Ideas - The movement that unlocked a new masculinity – Dandyism

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

<p>For over 200 years, the Dandy has been a provocateur, someone who pushes against the boundaries of culture, masculinity and politics. From Beau Brummell to Oscar Wilde to contemporary Black activists, <em>IDEAS</em> contributor Pedro Mendes tracks the subversive role the Dandy plays in challenging the status quo. <em>*This episode originally aired on April 15, 2021.</em></p><p><br></p><p><strong>Guests in this episode:</strong></p><p><br></p><p><strong>Rose Callahan</strong>, photographer and director  </p><p><br></p><p><strong>André Churchwell</strong>, vice chancellor for equity, diversity and inclusion and chief diversity officer for Vanderbilt University </p><p><br></p><p><strong>Chris Breward</strong>, director of National Museums Scotland and the author of<em> The Suit: Form, Function and Style </em></p><p><br></p><p><strong>Ian Kelly</strong>, writer, actor and historical biographer. His works include<em> Beau Brummell: The Ultimate Dandy </em></p><p><br></p><p><strong>Monica Miller</strong>, professor of English and Africana Studies at Barnard College, Columbia University and author of <em>Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity </em></p>

Hey there, I'm Kathleen Goltar and I have a confession to make. I am a true crime fanatic. I devour books and films and, most of all, true crime podcasts. But sometimes, I just want to know more. I want to go deeper. And that's where my podcast, Crime Story, comes in. Every week, I go behind the scenes with the creators of the best in true crime. I chat with the host of Scamanda, Teacher's Pet, Bone Valley, the list goes on. For the insider scoop, find Crime Story in your podcast app. This is a CBC podcast. Okay, what am I going to wear today? I'll start with trousers and yeah, yeah yeah I'll do the brown flannel. It kind of goes with anything and next next I'll get the jacket but that's in

another closet over here. I'm Nala Ayad. Welcome to Ideas. And it's a bit cold today so I think I will go with a tweed. This one has a nice brown and blue check over it. That'll work well with the trousers. I'll bring that back. Pedro Mendez really likes clothes. And for a shirt, so many shirts, so many shirts. Yeah, I'll do the blue Oxford cloth button down. Specifically, he loves classic menswear. Sports jackets, high-waisted trousers, ties and leather shoes. Even though I'm not going anywhere today, I feel like wearing a tie for a little bit of colour and maybe this burgundy with blue medallions.

Yeah, that'll go well with the tweed. People might consider Pedro's love of clothes obsessive, outdated, or even unmanly. Some might even call him a dandy. The word dandy is fabulously slippery. To me, what a dandy is, is a man that's obsessed with elegance. I found a definition of a dandy as somebody who dresses above their station. Today the word dandy is a bit of a throwback, often suggesting someone who is showy and superficial.

But over the last two centuries, the word was often associated with provocateurs, men who pushed against the boundaries of culture, sexuality, even politics. Dandyism is much more than simply what you choose to put on in the morning and present yourself. Dandyism is not about the foppish or the epicene, is not about the overdressed or the outre, is not about urban peacockery. It's about the overdressed or the outre is not about urban P. Cockery. It's about the exact opposite. It's a figure of tension. It's always a figure of tension. It's a tension between blackness and whiteness. It's a tension between straight, gay, feminine, masculine,

high-class, low-class pretender. Men's wear author and journalist Pedro Mendez explores how dandyism and fashion shaped modern masculinity in his documentary, The Dandy Rebel. I'm looking through this huge photo book I have, full of pictures of men in classic clothes. There's lots of colourful suits, there's some wide brimmed hats, there's even a few walking sticks. My name is Rose Callahan and I am a photographer and director out of New York City. Rose is the photographer behind the book, I Am Dandy. Well, I've been photographing dandies for about over 10 years. Each person that I've met has expressed their dandyism in different ways. What it showed me is that it's not a rigid thing.

It kind of changes with how each person expresses themselves and it also changes with the times too. While some of the men captured in this book might not totally agree with the label dandy, what they all have in common is that they love clothing and that they stand out. Having to deal with all that risk, whether it's like standing out as a queer person or you know, just being different from the norm and wanting different things and being a guy that cares about aesthetics in a world where men aren't supposed to care about aesthetics,

the risk involved, like, I think that builds confidence. And one thing about the dandies is that they're in general pretty confident people. Like, in order to do what they do and dress how they dress and say, I want this thing instead of this thing, and that makes you confident because you've had to probably deal with all these people saying,

what are you doing? Are you gay? Why do you care so much? You know, like all these people for their whole lives questioning them or giving them grief for being different. Makes someone pretty confident, I'd say. Or at least it makes them say, screw this, I'm going to do what I want. One of the guys in her book whose style I've admired for years is Dr. Andre Churchwell. He looks sure of himself.

