The Dandy: Dressing in Defiance
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Lovely Betwixters, it's me, Kate Lister. You are here, I am here, and we're listening to Betwixt the Sheets, apart from me, who is presenting or hosting. What am I doing on Betwixt the Sheets? Anyway, I'm here and you're here, and the guest is here, and that's a really important thing. But before we can continue, I do have to tell you, this is an adult podcast, brought by adults to other adults about adulty things in an adulty way, covering a range of adult subjects, and you should be an adult too. And if you're not an adult,

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Yes, social courtesy does make a difference. Goodness, what beautiful dance. Goodness, it has nothing to do with it, does it? Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society, with me, Kate Lister. The dandy, defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as one who studies above everything to dress elegantly and fashionably. You might be thinking about Bo Brummel, whose motto in Regency Britain was, don't talk about clothes, let your clothes do the talking.

You might be thinking of all the stars on the red carpet of the 2025 Met Gala, the theme of which was tailored for you. And the exhibition that inspired it was super fine, tailoring black style, which was heavily influenced by black dandyism.

But what is dandyism? What must one do to become a dandy? Do you have to be a man? Is that the rule? Can girlies be dandies too? Is sexuality relevant? And is it only for rich people? Today, I'm joined by historian Peter Anderson, who is the author of The Dandy, A People's History of Sartorial Splendor. And if anyone can help us out with this one, it's him. Right, back straight, chin up, let's do this.

Hello, and welcome to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Peter Anderson. How are you doing? I'm doing well. How are you? I'm thrilled to be talking to you. That's how I am. I mean, how...

How perfect is this? Mere days after the Met Gala, and here I am talking to the author of the new book, The Dandy, A People's History of Sartorial Splendor. Are you a fan of the Met? Were you aware of the Met and their theme of dandyism? Not really, no. I mean, I was aware that they would have this theme this year and so on, but I'm not a... I don't really...

keep track of the fashion world and those kinds of things. Quite right. And if they didn't invite you to the event, then Sodom, quite frankly. Yes, exactly. Yes. Right? Who cares about that? But their theme was black dandyism and you researched the history of dandyism. What brought you to this area of research? Do you remember when you first thought, I'm going to write a book about the dandy? Yes, I think it's taken shape over quite a long time. I mean,

I start in the book by describing my sort of autobiographical reasons for writing the book, which goes back to me in my teens trying to dress differently from everyone else in the schoolyard and, you know, being fond of bow ties and tweed jackets and so on. So there is something there, something very deep inside of me. But then also...

While working as a historian, I've been a historian now for some time, and I've come back to this topic now and then, writing about different types of dandyism, mainly in the Victorian period, but also in other eras. Would you consider yourself to be a dandy still, or a recovering dandy?

Uh, recovering, I should say. It was something that was very important to me as a young man to sort of create my identity and sort of learn who I was. But now I'm more sort of comfortable in who I am. I know who I am. So it's more like, I mean, the interest is still there. I still take an interest in it.

bow ties and dress and so on, but in a different way. I'm more relaxed now. We should probably start with the most obvious question. What is a dandy and when did they emerge?

Yes, that's a very good question. And I think it's not very easy to answer always because the point of my book as well is to change perhaps a bit the definition of the dandy from this more sort of aristocratic intellectual type that the dandy is commonly portrayed as to something more widespread, more popular. So that's the sort of main gist of my book to write about popular dandyism, as I call it.

But I think if I mean, the common definition of the dandy is a man who dresses distinctively, who cares a lot about his appearance and perhaps also who has a sort of aristocratic air about himself. And this historical definition, of course, goes back to the Regency period, the early 19th century, when the term dandy.

becomes established as denoting a man of fashion or a man who dresses well. And it's mainly connected to the man called Beau Brummel, who is...

