname. But in your New York Times Magazine profile, they wrote, “How seriously can you take a guy who’s name is Fonzworth Bentley?” Why are you a public figure under that name, rather than your real name, and is it a barrier to being taken seriously?

A: I don’t think so. The thing is, it’s kind of like in hip-hop you’re gonna get a nickname, that’s just the way it is. His name is not Puffy.

Q: Right, but they’re also making records under their names. And you initially came into the public light not for being a dancer, singer or actor, but as a style icon with a name that isn’t your real name.

A: First of all, if you look at the roots of where “Farnsworth” comes from, it comes from a Sidney Poitier-Bill Cosby old black film. It’s something that’s kind of funny and kind of quirky, and I think it almost allows me to get into your heart. When you sit and talk to me, there’s a whole bunch of serious stuff I’m talkin’, and there’s a lot of experience I’m coming with. I’ve studied the Harlem Renaissance. You look at the way Andre and I walk around — I look like a James Van Der Zee photograph, you know? Which is real serious. Even with my “How to Raise a Lady and a Gentleman,” I’m not doing a very preachy-preachy book: This generation don’t want no preachy-preachy book. They definitely don’t want to hear nothing preachy-preachy from an adult. They’re gonna listen to me because I’m fun, I’m in the cool hip-hop videos, they see me dancing and doing my thing, but they know there’s definitely something very different about me when they hear me speak. The bottom line is I want you not to be intimidated to the point where you don’t want to get the information. I’m also going to be doing a lot of poems. For instance, here’s one to teach someone how to use their silverware: “When you see a lot of silverware no need to be confused/You’ve just received an appetizer, the outer silver’s used/Just ‘cuz you’re a left-hander and the drinking glass is closer/The water glass you should be using is always on the right corner.” So really Dr. Seuss-it, if you will.

Q: Also in your New York Times Magazine profile, you corrected the way the reporter was spooning her soup. In this day and age, with so many things ailing the black community, how important is choosing silverware when people aren’t getting an education, there are drugs on the street, and the whole litany of things that are far more pressing? You’re saying this is the foundation? What would Al Sharpton say? Would he care?

A: He may not, but I have some issues with him. How seriously can you take him? A lot of people… He’s a very serious man, and he has a very serious history, you know what I mean? I always knew I wanted to be part of hip-hop in some capacity. Some people drop out of school, go buy equipment, because we’re in a technological age right now. You buy equipment and you can do all this stuff at your house. You get a demo and get it to an executive the best way you can. What I decided to do was work on being the best Derek Watkins that I could possibly be, and find a more creative way to get in the game. Why? Because everybody is doing that. Everybody has pro tools. Everybody is working on a clothing line. Everybody’s doing it. But I was like, “If I could be the assistant to a mogul who’s doing all of the above, then I can really sit back, while helping him improve himself and his brand, and sit back and see what I think I can lend myself to first.”

Q: I just read your Houston Chronicle profile, and I know you have the umbrella line and a part in “Fat Albert,” and you talked about your book deal, but what do you really want to do?

A: I want to inspire artists to be the best they can be, across the board. And to dream big.

Q: Like a Tony Robbins motivational speaker?

A: Inspire people through my art. I’m from Atlanta, Georgia. I went to Morehouse College. I didn’t know a single person when I got to New York City. But because of the way I dressed and was working on being the best person I could be, I got myself in the position where Sean Combs wanted me to be his assistant. Because he wanted to dress like me. He wanted to work on his wardrobe. I wasn’t really capable of being an assistant. I wasn’t organized enough, necessarily. But I forced my way and made myself be able to do that so I could get the other things. The bottom line is, I humbled myself. I had no problem getting the coffee and packing the bags so that I could get myself in the position to do something better. I’ve got assistants coming up to me all the time, literally all over the world, like, “I never would have wanted to be an assistant until I saw what you did with being an assistant.”

Q: You want to inspire people with your art. What form do you see this art taking?

A: Well Kanye West just signed me to a record deal, you know what I mean. I just acted in “Fat Albert,” and I’m about to close a UPN television deal. I’m going to be acting.

Q: Can you give details on the UPN project?

A: It’ll definitely be a sitcom.

Q: And you’ll have a lead role in it.

A: Yeah. It’ll be about me, basically.

Q: Will you be playing yourself or a character?

A: I don’t know if I can talk about that yet. It’s not bad, you know what I mean? The genetics project got published in JAMA, but it looks like I veered off far from that and I’m doing pretty well.

