num_pages: 304
description: Dandies: Fashion and Finesse in Art and Culture considers the visual languages politics and poetics of personal appearance. Dandyism has been most closely associated with influential caucasian Western men-about-town epitomized by the 19th century style-setting of Oscar Wilde and by Tom Wolfe's white suits. The essays collected here however examine the spectacle and workings of dandyism to reveal that these were not the only dandies. On the contrary art historians literary and cultural historians and anthropologists identify unrecognized dandies flourishing among early 19th century Native Americans in Soviet Latvia in Africa throughout the African-American diaspora among women and in the art world. Moving beyond historical and fictional accounts of dandies this volume juxtaposes theoretical models with evocative images and descriptions of clothing in order to link sartorial self-construction with artistic social and political self-invention. Taking into consideration the vast changes in thinking about identity in the academy Dandies provides a compelling study of dandyism's destabilizing aesthetic enterprise. Contributors: Jennifer Blessing Susan Fillin-Yeh Rhonda Garelick Joe Lucchesi Kim Miller Robert E. Moore Richard J. Powell Carter Ratcliffe and Mark Allen Svede.
language: English
title: Dandies: Fashion and Finesse in Art and Culture
publisher: New York University Press