Human physical appearance is the outward phenotype or look of human beings.
61-587: A dandy is a man who places particular importance upon physical appearance and personal grooming, refined language and leisurely hobbies. A dandy could be a self-made man both in person and persona , who emulated the aristocratic style of life regardless of his middle-class origin, birth, and background, especially during the late 18th and early 19th centuries in Britain. Early manifestations of dandyism were Le petit-maître (the Little Master) and
122-584: A Victorian Dandy (1998) reimagines one day in the life of a dandy in Victorian England, through which the author challenges conventional Victorian depictions of race, class, and British identity by depicting the Victorian dandy as Black, surrounded by white servants. By reversing concepts of the Victorian master-servant relationship, by rewriting stereotypings of the Victorian dandy to include Black masculinities, and by positioning his dandy figure as
183-412: A crucial element in maintaining social boundaries and individual status." This process "creates a market for new social models, with the dandy as a prime example of how individuals navigate and resist the pressures of a capitalist society." Here, another paradoxical relation between dandyism and capitalism emerges: dandyism's emphasis on individuality and on forming an idiomatic sense of style can be read as
244-540: A dark-blue coat of plain style. Sartorially, the look of Brummell's tailoring was perfectly fitted, clean, and displayed much linen; an elaborately knotted cravat completed the aesthetics of Brummell's suite of clothes . During the mid-1790s, the handsome Beau Brummell became a personable man-about-town in Regency London 's high society , who was famous for being famous and celebrated "based on nothing at all" but personal charm and social connections. During
305-507: A lace-collar, a lace-placket, and lace-cuffs in a portrait of himself in Albanian national costume in 1813; Count d'Orsay (Alfred Guillaume Gabriel Grimod d'Orsay, 1801–1852), himself a prominent figure in upper-class social circles and an acquaintance of Lord Byron, likewise embodied the spirit of dandyism within elite British society. In chapter "The Dandiacal Body" of the novel Sartor Resartus (Carlyle, 1831), Thomas Carlyle described
366-704: A large bow, the Macaroni cravat , made from lace-edged muslin, were developed and worn in the 1770s. A prominently large nosegay of flowers was often worn (on the left side of the chest or shoulder of the coat), along with a very small tricorne style hat. The shop of engravers and printsellers Mary and Matthew Darly in the fashionable West End of London sold their sets of satirical "macaroni" caricature prints, published between 1771 and 1773. The new Darly shop became known as "the Macaroni Print-Shop". Design historian Peter McNeil links macaroni fashion to
427-459: A little pony; / He stuck a feather in his hat, / And called it Macoroni … ." and chorus: "Yankee Doodle, keep it up, / Yankee Doodle Dandy, / Mind the music and the step, / And with the girls be handy … ." derided the rustic manner and perceived poverty of colonial American. The lyrics, particularly the reference to "stuck a feather in his hat" and "called it Macoroni ," suggested that adorning fashionable attire (a fine horse and gold-braided clothing)
488-432: A mirror." Likewise, French intellectuals investigated the sociology of the dandies ( flâneurs ) who strolled Parisian boulevards; in the essay " On Dandyism and George Brummell " (1845) Jules Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly analysed the personal and social career of Beau Brummell as a man-about-town who arbitrated what was fashionable and what was unfashionable in polite society. In the late 19th century, dandified bohemianism
549-437: A misunderstanding is discovered and young Marlow finds that he has been mistaken; he cries out, "So then, all's out, and I have been damnably imposed on. O, confound my stupid head, I shall be laughed at over the whole town. I shall be stuck up in caricatura in all the print-shops. The Dullissimo Maccaroni. To mistake this house of all others for an inn, and my father's old friend for an innkeeper!" The song " Yankee Doodle " from
610-455: A noble man who is the leader of his social circle, Shonibare uses neo-Victorianism as a genre to interrogate and counter normative historical narratives and the power hierarchies they produce(d). Black dandyism serves as a catalyst for contemporary Black identities to explore self-fashioning and expressions of neo-Victorian Blacks: The Black dandy's look is highly tailored – the antithesis of baggy wear. [...] Black dandyism rejects this. In fact,