Q: Do you worry at all about overexposure? Paris Hilton became an icon despite not doing anything. You have a lot of projects going, but if you want to be like the Rolling Stones and rocking 40 years from now, you have to give the public something. It really is about making art that makes the public want you and not get tired of you. There are so many one-hit wonders in every genre. Is this a concern for you? How do you plan to find your longevity?

A: That comes with how I position myself. I have a younger brother at USC Film School doing exceptionally well as a director. This is a dream we’ve always had. Him learning that from the arguably the best school in the world, I feel I’m always going to be able to write, do films and television shows as long as I live. It all really has been a plan, and it’s working well. You look at a lot of artists that we’ve gotten tired of, and I think it’s a concern of all people. You’ve got to be concerned. The reality is with the paparazzi the way they are, and people doing reality shows. Somebody shoots you with a camera and you’re on TV and you don’t even want to be, you know what I mean? I don’t go out as much, and just try to pick and choose good things. For instance, I could basically do a whole bunch of stuff for “Access Hollywood,” but what I’ve chosen to do is just the big events. I’m just going to do the fashion for the Golden Globes, Oscars and Grammys. You ain’t gonna see me on “Access Hollywood” every day of the week, because that’s just too much.

Q: How did the masses respond on your Courvoisier tour, when you went into nightclubs for the “gentleman’s makeover”? Did they just go along with it, or do you think you really enlightened some young men?

A: I really think I did. We had manicurists set up, and we’d give everybody a smoking jacket, and we’d see that they learned how to tie an ascot or bow tie. I would walk over to the guys while they’re getting a massage or manicure and say, “Are you cool? Are you comfortable? Have you ever had anything like this before?” They were like, “This is kinda cool.” Before I ever got my first manicure, it was intimidating for me to be going in there to get somebody doing that, because first of all it’s all women in there. And then the smell’s kinda funny. But all the guys went away with learning how to tie an ascot or a bow tie, and doing a little bit of “luxury” something that they haven’t done before. The bottom line is you gotta start somewhere. Yeah, there’s a whole bunch of work to do. There’s a lot we have to do about education.
I try to be as well read as I can, but I only get to the [NY] Times like twice a week. I don’t read the Times everyday, I just don’t. And there’s some things, a lot of times, I definitely don’t understand. And a lot of people get intimidated by that, but you really have to read and see… Like, when the candidates, during that time, I would read all the different columns and read the editorials, and I would get a highlighter pen, and the stuff I didn’t get, I would go ask somebody.

Q: When I first became aware of you, there was talk of the “Gentleman’s Movement.” Now the press seems to be focused more on you as a person. Is there really a movement happening?

A: I would say definitely. Let me tell you, no one wants to put an album out, get on the stage and rock more than I do. I want to do that real bad. That’s not going to happen till ‘06, because I’m really taking the time to focus on this book. Trust me, I want to. And I literally had to go pray over this one — I’m keepin’ it all the way real with you. I can’t go with what’s necessarily going to make me hot, or what’s going to be the most fun thing. This book is more important to the community.

Q: Again on the tough side, there was talk around town that it’s really not about the movement with you. You’re in it for yourself, for self-promotion. How do you respond to that?

A: Again, I would have to answer with what I just said to you. I just signed a record deal with Kanye West who’s one of the biggest producers in the game right now, and he’s very excited about my project and working with me. And I was working on songs and records before I got to him, and I’m not doing that until ‘06. Why am I not doing the album first, and then pushing the book?

Q: And the book ties into your being a social reformer. Are you comfortable with that term? You want to bring about change, right?

A: I definitely want to bring about change. And the reality is, I think people in the public eye don’t want to embrace that they’re role models. When I sign an autograph, I never just put my name. I always put “Follow your dreams,” “Stay focused in school.” Just find somebody with an autograph of mine and you will see that. And it takes a lot longer to do that, trust me. The people that say I’m in it for self-promotion? Whatever. They should be the first people to get my book.

Q: What about pretension? People who say they’re tired of the umbrella, the bow ties, the ceremonious door-opening and rising when a woman enters the room?

A: Black people love to celebrate. I think it has to do with our roots. And it’s so funny, because one of the only restaurants I’ve been in where I’ve seen a woman walk to the dinner table and all the gentlemen stand up, is at Cipriani’s. I’m not sure if that’s some Italian culture thing. I’m from Atlanta: I grew up with white folks and black folks and that was it. Which is why I chose to go to New York. And there’s something just very classy about that. And it’s not just on the men. A lot of the problem is the women. Women help men treat them not so well. In the days of old, when there wasn’t as much integration, if you will, and everybody kind of checked on everybody’s kid. Like somebody down the street might spank your kid. I think it’s about everybody doing checks and balances on each other. And to those that say they’re over the… you know, tell ‘em to grow up.