He exudes confidence. And his constant smile makes me think he must be a joyous person. The way he dresses seems to fit the mold of a modern dandy. I mean here's a photo of him in Rose's book and he's wearing a pink and white striped seersucker double-breasted suit, white leather shoes, red carnation in his lapel, he even has on a white straw boater hat. Getting to know Andre Churchwell, I realized that kind of the way his mind works is that

he's very curious about a lot of things. And he's kind of really likes to try things and is bold about stuff. He is not just the doctor that you know wears beautiful suits and you know but he's obsessed with old films and to the point where he will see glasses that Cary Grant wore in a film and then have them custom-made. And you know other things that he's interested in are he sings in a band, he creates art, he does writing and poetry. Not because he thinks he's going to be the best poet or the best singer now, but because

I think in general he's just interested and curious in a lot of things. And I think that is part of his interest in clothes because he doesn't have to wear these clothes. It's something that is just very enjoyable for him. And he spent a lot of time thinking about it. And I love his style, I love Dr. Churchill's style so much because the way he puts things together. I love how he's like this perfect kind of combination

of classic style, almost, they're almost reproductions of vintage pieces, and this beautiful interplay of colors. He's so interested in how colors interact with each other, but not in an ostentatious, crazy way, but very, very thoughtful and really fun, like just beautiful. But then again, someone could look at him and just think, oh, he's kind of conservative, you know, he's not a crazy, like over-the-top feather thing, you know, it's not like, I think sometimes people think dandy and they think, oh, big, huge hats and crazy purple suit or something. I mean, that's kind of the stereotype. But he is so thoughtful and so so obsessed with elegance in so many different ways that that makes him dandy to me.

I'm Andre Churchwell and wow, what title. So, physician, cardiologist, and diversity leader here at Vanderbilt University. Now for the listener who can't see you, describe what you're wearing today. Today is, I call it kind of casual day and so I'm wearing a sport outfit. The classic Fred Astaire gray flannels, right? The belt, the tie belt has been made into a belt. Wait, wait, wait, wait, so you're wearing, you're wearing a necktie as a belt Yeah, the tie has been we put a D ring on it So it's been converted because Fred Astaire would do that Fred Astaire not that's a Fred Astaire ripoff another way of adding color Men are scared of color. I'm not scared of color and then that's the thing that the tie is actually what is that yellow yellow and red stripes

Yes, it's picking up accents in the in the in the jacket, the tweed jacket, it's picking up accents. And so I'm wearing that, it's gray flannels, you can't tell but bespoke single piece oxfords. I'm wearing a turnbull cutaway spread collar shirt, an old Ralph Lauren foliar paisley tie, and then the white pocket square balances the whole thing out. How would you describe your own approach to style? I have come to this through my father. And a very short story, it's important to have the histories, you're trying to understand my history.

So my dad was born in 1917, so he's a product of the Depression and World War II. That's kind of the time where the great matinee idols and the golden age of men's dress was just flourishing, 1930s and 40s, where those giant figures on the screen defined masculinity and dress. And there's a recognition that there's a big jump from blue collar African-American guy in the 1930s and 40s or 50s to white collar. And though he always aspired to that, it was only after he finished college on the GI Bill here at Fisk that he was able to become a journalist. He now could realize his wish to to dress as a white-collared member of society, an African-American member. And so he knew all the rules.

He had studied, obviously, as many of his generation, I mean, dress was a form of armed quote unquote combat. I mean, he and his colleagues would come to church and there would be a dress off right in front of the sanctuary. I thought it was something that the Lord must have blessed as to who was the sharpest guy in the church on sending either Mr. Austin or Dad or Mr. Lawson and one of these other guys. And so Dad inculcated into myself and my brothers that though it is distinctive to have your style of dress, it is really important because the first thing anyone sees of you, the white owner of a

business or your boss or whoever it is, a woman you're trying to impress, the first thing she sees is what you're wearing. So how does it make you feel when people call you a dandy? Once again, you build over a period of time, you build the resilient forces in your personality. So whether it be an African-American man being called names, walking the streets of Nashville, Tennessee, or New York City at night, or standing in a restaurant in 21 Club

and somebody handing me their garment, thinking of the Doorman, and I'm wearing a double-breasted chalk stripe Savile Row made suit. So you have to have resilience, resilient buffers, turbulence buffers in your life as you grow. And it's one hopefully key thing that we try to mentor into our students that you have to have resilience to have