Maybe one of those... Still one of the most famous dandies in history. Obviously, with the Met Gala, not that we care about it, but I was trying to think to myself, what is a dandy? It was a fashion thing that emerged, as you said, the Regency period. But what would be the... How would you define them? It's a lot of tailoring and it's a lot of...

lines across the body and emphasising it, but they're different from like fops and macaronis, aren't they? Could you explain to us who they are? I mean, there are a lot of precursors to the dandy, especially in the 18th century. But I mean, you can go back even further to like the Elizabethan period and gallants and so on. Some of them are sort of paradoxical.

parodied by Shakespeare. So this sort of male dress culture certainly exists. I mean, there are even people who claim that there was some form of dandyism in ancient Rome and so on. There is something about the modern period when things start to change and the male fashion especially starts to begin this process towards some sort of homogenization, toning down,

the colors and so on. And Beau Brummel is often identified as the man who sort of introduced the black suit. I mean, he was extravagant in some ways, but his dress sense was quite toned down and quite sort of sober. So that's also part of the birth of dandyism, so to speak.

We should probably talk about Beau Brummel. I mean, he's a name that even today, it conjures up the idea of somebody that's really into fashion, someone that's quite extravagant, but he's probably somebody that the general population don't really know very much about. Who was he? He was a soldier to begin with, but he was also a man who sort of lingered about the royal court in that period. And he was a personal friend of Brummel.

of the prince and so on. So he was very high up in society, but at the same time, he was a troubled man. He became very much in debt when he died, not very old. He was penniless and indebted and so on. So in that way, a very much stereotypical Dandy in the way that he cared very much about his appearance. It was said that he took hours to dress every morning, but also living quite a sort of

superficial, short-minded existence in a way. Was he a writer? Did he write anything? Or is he literally just famous for looking sharp?

Yeah, yeah. He was one of those, you know, famous for being famous. Famous for being famous. But then later in the 19th century, we have all these other people who are called dandies and dandyism becomes more associated with literary men. So we have Lord Byron and we have Baudelaire and eventually, of course, Oscar Wilde and so on. Do you think Lord Byron was a dandy? I've never thought about him in those terms.

It's been said that he had that sort of style, at least at some point in his life. There was a certain way about his way of dressing and so on that was connected to dandyism in a way.

Where did the word dandy come from? Is that something that Bo Brummel himself would have said that he was? I don't think he would have called himself a dandy, but the term becomes sort of established around the time when he's famous, or really it becomes a term established after his death, really. But the word dandy, you can find it in the 18th century. It probably derives from the American folk song Yankee Doodle Dandy. Oh.

From the beginning, it has the associations with well-dressed men or men who take care of their appearances and so on. But also, dandy had a completely different meaning because it was a word used about Anglo-Indian boatmen in India. When you look through newspapers in the early years of the 19th century, the most common use of the word dandy is to

describe these boatmen. So it's a bit strange. So it doesn't seem to become common until the 1810s. I begin my book around 1818 when the dandy becomes a sort of craze. It becomes a sort of more widespread phenomenon, especially in England.

One of the features, apart from being incredibly well-dressed and tailored to the nines, seems to be like a merging between masculine and feminine, the way that the macaronis and the fops, there's something effeminate about the dandy. Would you say that that's true?

or not? Yes. I mean, that's often the sort of criticism directed towards dandies, that they're sort of effeminate men. And that's interesting because the dandy is very paradoxical. It's very complex.

The Dandy, as a character, is full of contradictions. I mean, he's both upper class and lower class. He's both effeminate and masculine. So it's a bit difficult to pinpoint. But the criticism towards Dandies has always been, I mean, up until our age, really, that they're effeminate and masculine.

To think too much about how they dress and so on is something that men shouldn't do. And so the sort of effeminate criticism has been continuous. But at the same time, dandies have been criticized for being womanizers, for being very sort of masculine and women are attracted to them and so on. So it's very paradoxical, really.

Was there a sort of a personality affectation that goes along with this particular style? I'm thinking of the way that modern day goths, they have a whole personality that goes with it and so do punks. What was the personality of the dandy to make the whole package complete?

There are certain characteristics that accompany the dandy, and it's often a sort of affected upper-class behavior, a certain way of talking perhaps. These things are often associated with dandyism, especially when dandies are being criticized in the press or in books.