It’s one of those questions that occasionally gets academics, students of culture, and cocktail-party conversationalists in a lather. Indeed, merely asking the question can be enough to get you into hot water. Regardless what side you happen to lean toward, you’re likely find an index finger stabbed in your direction and palm slapped loudly against your Louis Quinze table. In all likelihood you will be pilloried as either a stuffy reactionary or fashionably intellectual provocateur.

The question, of course, is whether a woman can be a dandy.

Feminist intellectuals latch onto the dandy, citing what they see as his show-biz quality in order to substantiate their pet theses about the nature of gender — mainly that it is a social construct, an unending performance that has little to do with the performer’s genetic heritage, biological make-up, or the shape of his or her wedding tackle. As evidence, they cite long lists of “female dandies,” women who prefer trousers to skirts and bow ties to bustles — George Sand to Romaine Brooks — to illustrate their points about “transgression” and all that claptrap.

This naturally meets with some derision from strict dandiacal constructivists. “Bah!” they exclaim. “That’s not dandyism; that’s drag!”

About this time the finger-pointing and table-slapping starts, and the next thing you know you find yourself taking sides over less theoretical issues, such as women’s membership at Augusta National Golf Club and executive pay parity. It only goes downhill from there.

So I have good reason for doing what I am about to do, which is avoid this argument as if it were a colony of badly tailored lepers. I live a comfortable and quiet life married to a beautiful young woman who loves me, and I will be damned if I’m going to spoil it now by getting into an argument over just who wears the dandy pants in the family. In fact, I would not touch that valise full of rattlesnakes with a ten-foot cigarette holder.

What I am going to do instead is tell the story of a remarkable woman, one who has been called a “dandy” by some very important persons, including Quentin Crisp.

Perhaps the only thing that can be certain about the Marchesa Luisa Casati, 48 years after her death in 1957, is that she was the most flamboyant and dramatic character to flit through the early 20th century European beau monde. They simply don’t make her kind anymore: richer than God, gloriously semi-sane, with outrageous taste in friends, art, décor, clothes, houses, pets and lovers. Guests of Casati’s boudoir were a veritable who’s who of the aristos, aesthetes, artists, bons vivants, poets, dancers and dandies that made the early 20th century’s art scene what it was: totally, utterly, and delightfully mad.

In fact, Casati made Peggy Guggenheim look like an ariviste Midwestern hausfrau by comparison. No doubt Casati served as the inspiration for the crazy aunt archetype later celebrated in books such as Partick Dennis’s “Auntie Mame.”

(more…)

Taste in poetry is akin to taste in food and drink. Some like the floral emotion in Shakespeare’s sonnets, others the disturbed modernism of T.S. Eliot. Some take pleasure from the stolid and heroic verses of Homer, while others prefer the alcoholic ramblings of Bukowski or the dharma-laced peregrinations of Kerouac.

Over time some tastes are acquired while others are let go of, but in the end you either like a thing or you don’t.

Me, I like my poetry three ways: short, saucy and funny. Call me shallow (it won’t hurt), but my favorite poet is Dorothy Parker, and my favorite poem “Martini Glasses:”

I like to have a martini;
Two at the very most,
Three I’m under the table,
Four, I’m under my host.

I acquired my taste for Parker one day when a friend, who wanted to make sure I had something to read during a long flight to the Yucatan, loaned me a volume of her selected works. It was a testament to the effect that time, place and circumstance have on one’s taste that I happened to first crack the book in the airport bar, that it opened as if by magic to the appropriate page; that there was already a half-empty martini at my elbow, and that I had just been forced into ignominious retreat after clumsily attempting to convince the young lady next to me that it would be best for both of us if she threw over her fiancé in Chicago and flew to Isla Mujeres with me right then.

Both Parker and the cocktail have sustained me all these years, through that defeat and many similar ones, with a wisecracking directness. Like Parker, the martini employs many the same stratagem: Economy, sustainability and power selectively applied in overwhelming quantities at the most vulnerable points, rather like Napoleon in his gloire days.

The martini is, of course, a historical phenomenon. I shan’t overburden you with details you’ve probably already read in Barnaby Conrad III’s magnificent history, “The Martini,” but I will give you the facts as I know them. The martini is not the earliest known cocktail. That honor belongs to the sidecar, which I may address at a later date. The martini either was or was not named after the San Francisco Bay Area town of Martinez. It either was or was not invented by an Italian immigrant bartender by the name of Martini at the Knickerbocker hotel in NYC. It either was or was not named after the fast-firing British rifle, the Henri-Martini. And it either was or was not named for Martini & Rossi vermouth. That pretty much covers the cocktail’s cloudy origins.

