Dandy Style: 250 Years of British Men's Fashion

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Its two sections – Tailored Dandy and Decorated Dandy – open with imposing imaginary portraits, Tailor and Dandy, by Turner Prize winning international artist, Lubaina Himid. Details, details, details. That’s what Dandy style is all about. Your accessories will not only vamp up your foundation (the suit), but will make a statement about you and your personality. Again, less is more here. A Dandy never over-accessorizes – he always has it just right. This autumn, Manchester Art Gallery is all about cloth, cut and pattern with the new exhibition Dandy Style, focusing on men’s style through the ages, from the 18th century to the present day. Set in the brand new dedicated Fashion Gallery, expect fine fabrics, paintings and photographs all celebrating menswear.

Mixing the historic with the contemporary, the exhibition highlights a range of examples from Manchester’s collections presented in two main sections: Tailored Dandy and Decorated Dandy. Italian street photographer Daniele Tamagni’s Gentlemen of Bacongo series (main image) reveals the dandies in the Republic of Congo’s Brazzaville. They are known as ‘Sapeurs’, which Tamagni considers “a revolutionary movement, because dressing up is a way to escape and forget poverty”. This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sourcesin this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. ( May 2008) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) When it comes to fit, a true Dandy’s clothes fit perfectly. Sleeves are never too long or too short, and clothes are never baggy or loose-fitting. Our slim-fit, 100% cotton Extreme Cutaway White Premium Weave Shirt works perfectly for the Dandy in quality and fit. Paying attention to fabric and tailoring is a must for dandy style, otherwise you’re doing it wrong. Skimping on quality is something a gentleman never does. The decision was taken not to exhibit this item within the timeframe of the exhibition because of its physically vulnerable condition. There was neither time nor capacity to carry out the necessary conservation work to display it safely, and we did not want to risk causing further irreparable damage to it. Kani’s resulting artwork A Whisper Behind the Grand Tour 2022, powerfully expresses the wider impact of such decisions, and highlights the complex questions we need to consider in deciding how to prioritise limited resources.

The history of dandy fashion

France is the fashion capital of the world and has a whole history when it comes to style and fashion. Dandyism entered the European state after the French Revolution. The style was initiated as a political statement of dressing in an aristocratic style to distinguish its members from the sans-culottes.

Callaghan has been photographing dandies since 2008 for her project The Dandy Portraits, and her images document the unique. But for some, dandyism has moved firmly into the mainstream. “I’d almost say that every man under 30 is a dandy today,” argues former Vice style editor Daryoush Haj-Najafi. “Everyone wants to be beautiful these days: it's not transgressive and it's not edgy to be into clothes or be camp. Early manifestations of dandyism were Le petit-maître (the Little Master) and the musky Muscadin ruffians of the middle-class Thermidorean reaction (1794–1795), but modern dandyism appeared in the stratified societies of Europe during the revolutionary period of the 1790s, especially in cultural centres such as London and in Paris. [4] Socially, the dandy cultivated a persona of extreme cynical reserve to the degree that the Victorian novelist George Meredith defined such posed cynicism as "intellectual dandyism"; whereas the kinder Thomas Carlyle, in the novel Sartor Resartus (1831), dismissed the dandy as just "a clothes-wearing man"; and Honoré de Balzac in La fille aux yeux d'or (1835) chronicled the idle life of Henri de Marsay, a model French dandy done in by his obsessive Romanticism in pursuit of love, which included yielding to sexual passion and murderous jealousy.For 200 years the Grand Tour set the standard for western culture. In the 1700s and 1800s, it established forms of privileged travel and cultural tourism to Greece and Italy. Many western European artists took inspiration from classical antiquity. Ruins in idyllic landscapes, nymphs, and goddesses defined the classical fantasy as the pinnacle of taste. The counterpart to the dandy is the quaintrelle, a woman whose life is dedicated to the passionate expression of personal charm and style, to enjoying leisurely pastimes, and the dedicated cultivation of the pleasures of life. Dandy Style, an important new exhibition at the Manchester Art Gallery that explores 250 years of menswear from the eighteenth century to the present day, includes several significant loans from the Westminster Menswear Archive (WMA). a b Brooks, Ann (15 July 2014). Popular Culture: Global Intercultural Perspectives. Macmillan International Higher Education. ISBN 9781137426727.

As such , Dandy Style, Covid-delayed and – you might say – fashionably late, commands not only what was once the Clore Interactive Gallery, but a second exhibition space on the floor above. The most spectacular interpretation of the dandy style for women was shown, ironically, not in England, where the style originated, but in Milan. Gianfranco Ferré’s elevated white collars and exaggerated white lapels and cuffs conveyed the essence of the dandy style but in a modern, updated way. Dandyism was then rooted in Great Britain by George Bryan “Beau” Brummell, a men’s fashion arbiter. Dandy style is not just about your clothes; it’s about your general appearance. Therefore, grooming plays an essential role and a true Dandy wouldn’t be caught dead looking unkempt or with an untrimmed beard. His cut, color and style will always be maintained; presenting himself as immaculate in appearance. Nicolay, Claire. Origins and Reception of Regency Dandyism: Brummell to Baudelaire. PhD diss., Loyola U of Chicago, 1998.

Walden, George. Who's a Dandy? — Dandyism and Beau Brummell, Gibson Square, London, 2002. ISBN 1903933188. Reviewed in Uncommon People, The Guardian, 12 October 2006. Celebrating 250 years of male self-expression, investigating the portraiture and wardrobe of the fashionable British man In monarchic France, dandyism was ideologically bound to the egalitarian politics of the French Revolution (1789–1799); thus the dandyism of the jeunesse dorée (the Gilded Youth) was their political statement of aristocratic style in effort to differentiate and distinguish themselves from the working-class sans-culottes, from the poor men who owned no stylish knee-breeches made of silk. The dandy creates his own unity by aesthetic means. But it is an aesthetic of negation. To live and die before a mirror: that, according to Baudelaire, was the dandy's slogan. It is indeed a coherent slogan. The dandy is, by occupation, always in opposition [to society]. He can only exist by defiance . . . The dandy, therefore, is always compelled to astonish. Singularity is his vocation, excess his way to perfection. Perpetually incomplete, always on the fringe of things, he compels others to create him, while denying their values. He plays at life because he is unable to live [life]. [23]

At the fringe of its centenary year in 2023, Manchester Art Gallery, declining to trade on seasons past and with an a keen eye on the shape of things to come, is maintaining its position on the cutting edge by cutting the ribbon on a new fashion gallery. The dandies professed to be unequivocally masculine, although many people found this difficult to believe, not least Jane Austen in Emma: ‘Emma’s very good opinion of Frank Churchill was a little shaken the following day, by hearing that he was gone off to London, merely to have his hair cut.’ This was a round trip of 32 miles, which took all day by horse and carriage. Charles Pierre Baudelaire – A French Poet was deeply interested in Dandyism and various times he wrote about it. According to him, “no profession other than elegance… no other status, but that of cultivating the idea of beauty in their own persons… The dandy must aspire to be sublime without interruption; he must live and sleep before a mirror.” From Oscar Wilde’s penchant for extravagance, to the musicians of today seen through the lens of the best photographers, this show has something for everyone, whatever your style.Kani Kamil’s work identifies core questions around the identity, value and use of historic objects such as the embroidered fragment.