The thing about my book is that I want to get away from the common sort of stereotypical notion of the dandy. We have this idea of the dandy being from the upper middle class, perhaps, or even the aristocracy being famous authors, painters, and so on. And

What my book is about is the lower class dandy. So it's about how dandyism has been a continuous sort of subculture among men from the lower stratus of society. We should definitely talk about class because one of the features of the dandy is they appear to look wealthy and rich, but then obviously that's accessible to only the most elite. So how do

did working class men access the dandy image? It becomes more easy in the 19th century, thanks to confectionery and mass production of clothing and so on. But also the fact that

more sort of low-end tailors become more accessible. And of course, there is a rise of the lower middle class, the shop assistants, office clerks, apprentices, domestic servants. That's the type of sort of white-collar workers, if you like, that aspire to become dandies in the 19th century, especially. Do you think this was about aping the upper classes, about trying to be an upper class, or are they doing something different with it? I

I think it's something different. I mean, the common criticism that you find in sources from the 19th century is exactly that. They're trying to ape their betters, as they say, and they're not doing a very good job with it. So that's the sort of main criticism. I think these dandies were well aware that they didn't look like aristocratic men because they dressed differently. They had a more...

what was called a more vulgar style. They were more flamboyant. It was like plaid trousers and big bow ties and so on. I mean, they did dress differently. So in a way, I think they perhaps parodied the upper classes as well. And that's also one of these things

contradictions about the dandy because he's a simultaneous parody and imitation. I mean, of course, there was something in it that aspired to something better than the lots that these men had, but there's also a

a sort of pride in their own identity, which makes them almost parody the style that they're also imitating, if you see what I mean. So it's a defiance, a sort of maybe even a rebellion against the aristocracy. Oh yes, absolutely. And this, of course, comes across very expressly in The Black Dandy, because if you look at the United States...

Black Dandyism becomes widespread among the freed slaves, the African-American men who moved to the North American cities from the South and

It becomes a sort of subculture among them to dress flamboyantly, to dress in bright colors in a way that is, of course, very much derided because it becomes a sort of racist stereotype at the same time. But there is also this pride and this hunger for dressing up among these very materially deprived people.

former slaves so there is very much a defiance in that particular form of dandyism i'll be back with peter and dandies after this short break

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Join me, Holly Frey, and a slate of incredible guests as we are all inspired by their journeys with psoriasis. Along with these uplifting and candid personal histories, we take a step back into the bizarre and occasionally poisonous history of our skin and how we take care of it. Whether you're looking for inspiration on your own skincare journey or are curious about the sometimes strange history of how we treat our skin,

You'll find genuine, empathetic, transformative conversations here on Our Skin. Listen to Our Skin on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I've seen propaganda from America in the mid-19th century of mocking the Black Dandy. There's sort of a figure called Dandy Jim or something they were calling him. And you do see the levels of threat that this figure posed, a well-dressed Black man that wasn't being quiet, I think. Maybe that was the threat because they are, by their very definition, noticeable.

Oh, yes, exactly. And of course, they were a threat and there's a lot of concern in the press all through the 19th century about these black dandies because at least the ones who are written about, they didn't behave very meekly. They were quite forthright. There are even a lot of newspaper items that report about events

that could, you know, it's almost a Rosa Parks situation. It's a black man who is very dandishly dressed and he is sitting in the ladies carriage in a train or he's sitting in a streetcar together with

with other white people, and he refuses to move. A lot of those situations arise in the 19th century. Of course, there is a sense here that they want to live a life like the white people. There is a very clear defiance in that. When you look at Europe at the same time, there was also very much concern about the lower-class dandies there because they were also from a very

a new category in society, the lower middle class, the sort of young men who had a bit more money than they used to. And their political orientation was not accounted for. Who were they? Were they a threat? Were they laborers? Were they middle class men? And so on. So you couldn't quite categorize these men. And that's also a source of concern. LESLIE KENDRICK

A completely off-the-wall question, but do you think that what happened with the French Revolution impacted this fear of the working classes of the lower orders aping the aristocracy a few decades later?

Yes, yes. I think quite a lot of it has to do with that. And of course, already in the revolutionary era, Paris and France in the 18th century, you have these types of men who dress quite distinctively and who become a sort of precursor to the lower class dandy. I mean, in the 18th century, we have precursors.

precursors among the aristocracy and rich people like the macaronis and the fops and so on. But you also have precursors among laborers and shop men and so on who dress distinctively as a sort of defiance already. So there is sort of social antagonism going on that sort of spills into the 19th century, definitely.