these these turbulent buffers that you have to have to allow you to do what you want to do, care to do, believe you need to do, and express. So it doesn't faze me a bit. If it does anything, it offers me an opportunity for discourse, a teachable moment. Dr. Churchwell represents a snapshot of what dandyism looks like today. In his own way, he is a provocateur, even a rebel. The dandy as rebel began way back in the late 1700s when the dandy wasn't simply rebelling against contemporary fashion but embodied a kind of political rebellion. The original dandies emerge in an era of terror, in an era of complete revolution

in France, of war across Europe and amongst all of that chaos, you have this supremely self-controlled figure who must have been terrifying. People often talk about, you know, men's suits providing armor for being able to express your vulnerability and your power as you inhabit the world as a man. They're like armor, medieval armor. I think the dandy figure is both terrifying

and brave and lonely. That's Chris Brewerd. He's the director of National Museum Scotland and author of The Suit, Form, Function and Style. He's also written a number of books on the history of fashion, masculinity and dandyism. also written a number of books on the history of fashion, masculinity and dandyism. It captures a period of revolution. If you're a poet, if you're a painter, if you're a novelist,

then the dandy becomes the modern man, becomes the hero of the age. In around the 1840s, 1830s, 40s, 50s, that period of revolution, particularly in France, but also the rest of Europe. Is that because he was considered a symbol of meritocracy and democracy and so on, because he was like the self-made man as opposed to being born into wealth and privilege? Yeah, there's something about that. There's something about the rise of capitalism, of mercantile capitalism. There's something about the rise of city living when different classes are coming together.

There's something about the rise of political theory. Marx is starting to write in the period, so there's political ferment. And somehow the dandy picks all of that up from whichever political angle that you're looking at the dandy from. So you can be an old-style libertarian, wiggish aristocrat, and the dandy can be your hero, or you can be a Chartist agitator looking to the rise of the masses, and the dandy with his straightforwardness and his plainness can be a hero from that end of the spectrum as well.

So the dandy becomes very political in the middle of the 19th century. The figure at the start of this movement, the original Dandy, is Bo Brummel. Based on how we use the word Dandy today, though, it might surprise you to see a painting of Brummel. He's not flashy or bold. Okay, yes, he was famous for his rather ornately tied cravat, but it was white, worn with a white shirt, so it didn't really stick out. In fact, this is what made him a dandy.

He cared deeply about his appearance, but his appearance was understated and restrained as a reaction to the flamboyance of the aristocracy at the time. Instead of bright colours, lace and frills, he wore slim, dark blue tailcoats and leg-hugging, sand-coloured breeches with simple black boots. Well, one way, as I say, to look at Bromwell in its most simple terms, in fashion terms, is being at the centre of what's known as the great male renunciation and the eschewing,

the ending forever in effect of makeup and feathers and lace and multitudes of pattern and silks and swathing and an awful lot that had been the story of European urban menswear ever since the Middle Ages. Ian Kelly is a biographer, actor, screenwriter and playwright. He's also written a major biography on Bo Brummel. But certainly when one thinks of the 18th century, in particular in Europe, the world, if you will, of the Ancien Régime, of Versailles, of Les Liaisons dangereuses, that sort of presentation of masculinity. What precedes Brummel's era is actually quite a little discussion about masculinity

in the arts and in fashion. And what we would call now a crisis in masculinity in that it does get talked about, worried over. In particular in London and Paris, an idea of decadence, I suppose. For instance, there is an argument posited after essentially the English crown lost the American colonies,

that one of the reasons was because of a kind of a plague of effeminacy, that actually there was something about the new urban elites that simply wasn't as militaristic and authentic and masculine. Maybe that's why we lost to a bunch of ragtag colonialists. Bo Brummel came to prominence during all of this. In many ways, I think of him as the right person at the right time. I mean, his insistence on simple dress echoed the growing ideas of meritocracy and a new vision of masculinity that was already developing in Europe at the time.

He's the first commoner to stand as best man, if you will, at a royal wedding. But he came from nowhere so just that issue of you know rise through society and the sort of the the new world of New London because it's there's a huge expansion of population and indeed money in the late 18th century and Brummel has a particularly intriguing background because his grandparents seemed to run a brothel. His father rises to be a private secretary for Lord North, our least successful prime minister as he was always termed until recently. Lord North, who lost the American colonies amongst other

claims to ill fame in Britain anyway, he had a private secretary called Billy Brummel, who seemingly lived in the sort of servant's attics of what was then number five Downing Square, that is now known as number 10 Downing Street. So George Brian Brummel was almost certainly born there, and almost certainly his parents weren't married to each other at the time. His mother was a professional courtesan, it would seem. They later married, his parents, and he was later legitimized. So he's a very interesting example

