I am Dandy

Some days ago, a friend showed me a freshly received, newly published book from Gestalten. "I am Dandy -  The Return of the Elegant Gentleman" fascinated me. It is fully illustrated with 288 pages crammed with images of gorgeousness - gorgeous people, gorgeous clothing, gorgeous style.... I could not help feature it on this blog which is dedicated to the great appreciators of the finer things in life including art, vintage fashionwear and vintage jewellery.

Is it all about vanity? Certainly not. This fully documented book which includes exceptionally written individual interviews with all the photographed dandies, is the combined work of photographer Rose Callahan and writer Nathaniel Adams who have been exploring.....
..... "the fascinating phenomenon of dandyism over the past years.They visit contemporary dandies in their homes to document their impeccably designed lives in both words and images. Well-kempt to the tips of their beards and wearing three-piece suits with flawlessly folded pocket handkerchiefs and supple kid gloves, their protagonists revive the charm of the past and reveal that cultivated idleness can be incredibly hard work."

The typical dandy was 'born' in the 18th Century in London and Paris. One such dandy was George Bryan "Beau" Brummell who lived in London at the height of the Regency period. He is believed to have taken as long as five hours to complete his daily toilette which was very often witnessed by friends and curious admirers who sat around, toasting him and drinking in his dressing room while he perfected his look.

Dandyism has witnessed a revival in recent years brought on especially by the fad of dressing up in vintagewear and participating in vintage bike and car rides at specialised organised vintage events. 

Photographer:

Rose Callahan is a photographer and filmmaker based in Brooklyn, New York. Originally from San Francisco, California, Rose made her way to the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn in 1999 to pursue photography. In 2008, she began The Dandy Portraits:The Lives of Exquisite Gentlemen Today (which became a blog in 2010) as a personal project to tell the nuanced story of extreme masculine elegance alive today. Rose found that the dandies of today are not a cohesive subculture or creed; rather, each man is a fiercely independent arbiter of what it means to be a gentleman and to live with style.

Writer:
Nathaniel "Natty" Adams is a New York-based writer and manager of the Against Nature menswear atelier. His NYU undergraduate thesis was on 20th Century Dandyism and, as a student at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, he wrote a book proposal on the history of Dandyism, for which he won the prestigious Lynton Fellowship. Adams used the grant money to travel through America, Europe, and Africa meeting and interviewing the best-dressed men in the world.

Preface writer:

Glenn O’Brien is a writer, editor, and creative director who lives in New York. A member of Andy Warhol’s Factory in his early years, he has worked as an editor at Interview and Rolling Stone, and as creative director at Barneys New York, Island Records, and Calvin Klein. He writes “The Style Guy” column in GQ.

Dandies:

MR GAY TALESE

MR NICK WOOSTER

MR DOMENICO SPANO

MR NICHOLAS FOULKES

MR ROBIN DUTT

MR HAMISH BOWLES

MR EDWARD HAYES

MR BURTON

MR NICK SULLIVAN

MR PAOLO CANEVARI

MR SIMON DOONAN

MR ROBERT W. RICHARDS

MR FYODOR A. PAVLOV

MR MICHAEL “ATTERS” ATTREE

MR RAY FRENSHAM

MR ZAC MACLEOD PINSENT

MR WINSTON CHESTERFIELD

MR BARIMA OWUSU NYANTEKYI

MR SEAN CROWLEY

MR MICKAEL FRANCOIS LOIR

MR THOMAS R. CROWLEY

MR IGNACIO QUILES

MR MINN HUR & MR KEVIN WANG

MR DICKON EDWARDS

MR TONY SYLVESTER

MR ROBERT E. BRYAN

MR MATT FOX & MR ENRIQUE CRAME III

DR ANDRE AND DR KEITH CHURCHWELL

MR CATOR SPARKS

MR DORAN WITTELSBACH

MR HUGO JACOMET

MR DANDY WELLINGTON

MR G. BRUCE BOYER

MR DAVID ZYLA

MR PATRICK MCDONALD

MR CHRISTIAN M. CHENSEVOLD

MR MICHAEL ANDREW

MR RAYMOND CHU

MR JOSE LEMUS

MR GUY HILLS

MR MICHAEL A. SALERNO

MR AMECHI IHENACHO

MR MARC GUYOT

MR MICHAEL DAVIS

MR GUSTAV TEMPLE

MR SVEN RAPHAEL SCHNEIDER

MR JOHNNNY VERCOUTRE

MR PETER MCGOUGH

MR MICHAEL ARENELLA

MR DAVID CARTER

MR IKÉ UDÉ

MR MASSIMILIANO MOCCHIA DI COGGIOLA

MR MICHAEL HAAR

MR VICTOR ALLEN CRAWFORD III

MR ANDREW YAMATO

MR JAMES SHERWOOD

All images are by Rose Callahan from 'I am Dandy - The Return of the Elegant Gentleman', copyright Gestalten, 2013

Small Fancy Houses

Meet Maya Baron and her houses. This artist based on the Mediterranean island of Malta is presently showing her works at the beautiful Messina Palace in the main city of Valletta. I asked her to share more of her artistic experience.

"I got in touch with painting some eight years ago while I was still living in Austria. I painted some colourful houses on a wooden board and people who came to visit liked them very much. When I moved to Malta I met an artist and she was kind enough to share her knowledge and techniques in abstract acrylic painting with me.

So, today I do both - my Small Fancy Houses which need a lot of precise and concentrated work, and abstract art where I experiment with acrylic colours and other medium. I paint mainly on canvas and wooden boards.

Painting takes my mind into a different dimension of peace, quietness and love, and I am very happy to hear the feedback of people who claim that they feel and see this in my art."

More Maya Baron Small Fancy Houses can be viewed at the German-Maltese Circle,Messina Palace, 141 St Christopher Street, Valletta until Ocotober 31,  2013, 
Opening hours are from Monday -Friday 08:00hrs -12:30hrs and 16:30hrs - 20:00hrs. Saturdays morning only.

Find out more about this artist here.

Let's have a Lie-Down

" I shall retreat to my room and recline until teatime....."

If you just got up, and need extra get-up-and-go, this post is not for you. It's for those who can afford to 'recline' as the Victorians used to say, on the most fashionable French item of furniture that filled many boudoirs or dressing rooms - the chaise longue. 

The women of the gentle past made an art out of their reclining, so that artists used to portray women in all their lassitude and relaxed beauty, half sitting, half lying, nearly asleep but not quite. A good lie-down before supper, or after strenuous exertion or to emulate the Mediterranean siesta time when the weather got too warm for comfort. 

The chaise longue literally translates in 'long chair' for long chair it was. The women in the prostate posture have something faintly erotic about them and for the Victorian era and beyond, the female figure who allowed a peek at her ankle, was somewhat even more tantalising. I love the detail in these images. the bohemian, baroque, decadent air of dripping luxury or the simply flirtatious manner that is subdued to an extent.

Do you own such a long chair and would you want to have one?

Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923) as Cleopatra - 1891

A Reclining Lady with a Fan - Eleuterio Pagliani (1826-1903) - 1876

Reclining Lady - Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta (1841-1920)

 

A Lady on her Day Bed - Francois Boucher (1703-1770) - 1743

Couch with Resting Lady - Ferdinand Max Bredt (1860-1921)

Dolce far Niente - John William Waterhouse (1849-1917) - 1880

I thought chaise longue elegance was a thing of the past, until I clapped my eyes on a modern day version that speaks for itself. Now that is one long chair I'd really take to reclining on without much of an effort! 

Patchwork Chaise Longue

The Grapes, the wine, the grapevine

Children in the press house - Ferdinand Georg Waldmuller (1793-1865) - 1834

As the last of the grapes are harvested on the islands, I discovered this beautiful image that speaks of the rich bounty of grapes. Owning a grapevine is a year-long appreciation of the gifts of nature, a respect for a tree grown over time and yielding fruits that have inspired so many aspects of our life - think not just fruit, think wine, think fabric design, think art, think jewellery, think philosophy, think literature....