I was thinking as well, not that we care about the Met Gala, but the fact that this is a very male fashion. And I was wondering, were there female dandies, dandyettes or dandy adjacents, dandy groupies? That's a very good question. Because, I mean, of course, when we speak about dandies commonly, we speak about men because...

If we look at female fashion history and so on, there is so much other things, other terms and so on that you can look at. But actually, if you look at these different types of dandy subcultures that I have focused on, you can find sometimes at least female counterparts. So already when the word dandy becomes a common thing in the 1810s, people start talking about dandysettes.

Wow.

I have a chapter in my book about transgender dandies in interwar Paris and Berlin, because it was very common in that subculture to dress in male garb like tuxedos, smoking cigarettes, wearing a monocle in one eye, that sort of thing. And then if you continue, you can find very interesting subculture, the Teddy Girls in the 1950s in England.

of course, a female counterpart of the Teddy Boy, but they had their own style. They had the draped jackets just the same as the Teddy Boys, but they also had...

boot lace bow ties and scarves, jeans that were sort of folded up at the bottom and so on. So yeah, a sort of female take on different dandy styles have been there now and then, yes. Well, we're definitely coming back to the transgender dandies of the interwar period. But before we get to them, can we talk about...

What about Oscar Wilde? I'm endlessly fascinated by Oscar and the... Look, I'm on first name terms with him. But the culture that he existed within and seems to have surrounded himself within. I've definitely heard the word dandy applied to him. And I was wondering, what are your thoughts on Oscar Wilde and the dandy culture? Well...

In his age, I mean, the dandy culture that emerges in the Regency period is very much of that era. And then when you continue through the 19th century, at least when we look at British culture, the dandy has different appellations. So there are swells, there are gents. And when we come to the end of the 19th century and Oscar Wilde's era, people talk very much about mashers.

But this is a culture that is completely different and separate from the

aestheticism and the intellectual culture that surrounded a man like Oscar Wilde. So in my book, I don't write very much about Oscar Wilde or any of those famous dandies, so to speak. I look at the unknown dandies, especially the Mashers, which were a very common and very derided group of men in the 1880s. I've never heard of the Mashers. Can you tell us who they were? Yeah.

The Mashes were, it was a term for dandies on both sides of the Atlantic, really, but especially in London. And in the 1880s, they emerged as a sort of group of young men. Maybe they...

have rich parents, maybe they are clerks or apprentices or shop assistants, and they start to visit the new types of theatres that exist in London, like the Gaiety Theatre, where the main attraction is scantily clad girls. That'll do it. Yes. And it seems like the sudden appearance of

of these girls on stage, it's like these young men, they can't handle it. They become wild. They become crazy. And Amasha is a man who thinks

He has a relationship with one of these girls. So he is he's fallen in love with one of these girls and he goes to the theater continuously trying to sort of pick her up or trying to start a relationship with her. And it's quite, you know, it's a culture of ogling, right?

It's very much sort of the male gaze and so on. And these men, these mashers dressed in certain ways, and they were very much dandies. So it's a phenomenon that is quite famous when you look at the late Victorian era.

But then, strangely, the masher becomes something else when you come to the 1890s, because in the 1890s, you have different fashions. Then you find mashers all around Europe, really. Even in Sweden, where I come from, there was a certain type of masher. All through Europe, they dressed in a very distinctive way. They had

extremely small bowler hats. They had extremely wide trousers. I mean, extremely wide. They had pointed yellow shoes. You had to have a monocle. That's a look. Yeah. And you had to have a walking stick that was extremely thick and short. And

and it was supposed to be very clear that it was not for walking. You just held it. So it was a very distinctive type of fashion there. And this fashion, of course, is completely separate from the upper middle classes, writers, intellectuals. They all deride the mashers and they all hate them. And mainly when you study this topic, what you find in sources from this era is