671-404: A person of beautiful dress and refined speech. By the 18th century, coint became quaint , indicating elegant speech and beauty. Middle English dictionaries note quaintrelle as a beautifully dressed woman (or overly dressed), but do not include the favorable personality elements of grace and charm. The notion of a quaintrelle sharing the major philosophical components of refinement with dandies
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#1732772232433732-561: A practitioner of macaronic verse (which mixed English and Latin to comic effect), laying himself open to satire. The macaronis became seen in stereotyped terms in Britain, being seen as a symbol of inappropriate bourgeois excess, effeminacy , and possible homosexuality - which was then legally viewed as sodomy . Many modern critics view the macaroni as representing a general change in 18th-century British society such as political change, class consciousness , new nationalisms , commodification , and consumer capitalism . The macaroni
793-417: A revolt against capitalism's emphasis on mass production and utilitarianism . Underscoring this somewhat paradoxical nature, philosopher Thorsten Botz-Bornstein describes the dandy as "an anarchist who does not claim anarchy ." He argues that this simultaneous abiding by and also ignorance of capitalist social pressures speaks to what he calls a “playful attitude towards life’s conventions." Not only does
854-461: A self-fashioning that created an illusion of mobility in a highly stratified society . In the early discussion of the tax, the London Packet posed the question, “Is an actor, who in his own private character uniformly appears in a scratch wig, or wears his hair without powder, liable to pay the tax imposed by the new act, for any of the parts which he is necessitated to dress with powder on
915-441: A sort of marketing or commodification of the self. The counterpart to the dandy is the quaintrelle , a woman whose life is dedicated to the passionate expression of personal charm and style, to enjoying leisurely pastimes, and the dedicated cultivation of the pleasures of life. In the 12th century, cointerrels (male) and cointrelles (female) emerged, based upon coint , a word applied to things skillfully made, later indicating
976-479: A strange race. "Dandizette" was a term applied to the feminine devotees to dress, and their absurdities were fully equal to those of the dandies." In 1819, Charms of Dandyism , in three volumes, was published by Olivia Moreland, Chief of the Female Dandies; most likely one of many pseudonyms used by Thomas Ashe. Olivia Moreland may have existed, as Ashe did write several novels about living persons. Throughout
1037-424: Is a form of Romanticism . Contrary to what many thoughtless people seem to believe, dandyism is not even an excessive delight in clothes and material elegance. For the perfect dandy, these [material] things are no more than the symbol of the aristocratic superiority of mind ." The linkage of clothing and political protest was a particularly English characteristic in 18th-century Britain; the sociologic connotation
1098-522: Is a modern development that returns quaintrelles to their historic roots. Female dandies did overlap with male dandies for a brief period during the early 19th century when dandy had a derisive definition of "fop" or "over-the-top fellow"; the female equivalents were dandyess or dandizette . Charles Dickens, in All the Year Around (1869) comments, "The dandies and dandizettes of 1819–20 must have been
1159-425: Is composed of all the travelled young men who wear long curls and spying-glasses". The expression was particularly used to characterize " fops " who dressed in high fashion with tall, powdered wigs with a chapeau-bras on top that could only be removed on the point of a sword. The Macaroni suit , made up of a shorter, tighter fitting coat, colourful stockings, and shoes adorned with large buckles, and, fastened in
1220-495: Is depicted as a stylish and flamboyant individual from the state of Carolina. The song often highlights Dandy Jim's extravagant clothing, his charm, and his prowess with the ladies. While the song does not explicitly address race, Dandy Jim's stylish and flamboyant persona aligns with aspects of Black dandyism, a cultural phenomenon characterized by sharp dressing, self-assurance, and individuality within Black communities. According to
