“Beau” Brummell
George Bryan “Beau” Brummell (7 June 1778–30 March 1840)
What can we learn from the infamous 19th century dandy, Beau Brummell’s example, apart from not gambling yourself into debt, contracting syphilis and dying in poverty in exile in France?
In his heyday, Beau Brummell was an extravagant entertainer, exceedingly charming, a darling of English society, a preeminent style and trend setter and sometime confident of the Prince of Wales, the future King George IV.
He is often credited with simplifying the gentlemen’s dress, commissioning the creation of the modern trouser and, in general, advocating understated elegance.
His quotations (perhaps apocryphal), variously, “If people turn to look at you on the street, you are not well dressed, but either too stiff, too tight, or too fashionable.” or “Never trust a man who’s clothes are too new, too fashionable or too tight.” resonate as much with us as in their day. The fact of the inordinate amount of attention Brummell himself paid to his own wardrobe and toilette appears to defeat his advice urging understatement and simplicity, nevertheless, in contrast to his own habits, he made among the most profound and lasting remarks as regards fashion. Agreeing with Brummell was no less a social critic than Oscar Wilde with his dictum: “Fashion is merely a form of ugliness so absolutely unbearable that we have to alter it every six months.”. In full agreement, I might add that fashion is commerce masquerading as art or, at best, the attempt to superimpose someone else’s idea of style upon one’s own long developed, hard earned and invaluable personal style.
The notions of “too new”, too stiff” are difficult to parse. After all, every article of clothing starts out new and has to be “worn in”. Not every one of us is so fortunate to have had a beautifully tailored ancestor from whom to inherit a wardrobe….or indeed, like a friend of mine with a horror of appearing in new clothes, a gardener, who served to wear anything newly arriving from the tailor, until it became properly weathered, even a bit sagging.
With “Too tight”, we step squarely into contemporary territory. In my view, this is the single most egregious violation of men’s dress and, unfortunately, it appears to be ubiquitous. If a closely tailored suit is desirable, is an even more closely tailored suit still more desirable? Where does it end; when the jacket does not cover the crotch? When the front button can no longer close? When the trousers are so short they reveal the socks? What about the stove pipe leg that hardly allows one to sit without bagging the knees? Is this tailoring or sausage making? It is pitiful to see grown men dressing like boys, as if in their first ill-fitting, outgrown communion suit…..or emulating some runway androgen. No wonder so many modern offices eschew traditional business attire; who can work packaged tight in a shrunken version of a proper suit? The antecedents of this infantile style are various, but the motives of the purveyors are clear; this years suit which barely fits now will certainly not fit next year, churning sales.
The gentleman’s is another matter; it drapes properly and generously. Trousers are cut to allow movement and to hold a crease, while the cuffs break over the shoes. Yes, cuffs! In short, these are your clothes. You are not a store window manikin advertising some self-important designer’s next flashy new line. On that subject Brummell quipped: “To be truly elegant one should not be noticed.”
The best dressed man is the one who dresses for himself, dresses out of his own esthetic, his own experience; the classic dresser. And by “classic” we do not necessarily mean looking backward into history, although much can be learned there, but to cleave to that which is durable, proven good by time and the most likely to endure in times to come..
In 1794, George “Beau” Brummell joined the 10th (Prince of Wales’s Own) Regiment of (Light) Dragoons. He was aged 16, its youngest officer. It was there that he met the Prince of Wales, the future King Finally, the victim of his own arrogance, superficiality and extravagance, Brummell fell out with the Prince, his most important patron and in 1816, he fled to France to avoid debtors’ prison. Sustained for a time by remittances from old friends, he survived until March 30, 1840, when he died penniless and mentally distracted in Caen.
Distracted perhaps, but not without some self-knowledge; he wrote; My dear Lady Hester, it is my folly that is the making of me. If I did not impertinently stare duchesses out of countenance, and nod over my shoulder to a prince, I should be forgotten in a week: and, if the world is so silly as to admire my absurdities, you and I know better.