The London Lounge

I like Manton's The Suit but I've never been satisfied with the chapter on dandification and formality. It lacks something.

I have tried to solve the puzzle with out reaching a satisfiyng result. Maybe you can elaborate or correct on this scheme:



As you can see, it gives four styles within "slow fashion", classic style:

Conventional Classic
Conventional Classic Casual
Dandified Classic Casual
Dandified Classic

I am aware that for instance blazer + flannels can be dandified by stressing cut, color etc. This scheme is just a typification.

HappyStroller wrote:perhaps in relationship to blazer+grey flannels, the tweed jacket+corduroy lies to the left of the former along the formaility continuum?[/color]

Hmmm, I am not sure: is a blazer more formal than a tweed jacket? It is more conventional, that is: less excentric, but still I find it informal compared to a suit. Here is an updated version:

I agree that a blazer is a bit more formal than a tweed coat. Grey flannels are more formal than corduroys too, I believe. Part of being a dandy is breaking the rules creatively though, no?

My attempt to fill in the blanks in the upper-right hand corner of your original scheme would be:

DB suit + patterned shirt + patterned tie + antiqued brown shoes + pocket square + flower + fancy umbrella + hat + gloves + + + + + One key to being a dandy is the accessorization to excess!

I like your new pairing of "eccentric" with conventional. But there might be something better even. Standard and advanced? I'm not sure. Dandy and eccentric are a bit pejorative though.

MTM wrote:Part of being a dandy is breaking the rules creatively though, no?

Or to follow the rules like knowbody else. Wasn't that what Brummell did: perfecting rather than inventing?

I like your new pairing of "eccentric" with conventional. But there might be something better even. Standard and advanced? I'm not sure. Dandy and eccentric are a bit pejorative though.

So that would be:

Standard Classic Leisure
Advanced Classic Leisure
etc. ?

I'll try to find something to illustrate the scheme ...

Suggestion: to better illustrate the varying degrees you could try placing your categories at opposing poles of a circle thus creating 4 quadrants. Placing the specific combinations in various positions inside these quadrants could illustrate the more subtle differences between them.

First of all, greetings from a new forum participant.

Gruto writes: “Hmmm, I am not sure: is a blazer more formal than a tweed jacket?”

Ca va sans dire! A proper blazer with metal buttons and navy blue plain fabric (worsted, say) is certainly more formal than even the most austere but still, typically, “organic-colored” and “textured “ tweed jacket. I would go as far as to say that a blazer (worn with semi-formal trousers) is as formal as most tweed suits.

MTM writes: “Part of being a dandy is breaking the rules creatively though, no?”

Gruto answers: “Or to follow the rules like nobody else. Wasn't that what Brummell did: perfecting rather than inventing?”

I think a dandy is simply a man with an exquisite, cultivated sense of clothing and quality but perhaps (to average men) excessive or at least noteworthy interest in the clothes he wears. I think by definition almost anyone posting regularly on this site is a bit of a dandy. Naturally, I do not mean it pejoratively. A dandy is not synonymous with a fop.

Of course, someone in control of a medium can afford the occasional, well-considered flourish. The odd broken ‘rule’. But a dandy is not a peacock.

Beau Brummell was famously fastidious about quality )of cut, drape, etc.) and, to our eyes, would have appeared quite conservative. I.e., he helped popularize a much less flamboyant costume for men,, much darker sober floors people nowdays seem to think he wore frilly floral stuff. Not at all. A modern equivalent of BB might be, say, Ralph Lauren (I mean the designer, not the RTW clothes they sell). in terms of a very constructed, internally consistent, even ‘hermetic’ aesthetic.