1281-562: Is it that the Dandy asks in return? Solely, we may say, that you would recognise his existence; would admit him to be a living object; or even failing this, a visual object, or thing that will reflect rays of light. In the mid-19th century, amidst the restricted palette of muted colors for men's clothing, the English dandy dedicated meticulous attention to the finer details of sartorial refinement (design, cut, and style), including: "The quality of
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#17327722324331342-670: Is unable to live [life]. Further addressing that vein of male narcissism , in the book Simulacra and Simulation (1981), Jean Baudrillard said that dandyism is "an aesthetic form of nihilism" that is centred upon the Self as the centre of the world. Elizabeth Amann's Dandyism in the Age of Revolution: The Art of the Cut (2015) quotes, "Dandyism has always been a cross-cultural phenomenon". Male self-fashioning carries socio-political implications beyond its superficiality and opulent external. Through
1403-481: The Hair Powder Act of 1795 , which aimed to levy a tax on from affluent consumers of hair powder to raise money for the war. Critics of the act expressed fear regarding the association between wearing hair powder and "a tendency to produce a famine,” and those who did so would “run the further risque of being knocked on the head”. In August 1975, journalists and new reports complained that "the papers had misled
1464-631: The Macaroni Club, founded in 1764 by those returning from the Grand Tour. They would refer to anything that was fashionable or à la mode as "very maccaroni". The Italian term maccherone , when figuratively meaning "blockhead, fool", was apparently not related to this British usage, though both were derived from the name of the pasta shape. Author Horace Walpole wrote to a friend in 1764 of "the Macaroni Club [ Almack's ], which
1525-437: The conformity of contemporary middle-class men, cultivating the idea of beauty and aesthetics akin to a living religion. The dandy lifestyle, in certain respects, "comes close to spirituality and to stoicism " as an approach to living daily life, while its followers "have no other status, but that of cultivating the idea of beauty in their own persons, of satisfying their passions, of feeling and thinking … [because] Dandyism
1586-473: The crossdressing of the earlier molly subculture , and says "some macaronis may have utilized aspects of high fashion in order to affect new class identities, but others may have asserted what we would now label a queer identity". In 1773, James Boswell was on tour in Scotland with the stout and serious-minded essayist and lexicographer Dr. Samuel Johnson , the least dandified of Londoners. Johnson
1647-470: The Black dandy is often making a concerted effort to juxtapose himself against racist stereotyping seen in mass media and popular culture [...] For dandies, dress becomes a strategy for negotiating the complexities of Black male identity [...]. "Dandy Jim of Carolina" is a minstrel song that originated in the United States during the 19th century. It tells the story of a character named Dandy Jim, who
1708-494: The French bohemians who closely imitated Brummell's habits of dress, manner, and style. In that time of political progress, French dandies were celebrated as social revolutionaries who were self-created men possessed of a consciously designed personality , men whose way of being broke with inflexible tradition that limited the social progress of greater French society; thus, with their elaborate dress and decadent styles of life,
1769-627: The French dandies conveyed their moral superiority to and political contempt for the conformist bourgeoisie . Regarding the social function of the dandy in a stratified society , like the British writer Carlyle, in Sartor Resartus , the French poet Baudelaire said that dandies have "no profession other than elegance … no other [social] status, but that of cultivating the idea of beauty in their own persons. … The dandy must aspire to be sublime without interruption; he must live and sleep before
1830-466: The age of sixty-one years, Beau Brummell passed away in a lunatic asylum in Caen , marking the tragic end to his once-glamorous legacy. Nonetheless, despite his ignominious end, Brummell's influence on European fashion endured, with men across the continent seeking to emulate his dandyism. Among them was the poetical persona of Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron, 1788–1824), who wore a poet's shirt featuring
1891-501: The analysis of clothing, aesthetics, and societal norms, Amann examines how dandyism emerged as a means of asserting identity, power, and autonomy in the midst of revolutionary change. Male self-fashioning, in particular, was wielded as a resistance expression in denial of itself due to the influence of the French Revolution on British discussions of masculinity. British prime minister William Pitt proposed an unusual measure:
