This year’s saunter sans purpose may start at the same place as before, yet it can never end up at the same place.
This year’s Grand Flaneur Walk takes place on Sunday 11th May 2025, commencing beside the statue of Beau Brummell on Jermyn Street, London W1, at midday.
This will be the fifth incarnation of The Chap’s saunter sans purpose, and, like all previous four iterations, the principal feature of the walk is that is has no purpose, timetable or destination. In an age of one’s devices buzzing with scheduled appointments and people shouting “Where are you?” into their phones, this is more difficult than it sounds. To saunter sans purpose is truly an art, one at which the chaps and chapettes who regularly attend our Grand Flaneur Walks are past masters. Not for them the whining from the rear guard of “Are we there yet?”; not a word of impatience nor demands for destinations issue from their ranks, since all of them, to a man or woman, are perfectly happy to keep walking until someone announces that we have arrived.
The only purpose each attendee of the Grand Flaneur Walk has is simply to walk, clad in the finest raiment that exists on Earth, and to keep walking until it is decided that pause must be taken. Flâneur is a French-coined term for a person who explores the city, allowing wit, whim and curiosity to lead him or her down every favoured alley, twisting and winding their way around the city with no other purpose than to explore. In a city such as London there is still much to explore that has not been turned into a coffee shop or a mediocre clothing emporium.
For the flaneurs, flaneuses, quaintrelles and boulevardiers, not to mention the dandies and dandizettes, the pauses taken are as important as the walking. To their minds, even standing outside a hostelry and supping a G&T still counts as part of the flanning experience. For one, they did not know before setting off that morning that they would be in this hostelry at all, and the unplanned nature of it gives a sharpness of flavour to their beverage. The other benefit is that they can meet some of their fellow flaneurs face to face, instead of watching the backs of their behatted heads as they saunter endlessly along the streets.
If the Grand Flaneur Walk is an exercise in anything, it is in proving that, no matter what the world throws us in the way of terrible news, preposterous leaders and unpredictable weather patterns, a chap or chapette cannot be prevented from simply taking a walk around a city, and refusing to declare their intention, destination or purpose. The Grand Flaneur Walk is a celebration of the pure, the immutable and the pointless, taken by the bold, the adventurous and the exceedingly well dressed.
Anyone is welcome to join the Grand Flaneur Walk on 11th May. Simply present yourself at midday on Jermyn Street in your finest outfit, and prepare to begin walking without knowing where you will end up. You never know, it might be somewhere you always wanted to end up anyway.
