We Are Dandy is here!

Dear Readers,

The moment is finally upon us to celebrate “We Are Dandy,” our second survey on international dandyism, this time adding two continents and ten countries to this mighty project. As the world seems increasingly fractious and unmoored, eminent photographer Rose Callahan and I are pleased to report that dandyism not only perseveres but does indeed flourish, even in unlikely and infertile soils.

We spent several months canvassing North America, Europe, Japan, and South Africa for elegant gentlemen, and found ourselves saddled with a surfeit of rakish toffs and sporty knaves all eager to preen and proclaim for our camera and pen. We also somehow managed to convince elegant icon and legendary smokeshow Dita von Teese to write the book’s preface.

I’ll take this opportunity to share a couple of my favorites with you, but I urge you to purchase the book when it goes on sale in the US very soon, ideally from our publisher Gestalten or at your local bookstore. (Although you could also have some company send it to your door via flying robot, I hear.)

Ever yours,
Nathaniel “Natty” Adams

This is the cover, featuring Tokyo's dandy barber Yoshio Suyama

 George Skeggs, the dandy of Soho, London

 "Fresh" & Ntabiso Sojane in Johannesburg, South Africa

 Mark Haldeman and James Aguiar in Brooklyn, New York

 Baron Ambrosia in the Bronx, New York

 Poggy in Tokyo, Japan

 Makoto Iida in Tokyo, Japan

Loux the Vintage Guru and crew in Johannesburg, South Africa

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 

The Chap - Thomas Crown Affair

Excerpts from my article on The Thomas Crown Affair in the most recent issue of The Chap magazine.

...he makes a series of telephone calls to various men in skinny ties, pork pie hats, and sunglasses. It is clear to the viewer at this point that he’s either masterminding a heist or managing a ska band… 

...He has a telephone in his sauna, a hidden bar in his bookshelf, and a god-awful plaid sofa set that looks like it was upholstered with Walkers shortbread boxes. He serves brandy in snifters the size of his head and smokes cigars the size of…well, very large cigars indeed. He’s prone to maniacal spasms of laughter, he likes to drink scotch while looking in the mirror, and he owns a bright orange bathrobe which suggests that he may have skinned a Muppet… 

...His beach attire includes a safety-orange shirt unbuttoned to somewhere near his bellybutton, a pair of denim shorts with a two-inch inseam, and a big gold medallion lost in his blonde chest hair like a Spanish doubloon beneath the sand…

"I am Dandy" in the New Year

I haven't posted in a while, which isn't to say I haven't been busy. Quite the opposite - with the book in its second printing already and talks for a follow-up as well as a video project, Rose and I have been working hard on our next steps as well as continuing our promotion of the book. Above is the book trailer Rose made featuring me reading from the book's introduction. The trailer was also mentioned on United Style.

Most importantly, there are a few upcoming book events:

On Saturday, February 22nd, Rose and I will be part of a presentation and book signing at Disneyworld as part of their "Dapper Day" celebrations.

On Wednesday, March 5, Rose and I are participating, along with Simon Doonan and Dr. Andre Churchwell, in a panel discussion at the Fashion Institute of Technology museum. G. Bruce Boyer will be moderating.

Here are a few highlights from the past couple of months.

I was very honored to be named "Dandy of the Year 2013" by Dandyism.net. The Tweedland blog picked up on the story here.

I was also very proud to be featured for a second time on The Style Blogger, wearing outfits inspired by the men in the book.

Rose has a wonderful post full of photos of our event at The National Arts Club.

Prowlster wrote a glowing review of the book.

3:AM Magazine has a very thoughtful in-depth article about dandyism in general and the book.

CNN.com asked me and Rose to put together a slideshow with commentary about the book.

Esquire Latin America featured an interview with me and Rose in their most recent issue, and put a small slideshow online.

CBP magazine reviewed the book.

Design Boom did a feature on the book.

As did Buro24/7 

The Fedora Lounge has a long thread devoted to the book.

The book is mentioned on The Journal of Style

VintageVille Magazine did a feature on the book.

StyleSight wrote about the exhibit of Rose's photographs at the National Arts Club.

Julija Hunt posted about the London launch party on her blog.


Foreign coverage:

Zeit Online had a slideshow of images from the book.

Germany's Dandy Club reviewed the book.

I-Ref featured the book.

MDR Figaro covered the book along with the German edition of Lord Whimsy's book.

FahrradJournal covered the book.

GLAM magazine did an article about the book.

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.