It's the criticism of it. It's the caricatures and the parodies of them. You wouldn't miss that, would you? If someone was walking down the street, you'd notice that person. Oh, absolutely. And I think actually this look did a bit go into the creation of the modern circus clown. Because when you think about it, they must have looked like clowns. And when you look at circus clowns in this age, they...

start out as a sort of parodying the Masha. So it's, yeah, there's some entanglement going on there. Wow. I'd never even occurred to me before. One of the things your book is doing is breaking down what we mean by dandy and

making it, I suppose, a broader definition. But I'm wondering, how do you do that? Because if you're looking at the masher culture and the teddy boy culture and the interwar transgender culture, what is it that you're looking through throughout all of these different times and periods and cultures that makes you go, that's still a dandy, that's not something separate from dandyism?

I suppose all of these groups were at some point called dandies, even though that was not the main use of them. But I see what you mean because there isn't one clear definition of the dandy and all these different groups that I look at, they have something in common. And I think what I identify as the thing that they have in common is that they do different types with

the male suit. They all wear jacket and tie. So there is some fundamental dress that they do different things to. And it's a sort of commentary on this very simple way of dressing that they add different things to it. Different subcultures are defined by different accessories. So some have monocles, some wear

mustaches, some have a special type of walking stick and so on. So there's always something special, but the essence of it is always the suit. So I think that's the sort of running thread

I'll be back with Peter and dandies after this short break.

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The interwar period that you touched on very briefly there, that's fascinating, especially if you are looking in Berlin and in Paris, because you get this emergence of what historians often call a decadent time period, by which they mean the gays were out. It tends to be. That's what was happening. Which would be almost all time periods, really. It could be, couldn't it? But

How does sexuality play into this idea of the dandy? Because that seems to have been quite a big thing, especially in the interwar period, the lesbian clubs with the monocles, for example, in Paris. Yeah. As we said earlier, the effeminacy of the dandy has been a sort of criticism directed towards it all the time. And also the sort of associations with homosexuality

are there from the start. But it's very difficult to talk about it in the 19th century. There is one case of what seems to have been a male brothel, a homosexual brothel that is found out in 1818 in London. And

All these men who are found there are described as dandies and so on. But then the newspapers, they are very sort of, oh, we can't write about this. We can't give you any details because it's so horrible. It's so immoral and so on. So you can't really find out that much about it, unfortunately. That's frustrating. Yes. And of course, these men...

the sort of legal repercussions are horrible to say the least. So it's quite a sad story. But, but so, so this thing has been there in the background all the time. And in the, in the interwar period, and you have, you have of course Berlin and the Weimar Republic, which was more of a sort of liberal era in German history. And I talk about Paris as well, because one particularly famous lesbian nightclub, uh,

Le Monocle existed there, even though it was strictly illegal for women to dress like men. And it's a complicated issue because, of course, there were homosexual women who did not dress like men. There were women who dressed like men who perhaps were not homosexual and so on. So it's a complicated subculture. But there seems to have existed this

this culture at the time. And it seems to have been very much, uh, connected to the emergence of the tuxedo, which becomes common in the interwar period among men, but it seems to be sort of, it's such a extreme type of clothes in a way. So, so it becomes parodied from the very start and associated with transgender dandies or, or lesbian dandies. Um,

I'm interested to hear you talk about the Teddy Boys as being dandies. I don't know if this is just the Teddy Boys in the north of England where I am, but they had a reputation as being quite violent. Yes. They weren't effeminate and gentle. They were out getting into fights with people. Exactly, yeah. And that's also a thing that becomes more and more common. And it's, of course, related in a way to the effeminacy and the homosexuality because since

a lot of lower-class men were dandies already in the 19th century, this effeminacy had to be sort of thwarted by emphasizing masculinity. So paradoxically, dandiesm

already in the late 19th century becomes associated with the type of clothes that criminals wear, with gangs and so on. I mean, you have the peaky blinders and all that sort of thing. And there is a certain dandyism in that, of course. So this strange contradiction in that the effeminate dandy is also something that has to do with

with criminals, with pickpockets and everything. And this is very much present in the Teddy Boys. But I think also what I'm looking at in my chapter about Teddy Boys and Teddy Girls is that there was a lot of fuss about nothing. I mean, sometimes there were the Notting Hill riots and so on, but a lot of the early Teddy Boys...

