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 […]
Gautier On Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire By Theophile Gautier, 1867 Although his existence was short — he lived scarce forty-six years — Charles Baudelaire had time to assert himself, […]
Eye For Elegance
Eye For Elegance By Christian Chensvold Ralph Lauren Magazine, Fall 2008 Norman Rockwell’s name is synonymous with the golden age of American illustration, while that […]
Robert de Montesquiou
Robert de Montesquiou: The Magnificent Dandy From “Elegant Wits And Grand Horizontals” By Cornelia Otis Skinner, 1962 In a charming book of memoirs Elisabeth de […]
Heroism In Times Of Decadence
Baudelaire’s 1863 essay on dandyism, after characterizing the tradition as a “strange sort of spirituality,” declares it “the last stroke of heroism in times of […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
The Prophet Of Dandyism
If it weren’t for Barbey d’Aurevilly, you probably wouldn’t be reading this. What do we mean? That if he hadn’t been born this week in […]
Dandyism & Decadence
From “The Idea of Decadence in French Literature” By AE Carter, 1958 Dandy and decadent are fused in Baudelaire’s work and life. He affected an […]
Spleen On Me
Since 1863, a certain type of young man — talented perhaps, but not creative; spiritual and philosophic, yet with expensive tastes; dismissive of commercial success, […]
Dandy Of The Apocalypse
The Dandy Of The Apocalypse By Christian Chensvold I am the dandy of the zombie apocalypse Riding the underground tunnel amid blips, Lights […]
The Prince Of Chic
It’s not often one happens upon a gem in the papers, especially one with something poignant and propitious to say about the body dandiacal. Well, […]
Born To Be Wilde
Oscar Wilde was controversial almost from the start. The languid pose he struck during his days at Magdelen College, Oxford in the 1870s would become […]
Dandyism As Spiritual Path
Dandyism As Spiritual Path By Christian Chensvold From “The Philosophy Of Style,” 2023 Can dandyism actually serve as a spiritual path, guiding us through the […]
The Canon
This list of canonical texts has not been updated since the belle epoque of Dandyism.net circa 2006, but perhaps it will be someday. Principal Texts […]
A Man For Times Of Decadence
From “Essai de psychologie contemporaine: Charles Baudelaire” by Paul Bourget La Nouvelle Revue 13, 1881 If a special nuance in the meaning of love and […]
Majestic Though In Ruin
You probably remember the ancient riddle about the traveler who meets a fork in the road and isn’t sure which path to take. In the […]