‘Do you call that thing a coat?’ Brummell sneered when the Duke of Bedford asked for an opinion on a new purchase. The dominance that Brummell held over the fashionable was absolute; his small house in Chesterfield Street was thronged with gentlemen, often including the Prince of Wales, eager to witness the dressing ritual of the Beau. His mastery of putting on his clothes, his sharp tongue and his coterie of aristocratic toadies meant that ‘he could decide the fate of a young man just launched into the world with a single word’.
George Bryan Brummell became a symbol of urbane style, masculinity and cosmopolitan poise, revered by Balzac, Pushkin, Wilde, Woolf and Beerbohm. He set the model for a literary type, beginning with the ‘silver fork’ novels of the 1820s, and his influence persisted as a prototype for the self-created man-about-town. And aside from all this he was a well-dressed Englishman — an alarming enough concept for most of his compatriots then and now; the French have always been more appreciative of Brummell. I am not so sure, however, that I agree with Ian Kelly that he was a founding father of modern male fashion in the sense that we must thank him for our suits and formal wear. Certainly he became the proponent of a practical and manly style; but it was already emerging and gaining root, and would have done so regardless of the Beau. Kelly does not say what we would be wearing had it not been for Brummell’s fiat.
Brummell was a Whig, in a social sense, and he followed their spartan style. Charles James Fox entered society as a macaroni, a follower of the monstrous fashion which included make-up, flowing silks, coloured wigs and red high-heeled shoes.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in