seems to have been quite meek little boys who liked to dress in an Edwardian jacket and so on. Oh, that's interesting. So it's a complicated culture, that one as well. Just in case anyone's listening who doesn't know what a teddy boy is, could you describe a typical teddy boy look for me? If they saw him walk down the street, you'd say, that's a teddy boy. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think the stereotype about the teddy boy is that he had a...

the sort of rockabilly hairstyle along with a long wide-shouldered jacket that was maybe not wide-shouldered, that's more the zoot suit, but at least something that's smacked of the Edwardian period. That's why they were called Teddy Boys because they wanted to dress in an Edwardian style. Oh, look at that. Yeah. Right. But I mean, I think when you see actual images of Teddy Boys from the early 1950s,

It's not that distinctive, really. I mean, they seem more to dress like they have their jackets and maybe under the jacket they have a cardigan and a tie. So they're just very sort of working class boys who dress more conservatively, really. So as a final talking point then, I suppose we've got to ask you is where did the dandy go? Are they still with us? I mean, we don't

wear suits on a day-to-day basis anymore. At least most of us don't. Are there still cultural movements embracing the dandy? I conclude the book by claiming a bit carefully that maybe this type of popular dandyism that I call it has almost died out. I mean, the last chapter in my book is about the new romantics in the early 1980s. Oh, yes.

Yes, yes, then. And there is a very clear flirtation with Regency Dandyism in that subculture, dressing up like highwaymen or pirates or whatever. And they were called dandies as well. But then afterwards, after that, in the 1990s, 1990s when I grew up and when I tried to be a dandy, it was a wasteland. Well, not really, but I mean, there are...

And of course, I look at sub-Saharan Africa, where dandyism is still very much alive. Yes, of course. The sapper in the two Congos and also in South Africa with the swenkers and so on. It was at least a big thing in the 70s, 80s, 90s. And I think it still exists, but maybe not as much as earlier. Yeah.

I have a sort of hypothesis that maybe the hipster is the dandy of the 21st century. Also a man who cares a lot about his appearance. Yes, quite stylized. Who is very up to date. But it has nothing to do with a suit or anything like that. It's more a sort of stylized working class dress. It's like suit adjacent. I've seen them with braces and...

It's not interesting that in the earlier dandies, it's about imitating and satirising the upper classes. But with someone like the hipster, it's actually performing working class fashion. Yes, yes. I think you've nailed it there, actually. I think there is... We've just...

swapped it a hundred, 150 years ago, people were looking upwards. Now we're looking downwards. So I, and I think what I'm sort of charting in the book is also the, the change from this more sort of, um, conservative, uh, disciplined male ideal towards a more sort of

informal, loose, cool male ideal. So there is some sort of transition going on there. There certainly is. Peter, you have been fascinating to talk to. Thank you so much. If people want to know more about you and your work, where can they find you? Well, they can find my book, which is coming out. Give us the full title again. It's The Dandy, A People's History of Sartorial Splendor. So that's very much the, it's the people's history of dandyism, which I wanted to

And are you on social media or are you smarter than that? I'm smarter than that. Excellent. Well done. I work at a museum. I work at the Museum of Cultural History in Lund. So if you're touristing in Sweden this summer, that's the place to go. Thank you so much for coming to talk to us. I've thoroughly enjoyed myself. Thank you for having me. Thank you.

Thank you for listening and thank you so much to Peter for joining me. And if you like what you heard, don't forget to like, review and follow along wherever it is you get your podcasts. If you'd like us to explore a subject or maybe you just wanted to say hello, then you can email us at betwixt at historyhit.com. Coming up, we've got episodes on what made you ugly in the Tudor and Victorian eras. And we are heading back to find out about the history of the contraceptive pill.

This podcast was edited by Tom DeLarge and produced by Sophie Gee. The senior producer was Charlotte Long. Join me again betwixt the sheets, the history of sex, scandal and society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound. And now an ode to play brought to you by Scratchers and the California Lottery Philharmonic. Take a time out from your busy day for a quick moment.

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