“The Dandy” in Literature and Lifestyle, from Europe to Asia

Image: Leyendecker’s distinct cross-hatch style is seen in this 1911 painting for Cluett Dress shirts, featuring a particularly intimate gaze between two gentlemen.

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New York, N.Y. xxx

From Anglo-American imagery from 1880-1930, to East Asian imagery from 2000-present.

The dandy lifestyle required hours devoted to shopping, styling, and pampering of the self. These behaviors were not initially associated with femininity, but rather vanity. He worshiped himself through improving his appearance. In many ways, the dandy was the object of his own affections.

It is important to note that the dandy, even as purely a movement in fashion, was revolutionary. The dandy created his own aesthetic independent of the rest of society. To dress in this way played the dandy in opposition to the rest of society. Knowing this, it is easy to see why the dandy was poised in the perfect position to challenge his world’s views on gender and sexuality.

But why is dandyism so tied to homosexuality in particular? This change began to occur in the late nineteenth century, spurred by a shift in the burgeoning psychological community. James Adams writes in Dandies and Desert Saints that deviant forms of masculinity were pathologized only after sexuality entered wider scientific discourse. In the case of the dandy, this meant the beginning of the association between effeminacy and homosexuality.

Additionally, public events that occurred during this time period enforced this now common interpretation. Oscar Wilde was famous for his flamboyant dandyism, going on lecture tours on the subject of aestheticism. His quote, “One should either be a work of Art or wear a work of Art,” quickly became emblematic of the ideology. But it was Wilde’s arrest and his very public trials in 1895 that truly forged an association between gayness, sexualization, and the dandy movement. These events solidified homosexuality both as a word as well as a concept, ever linked to Wilde’s trademark style.