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1952-470: The broader cultural landscape surrounding Black dandyism and its portrayal in American folk music. Regarding the existence and the political and cultural functions of the dandy in a society, in the essay L'Homme révolté (1951), Albert Camus said that: The dandy creates his own unity by aesthetic means. But it is an aesthetic of negation. To live and die before a mirror : that, according to Baudelaire,
2013-426: The dandy as "a clothes-wearing man"; Honoré de Balzac 's La fille aux yeux d'or (1835) chronicled the idle life of Henri de Marsay , a model French dandy whose downfall stemmed from his obsessive Romanticism in the pursuit of love, which led him to yield to sexual passion and murderous jealousy. In the metaphysical phase of dandyism, the poet Charles Baudelaire portrayed the dandy as an existential reproach to
2074-465: The dandy play with traditional conceptions of gender, but also with the socioeconomic norms of the society they inhabit; he agrees the importance that dandyism places on uniquely personal style directly opposes capitalism's call for conformity. Thomas Spence Smith highlights the function of style in maintaining social boundaries and individual status, particularly as traditional social structures have decrystallized in modernity. He notes that "style becomes
2135-481: The dandy's symbolic social function as a man and a persona of refined masculinity: A Dandy is a Clothes-wearing Man, a Man whose trade, office, and existence consists in the wearing of Clothes. Every faculty of his soul, spirit, purse, and person is heroically consecrated to this one object, the wearing of Clothes wisely and well: so that as others dress to live, he lives to dress. . . . And now, for all this perennial Martyrdom , and Poesy , and even Prophecy , what
2196-413: The fine woollen cloth, the slope of a pocket flap or coat revers, exactly the right colour for the gloves, the correct amount of shine on boots and shoes, and so on. It was an image of a well-dressed man who, while taking infinite pains about his appearance, affected indifference to it. This refined dandyism continued to be regarded as an essential strand of male Englishness." In monarchic France, dandyism
2257-473: The flamboyant and ostentatious attire of the latter. Beau Brummell (George Bryan Brummell, 1778–1840) was the model British dandy since his days as an undergraduate at Oriel College, Oxford , and later as an associate of the Prince Regent (George IV) – all despite not being an aristocrat. Always bathed and shaved, always powdered and perfumed, always groomed and immaculately dressed in
2318-415: The gaze of spectators, an audience, and readers who consumed their "successfully marketed lives" in the public sphere . Figures such as playwright Oscar Wilde and poet Lord Byron personified the dual social roles of the dandy: the dandy-as-writer, and the dandy-as- persona ; each role a source of gossip and scandal , confining each man to the realm of entertaining high society . The earliest record of
2379-648: The globe except for Antarctica and form a variable species. In adults, the average weight varies from around 40 kg (88 pounds) for the smallest and most lightly built tropical people to around 80 kg (176 pounds) for the heavier northern peoples. Size also varies between the sexes, with the sexual dimorphism in humans being more pronounced than that of chimpanzees , but less than the dimorphism found in gorillas. The colouration of skin, hair and eyes also varies considerably, with darker pigmentation dominating in tropical climates and lighter in polar regions. Macaroni (fashion) A macaroni (formerly spelled maccaroni )
2440-554: The homogenization whiteness as the figurehead of the movement. It is important to acknowledge Black dandyism as distinct and a highly political effort at challenging stereotypes of race, class, gender, and nationality. British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare (b. 1962) employs the neo-Victorian dandy stereotypes to illustrate the Black man experiences in Western European societies. Shonibare's photographic suite Dorian Gray (2001) refers to Oscar Wilde 's literary creation of
2501-541: The musk-wearing Muscadin ruffians of the middle-class Thermidorean reaction (1794–1795). Modern dandyism, however, emerged in stratified societies of Europe during the 1790s revolution periods, especially in London and Paris. Within social settings, the dandy cultivated a persona characterized by extreme posed cynicism , or "intellectual dandyism" as defined by Victorian novelist George Meredith ; whereas Thomas Carlyle , in his novel Sartor Resartus (1831), dismissed