of kind of what could go on in London in that era. Brummel went on to attend Eton College and even joined the British Army. And in both cases, he designed his own uniforms, because he wanted something more stylish than what was on offer. But to really understand Brommel, you have to understand that clothing was just one expression of his dandyism. It was almost like he saw himself, his life, as a work of art. Clothing was important, of course, but so was elevated social graces,

his comportment, and his rapier sharp wit. There he is at dinner, and he is on the right-hand side of the Prince of Wales. And they've had some sort of spat, and we don't really know quite what about, but you get the impression the Prince Regent, rather like the late Princess Margaret, used to just be immensely grand sometimes,

whilst also being a bit of a party girl. Anyway, for whatever reason, the Prince of Wales threw a glass of wine, red wine, in Beau Brummell's face, and he was dressed perfectly. And Beau Brummell picked up his glass of red wine, threw it into the face of the person sitting on his right and said, the Prince's toast, pass it round. Now, and this is recorded in a number of the sort of

gossip sheets and newspapers around the place. As an example, A, of a kind of Les Magisté and a kind of insouciant sort of, you know, bratish wit. But also, it gives you a little bit of the taste of the man. So yes, Brummel becomes influential in more ways than one. Whether it's redefining masculinity as something more down to earth than the previous period, drawing a line between that and femininity, even giving birth to what would eventually become the modern suit. But the word dandy has long meant something negative, something untrustworthy, unmanly.

Even that started with Brummel. If the story had ended with him being this fashion revolutionary and the best man at the royal wedding, that would have been fascinating in one story. But beyond that, actually, it went horribly wrong. He came to stand for something else within our culture, and something else actually within the history of masculinity. When Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray was first published in France and in French, it is written of in France and in French as a parable about O'Brummel or a parable about syphilis. The other aspect of what goes on for men and women of this era is that there is a syphilitic epidemic in the

wake of the Napoleonic Wars and it has the most cataclysmic effect upon a Western culture only recently really being investigated that this is some of the Victorian moral backlash this is a lot of the fascination with madness in 19th century novels this is why you know so many of the the artists and writers of this period were fascinated with depression and bipolar conditions in effect because that's what happens in syphilis and This is what happened to to Brummel It's interesting because you know basically all my life what I've thought about is the the definition and thinking of Dandy based on Brummel. It's interesting because, you know, basically all my life, what I've thought about is the definition and thinking of dandy based on Brummel's life.

But I guess my concept was always the peak in London when he was a social superstar. Hadn't occurred to me, of course, that his demise would influence our feelings about dandy and dandyism just as much as his stardom. Absolutely. And, Pedro, and of course people couldn't directly write about it. They knew what was in everybody's family. I mean, that's mad Mrs. Rochester in the attic. She has syphilis. You don't have to say it in the 19th century because it is the great unsaid that everybody is Is touched by and Brummel who spends, you know a couple of decades in increasing poverty and eventually in madness in

Calais and then in calm in northern France is visited by an awful lot of the great and the good and writers and France is visited by an awful lot of the great and the good and writers and fashionistas of the post-Napoleonic period. So people write about all of this and that becomes part of his legend too. In the early 1800s, Bo Brommel and his fellow English dandies were helping to build a foundation for meritocracy and even democracy. At the same time, another group of men across the Atlantic Ocean were also using their clothing for political change. But their battle wasn't just for freedom of dress or social mobility. It was for freedom of any kind.

When people talk about Black Dandyism as a sort of of as a practice that is really about approaching a kind of white standard of respectability or being about, you know, assimilation. Monica Miller is a professor of African studies and English at Bernard College Columbia University and author of Slaves to Fashion, Black Dandyism and the Styling of diasporic identity. It's never been only about that. I mean, ever. In some ways, it's always been a critique, always a tool, always a strategy. And thinking about, you know, identity formation, self-fashioning, right? Take that word very seriously. And you know, thinking about the relationship between the self and the group. And always, ultimately, a kind of weapon.

