The 'Men's Suits' and 'Dandyism' Fad
Poet involved
What happened
The Regency and Victorian eras saw the rise of the 'dandy,' a man who placed a high premium on elegance, fashion, and wit, often expressed through an obsessive attention to his clothing and personal appearance. This fad was a cultural phenomenon, made famous by figures like Beau Brummell, who set the standard for the modern men's suit. It represented a shift in social codes, emphasizing an aesthetic ideal of understated elegance over the flamboyant dress of the previous era.
Literary impact
The dandyism fad was central to the Decadent movement and the poetry of the fin de siècle, influencing writers like Oscar Wilde and Charles Baudelaire. For these poets, the dandy was a figure of aesthetic rebellion against bourgeois convention, a hero of the artificial and the beautiful. The ideal of the well-dressed man as a work of art directly informed the Symbolist and Decadent poetic creed, emphasizing the primacy of beauty and the craft of self-creation.
Source: Wikipedia
