Dandy Talk at the National Arts Club

On Friday, October 5th, I will be participating in a panel discussion on Dandysim at the National Arts Club. With me on the panel will be Rose Callahan of The Dandy Portraits, Matt Fox of the Fine and Dandy Shop, and manners expert Thomas P. Farley. There will be a reception with refreshments provided by Hendricks Gin and music provided by Dandy Wellington and his band. I hope you can come!

The Chap: Seersucker Social

The following is an excerpt from an article I wrote for The Chap magazine about Washington D.C.'s Dandies and Quaintrelles 2011 Seersucker Social. The beautiful photographs are provided by Rose Callahan of The Dandy Portraits:

...For the Capitol city of a superpower nation, Washington DC is sadly insular, non-cosmopolitan, and aesthetically conservative. The suits are gray or navy, the ties are red or blue, and not since the pith-helmeted and moustachioed Teddy Roosevelt has a president looked like anything other than a businessman. The summer heat can be stifling, adding to the soporific atmosphere of the city.

            It was with the admirable aim of introducing his notoriously staid home city to a form of more “refined leisure” that Eric Brewer founded Dandies & Quaintrelles. The group is dedicated to organizing events which embody an egalitarian elegance worthy of the Bill of Rights...

...Seersucker is by no means a new addition to the pantheon of summer fabrics. The word arrived in the English Language from the Hindi sirsakar, which in turn got it from the Persian shiroshakar, by way of Tamerlane's 14th-century invasion. The original means “milk and sugar,” a reference to the alternating textures of the puckered stripes of cotton. The fabric is most commonly found in white with another color in eighth-inch vertical Bengal stripes. It is less frequently found in gingham checks, and I once nearly fainted in admiring awe at a white-on-white striped seersucker dinner jacket with a built-up linen shawl collar and turn-back cuffs. Because the fabric is so light and crisp (holding a crease much better than plain linen,) it's perfect for summer suits, usually half-lined......At the very start of the twentieth century, seersucker began its journey to become one of this country's best-loved fabrics. Although the British wore seersucker in the empire's equatorial colonies, its popularity boomed in the heat of the American South. It soon became a staple of the Southern Gentleman's wardrobe, and the traditional uniform for going to the Kentucky Derby, getting tanked on Mint Juleps, and losing your son's college fund on a long-shot. The fabric later gained in popularity when those sly young Ivy-Leaguers appropriated the garments as separate pieces rather than full suits. 

Even the hallowed halls of the Senate occasionally see seersucker. Once a year, both lady and gentleman Senators celebrate Seersucker Thursday, a tradition started by Republican Senator Trent Lott. The event harks back to a time before air-conditioning, when the heat was so punishing that sweat-covered legislators, probably driven mad, did things like enact prohibition....

Rose Callahan's "The Dandy Portraits"

While researching my history book, I was fortunate enough to meet some fascinating present-day dandies of wide variety, each of whom pointed me towards yet more dandies, often in unlikely places. It turns out that at the same time, a photographer named Rose Callahan was meeting these very same people. Strangely enough, none of them mentioned either of us to the other. But Rose and I eventually did cross paths and since then we've worked together on articles for The Chap magazine and the book which will eventually come out of her project.

The Dandy Portraits is a website not to be missed - Rose's photographs are stunning and her subjects are fascinating both visually and personally. I'll be posting her photos often when discussing my meetings with any of these men. Be sure to check it out!

About "Lives of the Dandies"

For the past several years, I have been researching and writing a book about the lives of dandies of the past 200+ years, some famous, some obscure, all fascinating. The "Lives of the Dandies" blog is an opportunity to share snippets of my work, my research, and various dandy-related topics.

As an undergraduate at NYU, I wrote my senior thesis on Dandyism in the 20th Century, unknowingly setting out on what would later become for me a scholarly obsession. My undergraduate thesis, looking back on it, was just as half-cocked and unremarkable as one might expect. Around that time, I also wrote two articles for Dandyism.net: one on Beau Brummell's biographer Ian Kelly playing Brummell in an off-broadway play, and one on a dandyism discussion panel in New York City. That was the extent of my dandy-related output for some years.

However, while attending the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, I revisited my dandy obsession, completing a book-proposal and a substantial amount of content for the book. My proposal won the prestigious Lytton Fellowship, which awarded me a sizable grant to continue work on the book. Since then, I have been traveled the world writing and doing research - spending time on Savile Row speaking with world-famous tailors and cutters and looking through archives dating back to the Regency period, conducting interviews both in person and online with the likes of Stephen Fry, Gay Talese, Ian Kelly, and many others, reading hundreds of books, archived newspapers and magazines, meeting some of the most eccentric and extraordinary living dandies, and traveling as far as the Congo to spend a week with the famous Sapeurs.

Since my descent into the world of the dandy, which seems to stretch on through an ever-widening series of caves, canals, and boulevards with no end in sight, I have also become a regular writer for The Chap magazine on dandy-related subjects, the manager of the appropriately-named Against Nature bespoke atelier in New York, and a collaborator with Rose Callahan of The Dandy Portraits - a photo project which will ultimately become its own book. 

This blog is my opportunity to share a few of the bits and pieces I've either collected or generated on my journey. I hope you enjoy it.