Dandy - Later Dandyism

Later Dandyism

The literary dandy is a familiar figure in the writings, and sometimes the self-presentation, of Oscar Wilde, H.H. Munro (Clovis and Reginald), P.G. Wodehouse (Bertie Wooster) and Ronald Firbank, writers linked by their subversive air.

The poets Algernon Charles Swinburne and Oscar Wilde, Walter Pater, the American artist James McNeill Whistler, the Spanish artist Salvador Dalí, Joris-Karl Huysmans, and Max Beerbohm were dandies of the Belle Époque, as was Robert de Montesquiou — Marcel Proust's inspiration for the Baron de Charlus. In Italy, Gabriele d'Annunzio and Carlo Bugatti exemplified the artistic bohemian dandyism of the fin de siecle. Wilde wrote that, "One should either be a work of Art, or wear a work of Art."

At the end of the 19th century, American dandies were called dudes. Evander Berry Wall was nicknamed the "King of the Dudes".

George Walden, in the essay Who's a Dandy?, identifies Noël Coward, Andy Warhol, and Quentin Crisp as modern dandies. The character Psmith in the novels of P. G. Wodehouse is regarded to be a dandy, both physically and intellectually. Agatha Christie's Poirot is said to be a dandy.

The artist Sebastian Horsley described himself as a "dandy in the underworld" in his eponymous autobiography.

In Japan, dandyism became a fashion subculture during the late 1990s. Presently, the term is also used to refer to an attractive but older, well-dressed man, usually a man in his late 40s or 50s.

In Spain during the early 19th century a curious phenomena developed linked to the idea of dandysm; while in England and France individuals from the middle classes adopted aristocratic manners the Spanish aristocracy adopted the fashions of the lower classes called majos, characterized for their elaborate outfits and sense of style as opposed to the modern frenchified "afrancesados", as for their cheeky arrogant attitude. Some famous dandies in later times were amongst other the Duke of Osuna, Mariano Tellez-Girón, artist Salvador Dalí and poet Luís Cernuda.