Pelham’s Maxims

From “Pelham: Or the Adventures of a Gentleman” By Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1828 1) Do not require your dress so much to fit, as to adorn […]

In That Suit You May Pass Anywhere

Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1896 novel Rodney Stone follows the adventures of a young and ambitious boxer as he navigates the world of professional prizefighting in […]

Saint-Loup

First impressions of Robert de Saint-Loup From “Within a Budding Grove” By Marcel Proust, 1919 One afternoon of scorching heat I was in the dining-room […]

Treatise On Elegant Living

Every era has its particular expression of elegance. But while that expression is forever in flux, the principles that govern it are fixed and eternal. […]

The Joker’s Riled

“La chair est triste, helas, et j’ai lu tous les livres.” When I was younger, those lines of Mallarmé used to haunt me. This was back […]

Something Superior To The Visible World

A 19th-century woman wrote herself into the annals of history by saying that the feeling of being perfectly well dressed brings a supernatural calm that […]

The Complete Dandy

From “D’Orsay, or the Complete Dandy” By W. Teignmouth Shore, 1911 Image: detail of Count d’Orsay in the National Portrait Gallery What a delightful fellow […]

A Nero Of Our Time

Cold, elegant and aloof, Boris Lermontov is the “attractive brute” at the center of “The Red Shoes,” the 1948 cinematic masterpiece by Powell & Pressburger. […]

New Regency: 20 Years Of Dandyism.net

When Christian Chensvold, Dandyism.net’s founder and guiding light for the past two decades, asked me to write a post commemorating the site’s twentieth anniversary, I […]

Letters To A Young Dandy

  My Dear Palmieri: It is a rare and wonderful gift for a curmudgeon such as myself to receive the praise of youth. It’s nice […]

Social & Literary Dandyism

Social and Literary Dandyism Littell’s Living Age, 1880 Article unsigned Dandies, like saints, are never much beloved by their fellow-creatures. Like saints, they have an […]

Aristocratic By Nature

From “New Notes On Edgar Poe,” 1857 By Charles Baudelaire Decadent literature! Empty words which we often hear fall, with thes onority of a deep […]

I Lock The Door Upon Myself

In 1900 Fernand Khnopff had a house built according to his plans — a house with false windows. Silence and solitude were central themes in the […]