Personally, I have been on the hunt for men’s fashion influencers I can follow who are crushing it in the fashion game. Apparently there is one who I should know about, but I am just about 200 years late to notice. The man is George Bryan “Beau” Brummel. He is credited as most famous dandy.
I will note, back as a kid singing Yankee Doodle Dandy, I imagined that word was just lyrical filler. I had no idea that dandy actually referred to a particular category of men. To be a dandy was (is?) to be serious about dressing elegantly. Perhaps no one did that nearly as well as Brummel.
He is credited with creating not just fashion trends but shaping how many of us live our lives to this day. For one, you can thank him for his daily bathing routine, which caught on. Instead of just bathing yourself in perfume in order to mask your odor, he figured why not just bathe, like actually take a bath. Mind blowing. Thank you for that. The way he wore his suit also shifted the way men’s suiting was stylized, and it’s still the basis for the traditional western style suit.
The man was truly an influencer, to use the term of today. Even then, shops would get him to wear their items to make them more appealing and encourage other people to buy them. Boy, does that sound familiar.
Honestly, I enjoyed learning about this moment in history. I especially find it interesting to learn that this style of dressing, elegantly yet simply, was a response to both the austerity of the times and overly flamboyant behaviors of the royalty that came before. The man continues to have a legacy in fashion and grooming today. I just found a grooming brand, Beau Brummell, named after him. I can’t vouch for the quality of the products, as I have never tried it, but it is just another piece of evidence of the power of his influence.
In looking at his story, it is clear that fashion was a way of responding to the changing world. People loved to follow trends and captivating people even then. Both of those remain true to this day.
Source:
Peyró, I. (June 18, 2019). This 19th-century London dandy caused a style revolution. National Geographic UK. https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/culture/2019/06/this-19th-century-london-dandy-caused-a-style-revolution
Image credit to National Geographic, Image Broker, Alamy
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