More Press for "I am Dandy"

Last Sunday, October 20th, we had our second New York book event at Against Nature, the shop which I manage. As always, Rose has an excellent summary with beautiful photos over at The Dandy Portraits.

The big event of the night was when legendary New York Times street style photographer Bill Cunningham showed up and took some photos of the party. Rose and I were thrilled yesterday to find ourselves on the Evening Hours page of the Sunday Times.

An excerpt from the book - the profile of Dr. Andre Churchwell, pictured above, third from left - is featured in this month's issue of The Chap, along with a profile of yours truly! You can't read it online so you'd better go order a copy.

Esquire's blog did a very nice write-up of the book.

And GQ's blog featured a few of my favorite looks from the book.

Our friend at the Fine Young Gentleman wrote about the Bergdorf Party.

And Buffalo Dandy wrote a nice review of the book.

I'm sure there will be more press coming, especially because Rose and I both have a few events coming up:

On Tuesday, November 5th I'll be reading from the book at the Freerange Nonfiction Reading Series at Culturefix on the Lower East Side.

The following night, Wednesday, November 6th, I'll be judging Literary Death Match at Cake Shop.

And the following night, Thursday, November 7th, Rose and I will be signing books and celebrating with our friends (and newlyweds!) Matt and Enrique at The Fine and Dandy Shop. RSVP now!

And on November 18th, an exhibition of Rose's photographs will open at the National Arts Club, with a party to celebrate.

We hope to see you all in the coming weeks. Stay dandy!

"I am Dandy" Continues to Draw Admiring Attention

Photo by Jane Kratochvil

Last Thursday night Rose and I celebrated the release of "I am Dandy: The Return of the Elegant Gentleman," at a very elegant and beautiful party at Bergdorf Goodman's men's store, co-sponsored by the New Yorker and Brioni. The party was incredible and overwhelming; over 500 people RSVP'd, many of the dandies from the book among them. Needless to say, it was a picture-perfect crowd, and I'm sure Rose will post more photographs from the night over at The Dandy Portraits.

Coverage of the book and its related events has been phenomenal. 

The Bergdorf Goodman blog has a summary with some lovely photographs.

The Wall Street Journal wrote about the Bergdorf event today. 

Women's Wear Daily also covered the event.

The always-erudite Lord Whimsy wrote about the evening on his blog.

Rose and I took over the Bergdorf Goodman blog last week, posting this article on "Dressing Dandy," among other things.  

Cator Sparks, one of the men in the book, interviewed us for the Huffington Post.

Gilt MANual interviewed Rose about the book for their blog.

The Scout also has an excellent interview with Rose.

A Suitable Wardrobe reviewed the book here.

Overseas coverage has been great, too:

In the UK the book was featured in The Times on Sunday Magazine as well as The Daily Mail and The Independent.

Belgian magazine Het Nieuwsblad has an article on the book (in Dutch.)

German magazine Manager also has a feature on the book (in German.)

But perhaps most impressive of all is the video feature Gestalten.tv did on the book:

They are Dandies: The Return of the Elegant Gentlemen from Gestalten on Vimeo.

"I am Dandy" Has Arrived!

It’s true: I’ve let this blog lie fallow for too long. But I have a good excuse: “I am Dandy: The Return of the Elegant Gentleman,” the book I co-authored with photographer Rose Callahan has been published by Gestalten Press and the promotional cotillion has begun! Rose has, admittedly, kept her own blog more up to date than I have, but then again she always does.

First thing’s first: Gestalten’s page for the book is here.

And it can, of course, also be ordered on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. So go buy a copy and put it on your coffee table. Or buy several copies and use them as a coffee table.

The book has only been on shelves for a couple of weeks, but the reviews we’ve seen so far have all been extremely positive. Admittedly, some of them were written by men who are in the book themselves, but to be honest, they were the critics whose opinions we cared about the most.

Hugo Jacomet at The Parisian Gentleman wrote an extensive and very flattering review of the book.

James Sherwood made me blush with his praise.