(more…)

Esquire’s “Best Dressed Men in the World” issue confers highest honors on pop star Andre 3000. The colorful, creative Andre, inspired by classic finery and a true individual among his musical peers, is the lone natty gent amid a sea of mediocrity and platitude. And Esquire’s decision to eschew time-honored standards of what it means to be well dressed by including t-shirts and jeans — so long as they express the wearer’s “individuality” — should have its editors eating crow.

In its September issue, Esquire writes that fashion director Nick Sullivan and fashion editor Wendell Brown (whose photo barely registers a quiver on the panache seismograph), “combed the earth” seeking out “men whose sense of style stems from an expression of individuality rather than simply designer labels.” They further wished to avoid men who are “sort of famous for being famous, or stylish because they’re famous.” Fashion, they say, “is about knowing what type of guy you are and putting together a look that works for you.”

Yet in an act of apparently unintentional irony, Esquire has done exactly what it said it wouldn’t.

The 18 men included seem to have been chosen more for embodying characteristics the magazine wished to highlight, for being handsome or charismatic, or for representing fields Esquire wished to include (pop culture and politics comprise the bulk of the roster). As for the designer labels remark, half of those featured were dressed and groomed by stylists in attire donated by top fashion brands.

Further, with men selected for mastering looks such “fresh outta the suitcase,” Esquire has completely changed the concept of what “best dressed” means. Does throwing on a suit coat, even a bespoke one, over a political-slogan t-shirt pass as well dressed today?

“Best dressed” is a superlative term. It assumes something quantifiable, a standard of achievement based on agreed-upon values. It proclaims that someone has risen above others, run faster, jumped higher. Yet by its own definition, Esquire’s evaluation criteria is almost wholly subjective.

Of the men selected, Esquire writes, “their individuality made manifest in everything from a luxurious bespoke suit to a basic pair of jeans.” Yet a bespoke suit alone does not make one well dressed (though it’s a good start), and jeans may make one “stylish” or “cool,” but “best dressed”?

Music producer Pharrell Williams is lauded for showing readers how to mix “old and new into something completely your own.” Hugh Grant may be charming and funny, but his selection as best dressed is more funny than charming. A quote by Spanish actor Javier Bardem has him opining about the “simple things” in his wardrobe — such as his AC/DC concert t-shirt. Actor Paul Bettany, you’ll be fascinated to know, is “as much at home in an Ozwald Boateng cocktail suit as he is in casual jeans and sneakers for bumming around the house.” Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai mixes traditional Afghan dress with Western suit jackets. Innovative, perhaps, except that no one wears Afghan clothing outside of Afghanistan.

In what seems a token nod to the traditional notion of what it means to be well dressed, Prince Charles is included. He’s shown wearing his preferred garb of double-breasted glen plaid suit, spread collar shirt, regimental tie and pocket square — and looks like a prince.

Subjectivism has been a hallmark of our culture since the 1960s. Outside the field of sports, we find it nearly impossible to say anything is better than anything else. This inability to discern the fine from the mediocre is most prevalent precisely where it shouldn’t be, among intellectuals in the arts and media — people who should know better.

While perusing Esquire, a copy of Alan Flusser’s “Dressing the Man” I’d ordered arrived by post. Delving inside, I found an entirely different take on the sartorial state of the contemporary male. Writes Flusser, “In one of fashion’s less fortunate ironies, when asked to name those public figures who now exemplify male decor, American style gurus and menswear professionals come up relatively empty-handed. Likewise, fashion journalists are equally baffled, unable to produce even a foursome of domestic male fashion exemplars under the age of sixty.”

Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. is fondly remembered today, and less for his film work than for being a style icon. But he dressed in an era of accepted standards. The reason we struggle to find men who are truly well dressed, as Flusser laments, is because with the collapse of shared values and standards of dress, the entire concept of “best dressed” disappears.

L’Uomo Vogue
January 2004

Every generation has its destiny, and for the young men of the Atomic Age, it was nothing less than to have the world as their oyster — and wash it down with a dry martini.

Between 1954-1964 a new masculine archetype flourished. Fresh from victory in World War II and gorged on the fruits of affluence, American men developed a democratized, pop form of dandyism for the masses, a cult of style and leisure based on the carefree life of bachelorhood. With a well paying office job and the benefits of the growing sexual revolution, the “swinging bachelor” could cultivate a carefree and sybaritic lifestyle based on everything that was modern and hip.

In short, he could become a playboy. (more…)