You're listening to a documentary called The Dandy Rebel. On CBC Radio 1 in Canada, across North America, on SiriusXM, in Australia, on ABC Radio National, and around the world at cbc.ca slash ideas. You can also hear ideas on the CBC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nala Ayad. Imagine you're 17 years old, you're minding your business, you're at your fast food job cleaning out the walk-in freezer, and all of a sudden your older co-worker comes in

and reveals to you that he doesn't love one of his sons. This actually happened to writer Ocean Vuong and he told me all about it on my new podcast, Bookends. I'm Matea Roach, and every week I talk to some of today's greatest writing talents and rising stars. And I also get some pretty good stories along the way. You can check out Bookends with Matea Roach wherever you get your podcasts. Today, the idea of the dandy is often thought to be someone who is indulgently flamboyant

and superficial with their fashion choices. In his documentary, the dandy rebel, men's fashion expert and ideas contributor Pedro Mendez shows us how through history, the dandy provocateur embodies and instigates social change. In 19th century America, clothing was a weapon for a group of men fighting enslavement, racism, and white supremacy. One of those men was Frederick Douglass, key leader in the abolitionist movement. Here's Monica Miller. Frederick Douglass talks about in a slave narrative, like he says, one of the first

things I want to do when I'm free, right? When I, when I free myself, one of the first things I'm going to do is that I'm going to buy, I'm going to save up and buy myself a blue Serge suit. He's like, that's how, I mean, I have been existing, right? I mean, at least being thought about by other people as an enslaved man in America. He's like, one of the things that is going to signal to me, the difference in my position.

I mean, he'd already, I mean, one of the things when I teach his narrative, I mean, he had changed his mindset early on, right? I mean, he understood himself not to be an enslaved person. He understand himself to be free and liberated once he was able to articulate his social position. But he was interested not only in that, but he was interested in actually showing it to himself and showing it to the world in a different way. Writing the narrative, changing his clothes.

Frederick Douglass loved dressing and put a lot of care into his appearance, especially his hair. But he wasn't often thought of as a dandy. Sociologist and civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois, though, embraced the role of dandy as part of a larger drive to challenge the political norms of race and class in late 19th, early 20th century America. He really enjoyed fine fabrics and pattern and color in a way that I think Douglas did not quite approach. But what that would mean, it's about the cut, right? It's about the cut of the suit. It is about the fabric, right?

I mean, I think for folks who had been so materially deprived for so long, one can imagine a good quality wool suit with a white cotton or linen shirt, and that was pressed and where everything is just sew. The pleasure of being able to do that for yourself, right? I mean, shoe shining is a long tradition of shoe shining. I mean, to have your shoes shined, to have your shirt pressed, to have the suit fitting well. The other thing that's going on, or one of the other things that's happening is this is this growing

idea about the politics of respectability and how that bumps up against right a politics of pleasure Right one of the things that we were talking about before that I was thinking about You know how how when I was saying that Du Bois was a person who enjoyed clothing I mean in some ways the the politics of pleasure That is something that black people have had to fight to get to, right? For a very long time, you know, it's not as if, you know, Du Bois has this one essay where he talks about the rights of black people to love and enjoy the idea that for the enslaved to

get to to love and enjoy, right? As a right, not that they didn't love and enjoy as as enslaved, because that absolutely happened. And that's how people survived, right? Not that they didn't love and enjoy as enslaved, because that absolutely happened and that's how people survived, right? There was a way in which internally love and joy was absolutely had to be a part of surviving that experience. But the idea that that becomes, I mean, the idea that to love and enjoy is a kind of human right of a kind, right? Means that you've reached a certain level of basic need, right? You've satisfied, you know, in some ways basic need and now you're on to love and enjoy So to think about the politics of respectability in a relationship to the politics of pleasure, right?

As well as this kind of you know, I think enduring Racism right that is that is about you know, I think enduring racism, right? That is about, you know, suppressing black ambition. At the turn of the 20th century, emerging black dandyism was being attacked by white society. Black dandies were portrayed as ostentatiously dressed, poorly educated, and sexually promiscuous. This idea of sexual danger and the dandy definitely has its roots in Brummel and the Victorian

era's puritanical views of sexuality, which informed how they saw the early 19th century. Ian Kelly. The new understanding of the Regency in brief runs like this. It was wildly promiscuous. It was very sexually licentious and more and more of this is coming to light. And Bromwell is right at the epicentre of that world. Doctors of the period were absolutely insistent that you couldn't catch syphilis homosexually. You can, but they weren't aware of that as an issue within the Navy, for instance. And some sort of circumstantial evidence that Bo Brummel was more actively heterosexual than anything. I mean, these terms are anachronistic. Nobody labeled themselves like that of this period.

And there's no figure in 19th century Europe that better captures the tension around sexuality and the dandy than Oscar Wilde. But I have to be honest, I'm not totally sure if Wilde was a dandy or an artist who used the dandy pose as part of his persona. I asked historian Chris Brewerd. I think I would go with the latter definition, Pedro, because he changes so much Oscar Wilde through his own clothing preferences and the way that he promotes himself through his career. So, you know, in the early part of his career, when he's traveling to America, making a name for himself, he's the sort of quintessential, effeminate dandy in green velvet, you know, quasi-medieval 18th century picturesque dress.

