Over a hundred dapper chaps and chapettes sauntered sans purpose through London. On Sunday 5th May 2024, a crowd assembled at the junction of Piccadilly and Jermyn Street, London W1. Usually the only notable aspect of this corner is the life-size statue of the great dandy Beau Brummell, but on this day even the Beau…
Another successful saunter sans purpose through the sunny streets of Old London Town. On Sunday 14th May, just one week after the coronation of Charles III, a very different kind of event, yet one steeped in as much ritual, tradition and protocol, took place. The Grand Flaneur Walk was not placing a crown of gold…
After a two-year hiatus, the most aimless walk of the century is back, with a party at the end of it. In July 2019, a large group of well-dressed dandies, flaneurs, boulevardiers and quaintrelles set forth from the statue of Beau Brummell on Jermyn Street, London, on a long walk with no destination whatsoever. This…
Images of southern Spain, usually composed of matadors, barrels of sherry, women in flamenco dresses and orange trees wilting in the heat, do not commonly include tweed jackets. It’s rarely cold enough in Andalucia to don even a waistcoat, never mind a full tweed ensemble. Yet during the 1930s there emerged, from the royal and…
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On Sunday 14th July, a group of flâneurs assembled before the statue of Beau Brummell on Jermyn Street, London at midday. At precisely the same hour, another group of German flâneurs assembled in Dusseldorf, while yet another group in Los Angeles prepared to set off when the London walk reached its destination. This proved impossible,…
“The crowd is his domain, as the air is that of the bird or the sea of the fish. His passion and his creed is to wed the crowd. For the perfect flâneur, for the passionate observer, it’s an immense pleasure to take up residence in multiplicity, in whatever is seething, moving, evanescent and infinite.”…
Why am I writing about Disneyland in The Chap, you ask? Because, for the past four years, Disneyland in Anaheim California been the epicentre (not Epcot Center – that one’s in Florida,) of Dapper Day, and Rose Callahan and I had been invited by the event’s organizer to give a presentation about our book I…
The Chap Olympiad 2018 took place on Saturday 14th July in Bedford Square Gardens, Bloomsbury. Never in the field of human clothing was so much worn by so many; especially considering the 28-degree heatwave that swamped London that day. Ignoring details such as climactic conditions, Brown-in-Town, appropriate daywear for a civilised garden party, the guests…
Nathaniel Adams: Oscar Wilde, writer, raconteur, gay icon, large of girth, lust and ego, bottom wobbling provocatively as he climbs the social ladder from the gutter to the stars, then falls back into the muck with a splash, is arguably the most famous dandy ever. In Oscar Wilde, dandyism found its apotheosis, and after his…