Sven Raphael Schneider reviewed the book for Gentleman’s Gazette, which is syndicated on the Details Magazine blog.

I’m particularly proud that the brilliant scholar of Dandyism Melanie Grundmann wrote a highly favorable review of the book on her blog.

And Dandyism.net’s Nick Willard had excellent things to say about the book itself before ably fulfilling his duty as a correspondent for that website and intelligently but uncompromisingly reviewing the men in the book for admission into the dandy canon. 

Freshness Magazine did a review here.

DROME magazine wrote about it here.

SocialLife Chicago recommends the book here.

Sydney, Australia’s Le Noued Papillion calls it a “must-have book.”

Only Cool Stuff wrote about it here.

And this post on I am a Dandy Cat proves that the internet is a strange place.

Last week our first book events took place in London. Our big launch party took place on September 17^th at Gieves & Hawkes, No. 1 Savile Row. There was a good turnout, all well turned-out, and the Champagne flowed like, well, Champagne. A commenter on some website criticized the event for being too “self-congratulatory.” Aside from the fact that this person clearly has a poor concept of the entire point of a book launch, I think Rose and I have every reason to congratulate each other and our selves. We’ve worked very hard and we’re excited to see how the fruits of our labor will ripen.

Rose’s post on the event is here.

Gieves and Hawkes posted about it on their blog here.

Dickon Edwards, one of the men in the book, wrote about the event on his blog.

Barima Owusu-Nyantekyi, another of the book’s subjects, wrote about it on his site Mode Parade

Winston Chesterfield, yet another man from the book, wrote about it for Men’s Flair.

Code of the Gentleman covered the event here.

The Vintage Vault at StyleSight covered it here.

The Grey Fox wrote about it here.

The Rake put up a small post.

And, of course, Dandyism.net couldn’t pass up the opportunity for one of their infamous rounds of “Who’s the Dandy?”

Our second London event was a small affair at the beautiful shop of our friend Stephen Hitchcock, tailor extraordinaire.

Rose posted about it here.

As did the Rake.

Rose is currently in Paris for another book event at Cifonelli Tailors, which I unfortunately couldn’t attend due to work, but I’m sure she’ll have many excellent things to post on her own site about it.

In the coming weeks there will be more coverage in mainstream and print media, international television, online videos, and guest blog posts in various places by me and Rose. We’re preparing for our big New York launch party and subsequent events, and I’ll try my best to update this blog more regularly. But no promises – I’m pretty busy being self-congratulatory these days. 

Dandy Photo Book

Photo of Massimiliano Mocchia di Coggiola by Rose Callahan

Obviously I haven’t updated this blog in ages, but I assure you I have a perfectly dandy excuse. For the past few months I’ve been working with the excellent photographer Rose Callahan on a book based on her blog, The Dandy Portraits. I’ve been writing the text to accompany Rose’s beautiful photographs. The book is due out this Fall on Berlin’s Gestalten Press. Rose and I have been working pretty much non-stop since we got the book contract – she photographing beautifully-dressed men and me interviewing them and writing profiles. The process has been as exciting as it has been exhausting. A few weeks ago we travelled to London to gather more material for some of the UK’s greatest dandies.

I’m particularly excited because this book isn’t just a fashion book – it isn’t a survey of menswear. Instead, it’s an exploration of a particular type of man; one obsessed by clothing and dedicated to mastering style. The subjects span ages, races, language groups, and sartorial philosophies. Among them are the most famous trial lawyer in New York City, one of the 20th Century’s greatest journalists, the English lead singer of a Norwegian “Death Punk” band, a pair of cardiologist brothers, a world-renowned barber, a famous interior decorator, a poet, several menswear writers and bloggers, some clothing designers, a handful of artists, a couple of jazz bandleaders and sidemen, and many more. The only think these men have in common is their passion for dressing.

I hope you enjoy this book as much as I’ve enjoyed working on it. For more teasing samples of Rose Callahan’s incredible work, please visit her blog at http://dandyportraits.blogspot.com/