He's really a figure of advertising, promoting these new radical, so-called socialist ideas about style for everyone, art for everyone. But he takes it to the edge of pretension. Then when he then establishes himself as a society playwright, lampooning elite London society, he adopts really Brummel's costume of evening dress, of superb, beautifully tailored Savile Row evening dress.

He becomes the sort of original dandy figure at that point, when he's a critique of drawing room society and fashionable living in some ways as a satirist. And then he's, I suppose he's also writing serious essays and journals in fashion magazines, promoting a progressive idea of dressing for everybody, all classes, all men and women. So he's a very contradictory character, but he's sort of selling a lifestyle. And he does that through some of the ideas that dandyism had set up.

And it's at this time, in the latter half of the 19th century, that dandyism becomes equated with effeminacy and even homosexuality. It happens around the time that there are parallel debates around what would then have been termed sexual degeneracy, the medicalization of the homosexual as a figure that you could recognize in the street, that the Wild Trial did a lot to bring that into public consciousness at the same time. The criminalization of particular sexual acts, all pathologize, bring into sort of a very constraining sort of concrete feeling of what it means to be a man

and what it means not to be a man, i.e. to be an effeminate or indeed a degenerate. And the dandy figure plays out in all of that. So I think because of the Wild Trial and because of his prosecution for homosexual acts and being at the centre of a scandal which introduced in some ways the idea of homosexuality to a broader audience, the understanding of dandyism somehow becomes connected with that through Wilde's figure. But I think the dandy figure and a dandy approach to life has always been on the more progressive end of that

relationship between clothes, gender, and fashion. It's allowed many people to push the boundaries of what it means to be a man or a woman, or indeed something completely different, because it shows that fashion is something that you can construct for yourself within a social context. So I think it's always been a way of dressing and a way of behaving and a way of living that has appealed to androgynous figures and figures for whom androgyny becomes something of a weapon, which makes it really, really fascinating, I think.

I wonder if not only is the pejorative attacks on Dandyism reflective of homophobia, but also misogyny. So, so hear, hear me out on my theory here. The great, great male renunciation, um, essentially said that, you know, flamboyance and, um, ostentation and all these sorts of things are no longer considered masculine. And women, you know, who had been, who had been aspiring to this look, you know, taking on high heels for men to appear more

masculine, all of these things become the realm of women. And because women are not valued, anything that a man does that is effeminate is therefore negative, because femininity is negative. Does that, does that, do you buy that? Yeah, well, I think misogyny is sort of pervasive in much of life. And you do see veins of misogyny or fear of women or fear of the effeminate, both, I think, in some cases, through much dandy literature. This idea that fear of the dandy is a smoke screen, or especially homophobia, is, sad to say, very much alive today, as photographer Rose Callahan has encountered in her work with dandies.

It connotes somebody that is kind of too obsessed with their appearance and maybe too vain. But then also, I think, more importantly, it also is a term that definitely has, like, homosexual connotation. So it's like, if you're a dandy, it's kind of like, oh, you're gay. And people who don't want to be considered that way, you know, they wouldn't want to have that term used for them. But then there's, it feels like there's def there's definitely homophobia built into the concept because it sort of seems to me like the equation is if a man cares

too much about his clothes, there must be something wrong with him. If there's something wrong with him, perhaps it's that he's gay. And since gay is a negative, still in our society and many people's minds, you know what I mean? All those things get conflated together. Yeah, absolutely. I think especially here in the USA, you know, there's a lot of homophobia and masculinity is very rigid. It's like, okay, you know, you have this type of masculinity and it's okay.

But if you're outside of the norm, it's not okay. It's something wrong. Are you gay? Um, you know. This sentiment that if a man cares a lot about his clothes, he must be gay plays a big role in the pejorative use of the word dandy. I ran that idea past historian, Monica Miller, with a story from my own experience about 10

years ago or something. I wanted to start a blog about clothing, uh, Toronto, where I live. Uh, one of the nicknames is hogtown cause it used to be a major pork producing city. And so my original name was the hogtown dandy. And it wasn't, it wasn't named after me. What I was suggesting was this was a website for men who care about, uh, how they dress and

care about clothing. And I floated the name with a bunch of friends and they all said, um, nope, I would not go to a website called Dandy. So then I suggested, well, what about the Hogtown rake? And half of them didn't know what that meant, but they were like, that sounds cool.

