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| The dandizette is a female English dandy. Their peek period coincided with that of the male dandy, roughly from 1810 to 1820. |
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| Dandizettes hung out with male dandies. Even though they were women, some of them adapted the speech and habits of male dandies. That's bizarre when you remember that male dandies were imitating women. It's a case of women imitating men who were imitating women. Geez! Wait a minute, let me backtrack. I implied that all dandies were gays, and I didn't mean to say that. I imagine that the great majority of dandies were heterosexual and completely masculine. Disraeli was a dandy. Dickens was something of a dandy in his youth. Even so, I feel justified in hazarding a guess that gay men had something to do with the founding of dandyism. They started it, but a big portion of it passed into the hands of heterosexuals. |
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Dandizettes are with us even today, witness John Allison's "Fop Catcher" (above) (copyright John Allison 2009). Some modern girls just like to hang out with dandies. I'm not talking about hetero girls who have gay men friends. That's different. I'm talking about hetero dandizettes who fall in love exclusively with male hetero dandies.
Is anybody following what I'm saying here? I wrote it, and even I have trouble understanding it.
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Girls are strange. They seem to prefer men who are either ultra-masculine, or who look and act like girls. No doubt the truth is more complicated, but I make no claim to possessing the truth.
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Were dandies of the Regency period really as over the top as they were portrayed in etchings?
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| I hope so. It makes the period much more interesting. |
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While we're on the subject of dandies, I think I'll take a shot at answering Paul's comment about whether or not metrosexuals are todays dandies. It's an interesting topic.
I do think that Regency dandies will be found to have had a greater intellectual impact on succeeding generations than metrosexuals, and that's because they were better versed in culture. Go to iTunes and listen to Stephen Fry's podcast on language. Fry doesn't dress like a dandy, but he was influenced by that culture, and you'll hear for yourself how powerful dandyism is when its allied to a good classical education.
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