The Dandy at Dusk: Taste and Melancholy in the Twentieth Century

by Philip Mann

This volume presents dandyism—the embodiment of aesthetic and intellectual ideals—from its origins with Beau Brummell to its major twentieth-century representatives. Author Philip Mann dispels the myth that dandyism centers upon vanity through portraits of the first dandy—Regency England’s Beau Brummell—and six twentieth-century figures: Austrian architect Adolf Loos, the Duke of Windsor, neo-Edwardian couturier Bunny Roger, eccentric writer and raconteur Quentin Crisp, French film producer Jean-Pierre Melville, and New German Cinema savant and “inverted dandy” Rainer Werner Fassbinder. He chronicles their style, identity, influence, melancholy, and often untimely demise, using a mélange of photography, biography, and anecdote. Weaving their stories into an extensive and entertaining history of tailoring and men’s fashion, he offers incisive perspective on the dandy’s aesthetic concerns, pensive nostalgia for the golden Edwardian era, and nonchalant persona. He contextualizes the relationship of dandyism to homosexuality and to modernism, while simultaneously portraying the cultural development of a century punctuated by two world wars and social upheaval.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, History

384 pages, Hardcover

Published October 1, 2017

Reviews

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here are my thoughts on "The Dandy at Dusk" by Philip Mann. Read it here:
https://open.substack.com/pub/tosh/p/...

[Ilya Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is perfectly thought through take on dandies being western versions of samourai, basically (cue is at the cover). Never mind that examples are some famous people. And ok, Rainer Werner Fassbinder was dandy alright, hands down. You should look beyond the clothes (even though they are more than important) and feel the chilling breath of death or whatever. Want to take this book to bed and almost definitely will, that’s how brilliant it is.

[Miss. Wordisms · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is as timelessly elegant as the title. It is a riveting and convincingly researched love letter to taste : male, masculine, or otherwise... Verging on the obsessive, (I said this was a love letter for a reason,) the very fabric of male identity through a sartorial and historical gaze is forensically analysed with elegance, humour and grace. This could so easily have been another coffee table book or dry academic text on male identity through the ages. Instead the author has cast a uniquely dark and beguiling perspective on the subject matter, with cultural and historical gravitas. I have enjoyed dipping into this book time after time and it wouldn't surprise me to hear it being serialised on the radio or as a documentary series anytime soon.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Idiotic number-of-stars explanation: this would easily be a 5-star book if you were interested in the specific thing it is about, which is what any sensible person would expect. I just wanted to read it for the potted biographies of the fascinating Adolf Loos and Bunny Rogers, which were, indeed, fascinating (though rather downplaying Loos's probable paedophilia).

[Omar Muñoz Cremers]

Fraaie studie naar het fenomeen dandy in de twintigste eeuw. Na een introducerend hoofdstuk met O.G. Beau Brummell analyseert Mann zes uitlopende heren, van vagelijk bekend (architect Adolf Loos en The Duke of Windsor, hij die geen koning wilde zijn) tot Engelse excentrieken als Bunny Roger en Quintin Crisp. Helemaal interessant wordt het natuurlijk met hoofdstukken over Melville en Fassbinder en de rol van cinema in de verschuiving van het dandyschap. Mann schrijft mooi, echt in de huidige stijl van de allesweter met veel zijpaden en lange introducties die de hoofdfiguur steeds plaatst in zijn tijd (en ook met die typische sprong naar filmers.) Een interessant man toch wel, de melancholische modernist, stedelijk, piekfijn onzichtbaar en uiteindelijk ongrijpbaar. En altijd goed voor hilarische uitspraken.