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2562-640: The national politics of the Regency era (1795–1837), by the time that Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger had introduced the Duty on Hair Powder Act (1795) in order to fund the Britain's war efforts against France and discouraged the use of foodstuffs as hair powder, the dandy Brummell already had abandoned wearing a powdered wig and wore his hair cut à la Brutus , in the Roman fashion. Moreover, Brummell also led
2623-517: The novel, dandyism is associated with "living in style". Later, as the word dandy evolved to denote refinement, it became applied solely to men. Popular Culture and Performance in the Victorian City (2003) notes this evolution in the latter 19th century: " … or dandizette , although the term was increasingly reserved for men." Physical appearance There are functionally infinite variations in human phenotypes, though society reduces
2684-471: The poor and encouraged them to consider powdered heads their enemies," a “calculated to excite riots.” With the new legislation, the powdered look became a marker of class in English society and a much more exclusive one, polarizing those who used the products and those who did not. Those who feared making class boundaries too visible considered the distinctions to be deep and significant and therefore wished to protect them by making them less evident, by allowing
2745-462: The result of age , lifestyle or disease , and many are the result of personal adornment . Some people have linked some differences with ethnicity , such as skeletal shape, prognathism or elongated stride. Different cultures place different degrees of emphasis on physical appearance and its importance to social status and other phenomena. Various aspects are considered relevant to the physical appearance of humans. Humans are distributed across
2806-598: The same name, The Picture Of Dorian Gray (1890), but with the substitution of a disfigured Black protagonist. As the series progress, readers soon notice that there exists no real picture of "Dorian Gray" but only illustrations of other white protagonists. It is through this theme of isolation and Otherness that the Black Dorian Gray becomes Shonibare's comment on the absence of Black representation in Victorian Britain . Shonibare's artwork Diary of
2867-452: The sartorial transition from breeches to tailored pantaloons , which eventually evolved into modern trousers . Upon coming of age in 1799, Brummell received a paternal inheritance of thirty thousand pounds sterling, which he squandered on a high life of gambling, lavish tailors, and visits to brothels. Eventually declaring bankruptcy in 1816, Brummell fled England to France, where he lived in destitution and pursued by creditors; in 1840, at
2928-479: The social fabric rather than stand out. Dandyism is intricately linked with modern capitalism , embodying both a product of and a critique against it. According to Elisa Glick, the dandy's attention to their appearance and their engagement "consumption and display of luxury goods" can be read as an expression of capitalist commodification . However, interestingly, this meticulous attention to personal appearance can also be seen as an assertion of individuality and thus
2989-499: The stage?” This seemingly trivial inquiry unveils a profound aspect of the legislation: By paying the tax, citizens were essentially purchasing the right to craft a persona, akin to an actor who took on a stage role. Exaggerated self-fashioning was no longer an oppositional strategy and instead became the prevailing norm. To protest the tax and the war against France was to embrace a new aesthetic of invisibility, wherein individuals favored natural attire and simplicity in order to blend into
3050-434: The standards of the day, it was ludicrous and hilarious to see a person of perceived lower social standing donning fashionable attire and "putting on airs." For most of racist 19th century America a well dressed African American was an odd thing, and naturally someone of that ilk would be seen as acting out of place. The representation of Dandy Jim, while potentially rooted in caricature or exaggeration, nonetheless contribute to
3111-553: The time of the American Revolutionary War mentions a man who "stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni." Dr. Richard Shuckburgh was a British surgeon and also the author of the song's lyrics; the joke which he was making was that the Yankees were naive and unsophisticated enough to believe that a feather in the hat was a sufficient mark of a macaroni. Whether or not these were alternative lyrics sung in