But, but Dandy really threw them off. Did they say why? Well, sadly, it's always the same things. It suggests effeminacy. Right. Maybe homosexuality. And again, these are, these are guys who would not in any way put themselves in the camp of being

homophobic, but it makes them nervous for that reason. And then the suggestion of Dandy as well is that it's, um, it's superficial. Whereas rake really, the connotation of rake, right? If we think about there's, you know, there's Dandy, there's FOP, there's rake, right? I mean, rake is really the sort of sexy masculine version, right, of all of those other potential epithets. That's fascinating. And I think what you learn

from that, right, is that, you know, dandyism, and particularly when it becomes racialized, or in my case case when we're talking about black dandies, then you get this, what's fascinating about the figure, right, is it's a figure of tension. It's always a figure of tension. It's a tension between, you know, blackness and whiteness in my work. It's a tension between, you know, kind of straight, gay, feminine, masculine, high class, low class pretender, you know, if we think back to the 18th century, it's a tension

between England and France, right? So there's, so there's, it is this figure that contains within it, right, a kind of challenge to expected norms, categories of identity, to propriety, right, in the rake version, right. So it contains all of those. It's a provocative term. And, you know, some people take it on willingly and happily, and others are, you know, others shy away. There is one more modern popular figure, though, who captured a lot of these issues of dress, sexuality, and masculinity in himself and his work. Prince was provocative. He was flamboyant, colorful, and androgynous.

Do you consider Prince a dandy? Or is he a musician with dandy leanings? No, I mean, I think he's a dandy and he is and precisely on the level in which we were just talking about, about the way in which we were just talking about, about the way in which he embodied, performed, and made manifest, right, through his style, like kind of pleasure, desire, and sensation, right? I mean, I think he, I mean, the sensuality associated with Prince, with his music, with

his performance style, with the lyrics to his music. I mean, he's, he is absolutely a person who really wanted to animate his performance via the kind of synergy between, you know, the music, the costume, you can't even call it costume because it was so consistent. It's just his clothes, right? The music, the clothing, the style, the self-presentation, right? You know, like a total work of art. Right. Right. I felt that way about him, right? In terms of the way that he, you know, consistently self-presented as this figure who wanted to embody all of the way that he, you know, consistently self presented as this figure who wanted to embody all of the tensions that we talked about at the beginning, right?

He wanted us to think about blackness and whiteness. He wanted us to think about, right, masculine and feminine, right? He wanted us to think about, like, in some ways, like, pleasures of the working class, right? about like in some ways like pleasures of the working class right he wanted us to think about desire but like for another but also like love of self right so he was always trying to do that and then also gave you like a visual to work with right as you were on that journey with him the heels journey with him. The heels, the lace, the glitter, the glam, right? It's just frilly colors. Yeah, I mean, it's just it's,

it's all there. And so much so much a part of I think, so provocative, because we think about his early career, it starts in the late, you know, like kind of mid to late 80s, right, which is Reagan's America. Right. So there's there's a lot happening there, right, in terms of thinking about, you know, the social positionality of Prince, and the ways in which he is offering a real alternative to the ways that, you know, political culture is talking about black people. And then even as like rap and hip-hop gets started the way that black masculinity is figured

there. Growing up I didn't really know what to make of Prince. I mean in high school I was attracted to girls and yet there was something about Prince that was sexy. Looking back now on his career, I see how he fits the mold of the dandy as an agitator and a rebel. But he also celebrated all the things masculinity can be, especially in the black community. I just can't believe all that these people say.

Controversy and my black and white and my straight. Where Dandyism fits into this for me, right, is I want people to have alternatives. I want people to be able to express themselves. I want them to be able to, I mean, you know, so much of rap and hip hop is performative, right? It's not about real life, right? You know, there was recently a hip hop star whose name I forget, who has had a diamond embedded in- Yes. In the forehead.

So, okay. You know, it's like, I mean, it's not advisable, but I would say that, you know, through the like, I mean, it's, it's not advisable. But I would say that, you know, through the strains of what we've been talking about today, one can one can see where that desire would come from. Right? I mean, it's just, there's a way in which, you know, adornment, this politics of pleasure, adornment, thinking about yourself as an individual within a group that has been so dispossessed and seen as a black mob, there's a way in which any experimentation with dress, adornment, hair, there's a way in

which all of those things are, I mean I'm interested in all of them, because they're giving people interested in all of them, right? Because they're giving people possibility, right? In terms of imagining themselves otherwise and what that imagination makes possible towards this idea of liberation. I also ran this idea of the role of the dandy in the contemporary black community past Dr. Andre Churchwell. It's something he thinks a lot about in his role as chief diversity officer for Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Absolutely, absolutely. And I think there's a greater important role for the dandy in the sense that you can be a successful physician, financier, banker, lawyer, and still be expressive

in your clothing. see her banker lawyer and still be expressive in your clothing. I think you know our challenge whether it be the end of the 20th century or this century is exactly that is to is to knock down the barriers and widen the bore of what is possible for the young African-American male and women of this country of this part of the hemisphere for that matter such that they can see the possibilities. And then in the middle of all that is the dandy, that kind of unique, epical figure, the self-invented figure, who by sheer creativity and curiosity and genius of concept of men's dress allows himself to be the canvas to come up with something unique and different.