These heads of Bacchus, the Roman wine god, and two female followers, known as bacchantes, are carved from highly prized red coral. 1860s.

Grapes to die for

Birds in mid-flight

It lasts until May 2014 which allows plenty of time to plan a trip to this exceptional exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, USA. Dedicated to John James Audubon's (1785-1851) illustrations and writings, 'Audobon's Birds, Audubon's Words' is not just about pictures. It captures images which Audubon created by travelling across the east of the US and across Canada during his lifetime spent with an urge to seek out and immortalize indigenous birds within their habitats.

Audubon's book entitled 'The Birds of America' was produced in England between 1827 and 1838. Being a limited edition every time, means that only 120 complete copies of this book remain today. The extraordinary thing about this book is its huge pages, fully illustrated with each page reaching three feet+ in height. It was the most extravagant visual ode to birds indeed. (Span your hands wide open and you can just about visualize how large each page was!)

If you do visit this exhibition, you will get to appreciate some 30 works, including prints from the museum's own copy of the book, as well as a few other smaller publications by Audubon which continue to show more birds depicted by his paintings. To complement his artistic prowess, the exhibition is showing skilled writings from his pen to give further insight into his passion and obsession with birds, his methods of observation and of planning his illustrations. 

 John James Audubon is sponsored by Northern Trust and the exhibition is presented with support from the Eugenie Prendergast Memorial Fund, made possible by a grant from Jan and Warren Adelson.

Read more on The New York Times.

Shoes to get you noticed

Neon Shoes

Multi-coloured flats

If like me, you love shoes, chances are you look out for out-of-the-ordinary styles that are attention grabbers, conversation starters and fashion accents in themselves. Wearing these shoes with just a little black dress will be enough of a statement for vintage appeal of substance. 

However, being a seasoned online buyer of vintage shoes, I have also had my fair share of online shoe shopping disappointments. And this is not to say that the sellers from whom I bought my shoes were not up to scratch. More often it was because I made very basic and very silly mistakes during the ordering phase. Buying vintage shoes is different from buying contemporary shoes so take heed of these few tried and tested hints to make your own online shoe shopping experience a pleasant one.

1. Don't just go by size. Ask the seller to give you the exact measurements of the length of the insole, plus the width of the insole at its widest point and at its narrowest point. Then do some homework. Take two pieces of lightweight cardboard,  and draw an outline of each  foot standing flat on each cardboard. Then take measurements of the length of each insole at its longest part and at its widest part. Remember that most people don't have identical insoles and that is why you really need to take measurements of each plantar sole.

2. People seem to have had smaller feet in the past, certainly narrower ones. This is why you really need to check the actual measurements of shoes you are going to buy.

3. Shoe sizes differ between those sold in the US, in the UK and in Europe. Don't assume that the seller really knows how to convert these sizes. Things become somewhat complicated when a shoe size does not show on the shoes themselves. Again, the shoe measurements come in handy. 

4. It's better to have a slightly larger shoe than a slightly smaller one. You cannot overstretch small vintage shoes as these tend to break. But you can insert a thick insole into a slightly larger shoe, to allow a proper fit.

5. If you are selling vintage shoes online, make it easier for buyers to buy your shoes by always including measurements of insoles and you must measure these from the inside of the shoe. For boots, take approximate measurements and add an inch lengthwise.

6. Buy Vintage shoes only from sellers who are able to supply you with crystal clear images that show detail such as the condition of the insoles, the condition of the soles, the condition of the heels and condition of any part of the shoe which is sewed together. 

7. Be Warned - be prepared to find that really  old shoes are likely to break open and come apart especially since old glue will crack and lose strength over time. Resign yourself to the fact that really old shoes are only fit to sit in a museum. 

Silk and wood

Black with a twist