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#17327722324333172-410: The variability to distinct categories. The physical appearance of humans, in particular those attributes which are regarded as important for physical attractiveness , are believed by anthropologists to affect the development of personality significantly and social relations . Many humans are acutely sensitive to their physical appearance. Some differences in human appearance are genetic , others are
3233-473: The word dandy dates back to the late 1700s, in Scottish Song . Since the late 18th century, the word dandy has been rumored to be an abbreviated usage of the 17th-century British jack-a-dandy used to described a conceited man. In British North America , prior to American Revolution (1765–1791), a British version of the song " Yankee Doodle " in its first verse: "Yankee Doodle went to town, / Upon
3294-446: Was a pejorative term used to describe a fashionable fellow of 18th-century Britain. Stereotypically, men in the macaroni subculture dressed, spoke, and behaved in an unusually epicene and androgynous manner. The term "macaroni" pejoratively referred to a man who "exceeded the ordinary bounds of fashion" in terms of high-end clothing , fastidious eating, and gambling . He mixed Continental affectations with his British nature, like
3355-467: Was awkward in the saddle, and Boswell ribbed him: "You are a delicate Londoner; you are a maccaroni; you can't ride." There is indeed a kind of animal, neither male nor female, a thing of the neuter gender, lately [1770] started up among us. It is called a macaroni. It talks without meaning, it smiles without pleasantry, it eats without appetite, it rides without exercise, it wenches without passion. In Oliver Goldsmith 's She Stoops to Conquer (1773),
3416-540: Was characteristic of the artists who were the Symbolist movement in French poetry and literature, wherein the "Truth of Art" included the artist to the work of art. Black dandies have existed since the beginnings of dandyism and have been formative for its aesthetics in many ways. Maria Weilandt in "The Black Dandy and Neo-Victorianism : Re-fashioning a Stereotype " (2021) critiques the history of Western European dandyism as primarily centered around white individuals and
3477-628: Was ideologically bound to the egalitarian politics of the French Revolution (1789–1799); thus the dandyism of the jeunesse dorée (the Gilded Youth) was their political statement of aristocratic style in effort to differentiate and distinguish themselves from the working-class sans-culottes , from the poor men who owned no stylish knee-breeches made of silk. In the late 18th century, British and French men abided Beau Brummell's dictates about fashion and etiquette , especially
3538-416: Was that dandyism embodied a reactionary form of protest against social equality and the leveling effects of egalitarian principles. Thus, the dandy represented a nostalgic yearning for feudal values and the ideals of the perfect gentleman as well as the autonomous aristocrat – referring to men of self-made person and persona . The social existence of the dandy, paradoxically, required
3599-531: Was the Georgian era precursor to the dandy of the Regency and Victorian eras . In the 18th century, wealthy young British men traditionally took a trip around Europe upon their coming of age , known as the Grand Tour . Italy was a key destination of these tours. During their trip, many developed a taste for maccaroni , a type of pasta little known in Britain then, and so they were said to belong to
3660-410: Was the dandy's slogan. It is indeed a coherent slogan. The dandy is, by occupation, always in opposition [to society]. He can only exist by defiance … The dandy, therefore, is always compelled to astonish. Singularity is his vocation, excess his way to perfection. Perpetually incomplete, always on the fringe of things, he compels others to create him, while denying their values. He plays at life because he
3721-436: Was what set the dandy apart from colonial society. In other cultural contexts, an Anglo–Scottish border ballad dated around 1780 utilized dandy in its Scottish connotation and not the derisive British usage populated in colonial North America. Since the 18th century, contemporary British usage has drawn a distinction between a dandy and a fop , with the former characterized by a more restrained and refined wardrobe compared to
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