For me though, as a middle class white guy, I'm not sure that Dandy has much to push against anymore. I asked historian Chris Brewerd. But it's tricky, isn't it? I mean, perhaps in the world that we're now hopefully emerging from, where the norms, as we understand them, around fashion culture, around the fashion industry, around the ways of inhabiting the world, Dandy might find his own again as a figure of revolution that turns our preconceptions about what it means to be fashionable or elegant or stylish. Or male.

Or male or female or non-binary indeed. All of that comes into play around a reinvention of the dandy figure. And it is, yeah, it is possible that we might find, I think that the dandy becomes perennially interesting at these times of crisis. And as we emerge from this pandemic driven moment of crisis, then it might be time to look at the dandy

in that light, in a more progressive light that may challenge needless consumption, may challenge assumptions about power and hierarchy in fashion that may rewrite the rules of fashion in some way. There are limiting boundaries about what masculinity is today for all men. And that clothing can be, for everyone, an expression of pushing against those limits. But historian Ian Kelly reminds me it can be even more than something political. I think it should be fun. I think it should be fun. I say sometimes to my son, you do know that cool is halfway to dead. And that actually there is something about standing at an ironic distance being immensely cool

that actually will not get you the girl, or more to the point, get you the contact with humanity, which is the bloody point. So to that extent, there's something where I do think of it as something that one should aspire to have an awareness of and live sometimes, but to dedicate one's life to Dandyism always does look borderline tragic. We're very taken in our authentic, post-romantic idea that the best things just sort of happen purely or accidentally. It's a bit of a lie. Actually, it takes care and attention to do things with love for others or oneself. And none of that is risible or ridiculous. That is actually the sort of pure focus of human attainment. So dandyism potentially, yes, being one of them.

Finally, I asked Rose Callahan, whose work photographing dandies has made her a sort of dandy anthropologist. Is dandyism still revolutionary? Yes. Dandy anthropologist. Is Dandyism still revolutionary? Yes, I think it totally is because look at where we are with the way people dress. If you look outside and you look, not to dismay people, I don't really want to judge people about wearing tracksuits and stuff, but you look out and what people wear is not like in general like an expression of themselves and it's not something that people put a lot of artistry

into really. And it's a little sad and depressing actually, you know, the way we dress now is about comfort and our lifestyle and somebody has to work on the farm and on vacation and at work and has to do all these things. And I get that, but it's the way we dress now, what's lacking is that excitement and artistry I guess. And so when I see somebody really dressing up and really fully expressing themselves and using all this creativity, I think that is really revolutionary still, because it's not the way we live right now. It's not the way the world is. You know, the world is

still really drab and there's all these problems and there's all these reasons to be depressed. What being dandy, why it's so revolutionary now still, in a small way, is that it just brings joy back to that basic self-expression that we have control over. I think that's why it's revolutionary. You were listening to The Dandy Rebel by Ideas contributor Pedro Mendez. Thanks to Regina Hockett at Vanderbilt University for her help setting up the recording with Dr. Andre Churchwell. And thanks to Susan Gray at National Museum Scotland for her help with Christopher Brewer's interview. You can go to our website cbc.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca Technical Production, Danielle Duval and Nick Bonnen. Web Producer, Lisa Ayuso.

Senior Producer, Nicola Lukcic. Greg Kelly is the Executive Producer of Ideas. And I'm Nala Ayed. Your listeners can't see what we're wearing. I'm in woolens because it's so cold in Scotland at the moment. But you're in a rather beautiful tweed waistcoat. Thank you. And of course tweed, those beautiful woollen textiles

produced in the lowlands of Scotland that almost become part of the art part of the landscape that picking up on the mossy greens and the heather. One of the one of the big reasons I am always drawn back to classic menswear and especially tweed and that I try to explain to people is I think when people think of classic menswear, they think of drab clothing, the man in the gray flannel suit. And yet this tweed that I'm wearing right now has so much color in it, bright color.

Like the base tweed is a sort of a goldish, goldish brown. But there's red and green and blue. Of course, as you said, the colors of the land and of the forest and of the For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.