Beau Brummell (1778 - 1840)
Related: 1800s - dandy - UK - fashion
During his heyday, Brummell's dictat on fashion and etiquette reigned supreme. His habits of dress and fashion were much imitated, especially in France, where in a curious development they became especially the rage in bohemian quarters. Here dandies were sometimes celebrated in revolutionary terms as self-created men who consciously designed their own personalities and broke radically with the traditions of the past. By their elaborate dress and idle, decadent lifestyles, French bohemian dandies sought to convey their contempt for and superiority to bourgeois society. This fancy-dress bohemianism became a major influence on the Decadent movement in French literature during the latter part of the nineteenth century. [Jul 2006]
British sensibilities have played in world clothing since the eighteenth century. Particularly during the Victorian era, British fashions defined acceptable dress for men of business. Key figures such as Beau Brummell, the future Edward VII and Edward VIII created the modern suit and cemented its dominance. [Jul 2006]
Contemporaries: E. T. A. Hoffmann - Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres - Stendhal - Thomas De Quincey
Biography
George Bryan Brummell (1778 - 1840), better known as Beau Brummell, was an arbiter of fashion in Regency England and a friend of the Prince Regent. He led the trend for men to wear understated, but beautifully cut clothes, adorned with elaborately tied neckwear. He claimed to take five hours to dress, and recommended that boots be polished with champagne. His style of dress came to be known as dandyism.
A falling out with the Prince of Wales led to Brummell's downfall; his famous remark "Alvanley, who's your fat friend?" (referring to the Prince - who had just cut him) probably didn't help. Brummell fled England in 1816 as the result of gambling debts. His friends arranged for him to become British consul at Caen in France, but unfortunately the post was abolished. He died penniless and insane in Caen in 1840. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beau_Brummell [Feb 2004]
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