BeSPOKE 07

on the leFt:
Mr. sven raphael
schneiDer, editor
oF the gentleMen gazette
and a Close Up oF his jaCket;
Mr. Gay talese, CreatiVe
adVisor in new york.
on this page: british
Mr. Michael “atters”
attree.
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if the portrait of dorian gray and the great
gatsby were only books or the Cotton Club was
only a film, it would be impossible to talk still of
dandyism today. the figure of the male dandy
was born at the end of the nineteenth century
as a doctrine of elegance and beauty as ends in
themselves. oscar wilde was the first to symbolise
dandyism when he wrote of young dorian in
love with his own image. wilde is still there in
the popular imagination of the british dandy as
is the rich american businessman described by
Fitzgerald. gatsby has thus gone down in history
as the most famous dandy Man and the success
of the latest film confirms this. then there is richard
gere dancing to the sound of jazz trumpet
music in Francis Ford Coppola’s film and after
him a range of stars of the cinema have been
emblematic of dandyism such as adrien brody,
justin timberlake, john Malkovich and jeremy
irons. the dandy phenomenon - which in some
way influenced the later hipster movement, a
neologism coined in the 1940s for lovers of jazz
and swing - has come down the centuries by
means of decadent poets like Charles baudelaire
and joris karl huysmans via the pre- raphaelites
and dante gabriel rossetti. today the dandy
spirit lives on in the new personalities of the
book ‘i am a dandy - the return of the elegant
gentleman’ published by gestalten. in it new
york photographer rose Callahan and journalist
nathaniel adams (editor sven ehmann) have
collected portraits and biographies of modern
dandies both young and not so young living in
paris, london and new york who, like gatsby,
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