Men's Journal - Gin vs. Vodka Martinis

I recently wrote a blog post about the relative merits of Gin vs. Vodka Martinis for the publication Men's Journal. I invite you to read it and then stop drinking vodka:

http://www.mensjournal.com/food-drink/drinks/a-vodka-martini-why-bond-should-know-better-20141218

The Dandy Life Continues

The big news from the world of I am Dandy: The Return of the Elegant Gentleman is that Rose and I (and Rose's husband Kelly,) will be making a documentary this fall! We're very excited to revisit our dandy subjects and to have an opportunity to add some new voices to our menagerie of elegant fellows.

In the meanwhile, I am Dandy received a big bump when it was featured in a segment on CBS Sunday Morning:

I was also the subject of a mini-documentary called "Am I Dandy?"

And last but certainly not least, it is my great honor to have been profiled in 12 outfits (with one more to come,) for the artist Ike Ude's Chic Index:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 

"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. 

The Dancing Marquess

An excerpt from my article in the latest issue of The Chap on Henry Cyril Paget, 5th Marquess of Anglesey:

The Marquess was famously described by Clough Williams-Ellis as “a sort of apparition – a tall, elegant and bejeweled creature, with wavering elegant gestures, reminding one rather of an Aubrey Beardsley illustration come to life.” The Omaha Daily Bee described him more bluntly: “He is a thoroughly effeminate looking young fellow and he may be seen when in Paris walking around with a toy terrier under his arm, the pet being heavily scented and bedizened with bangles and bows. The fingers of the marquis fairly blaze with rings. He presents the characteristics of the Gypsy type.” His lifestyle was no less lavish; one newspaper reported that his bedroom was “draped in mauve velvet, with hanging figures of solid silver. Its ornaments were of filigree and gold, and its tables crowded with bottles of the most costly perfumes. His ‘boudoir’ was of green and gold. He had three valets and a ‘coiffer,’ all of whom earned their high salaries, for it was no unusual thing for this modern Beau Brummel to spend a whole morning ‘working out’ some special scheme of color by dint of combining the effects of neckties, trousers, waistcoats and ‘spats,’ discarding, one by one, such as failed to ‘harmonize.’”...
...In 1901 he hired a company of professional actors at an inflated salary to go on a European tour with him. They travelled with their own orchestra and needed five trucks to carry their scenery and equipment....Paget travelled in a custom automobile modeled after a Pullman railcar, complete with leather furniture, wooden fixtures, and a baroque carved ceiling. The exhaust pipe was modified to spray scent: sometimes violet, sometimes patchouli, sometimes l’eau d’Espagne........But Paget’s most famous act was the “Butterfly Dance,” which earned him the nickname “The Dancing Marquess.” He would perform this at the intermission of his productions, after which he would hand out picture postcards of himself to the undoubtedly bewildered audiences.
Lord Berners was in the audience at one of the Marquess’s “performances” in Munich, and he said that it “came between that of a lady with performing pigeons and a company of acrobats. The theatre was darkened. There was a roll on the drums and the curtain went up on Lord Anglesey clad in a white silk tunic, a huge diamond tiara on his head, glittering with necklaces, brooches, bracelets, and rings. He stood there fore a few minutes motionless, without any mannequin gestures of display. Then the curtain went down again period…The German audience seemed a little disconcerted by the manifestation of British eccentricity.”

The Chap: Bohemians

In the latest issue of The Chap, I discuss bohemianism - the ultimate anti-dandyism. Below is a small excerpt.

As the great decadent siècle came to its fin, the influence of the dandies had waned. Oscar’s ignominious tumble down the ladder leading from stars back to gutter had soiled the archetypal aesthete’s velvet reputation – to be an elegant man was to be suspect, to be an elegant artist unconscionable. So it was that a new generation of poetry and paint-brush poseurs had to forge a new fashion which bespoke their anti-establishment attitudes. The green carnation in one’s lapel was old hat sartorial subversion – the new subversion required actual old hats, preferably big floppy ones of Continental provenance.

Into this tightly-laced world leapt the Bohemians with gypsy-inspired bravado. Their de facto suzerain, the painter Augustus John, led the way:
 But now a new kind of exhibitionism was born; in its way, as exact and conscientious as my father’s cult of the clothes-brush; a kind of inverted Dandysim. If my shoes were unpolished, they were specially made to my own design. If I abjured a collar, the black silk scarf that took its place was attached with an antique silver brooch which came from Greece. The velvet additions to my coat were no tailor’s but my own afterthought, nor were my gold earrings heirlooms, for I bought them myself: the hat I wore, of a quality that only age can impart…My abundant hair and virgin beard completed an ensemble which, if harmonious in itself, often failed to recommend me to strangers.