Spring is in the air and with it all the joys and expectations of that old sap rising, the scent from one’s boutonniere filtering upwards in the heady breeze; a Dandy is always a young man at heart, and sometimes his heart is in his mouth when all these lilting fragrances can lead to romance.
In early Springtime, the Beau Brummel strode out in St James’s in blue coat, buff coloured waistcoat, and black trousers. His fair to reddish hair ravishing in the coarse fresh sunlight, he was the height of Apollo with an air of disdain and alert irony. Spring is in the air indeed, and a Dandy must suffer further for his foolish ways; life may well be an undeserving cause but the weight of responsibility, like being in the grip of love, which has been scientifically proved to tighten the flexor muscles, clench the scalp (one can go down a hat size), and quite literally narrow the heart. Love, an overreaction to a normal bodily function, in the end. But unlike the awful Stewart Granger movie that portrayed the beau as a rabid, scandalous scallywag, the Beau’s singular style was simplicity: “No scents, but plenty of fresh linen, country bleached”. He had his mirror. Commitment can lead to inflexible domestic arrangements at best.
In affairs of the heart, the Italians have a clear advantage here, none less than one Gabriele Rapagnetta; poet, aviator, seducer, proto-fascist, dandy, and duellist. What’s in a name? Quite a lot it would seem for him to transform himself into the Angel Gabriel of the Annunciation, or rather, Gabriele d’Annunzio. Short, prematurely bald, and bug-eyed, he nonetheless struck quite a dash despite his “funny little crenelated unhealthy teeth”. “He enters like a character from an Italian comedy”, noted René Boylesve, “one can imagine him with a hump”. Once proud of his “forest of curls”, he blamed his baldness on having liquid iron perchlorate poured onto his bleeding head after being wounded in a duel. His seduction technique usually involved the lady in question being shown into a sitting room filled with roses and stiflingly hot. The host arrives in a silk kimono and drenched in Acqua Nuntia, a scent he formulated from a fourteenth century manuscript, decanted into pint sized murano glass bottles with a black label of his own design.
Perhaps being an Italian would be the only way of getting away with such a display. A Modenese friend of mine keeps insisting how much he enjoys stretching and exercising his definable Italian presence, refining it, almost like a hobby and when the moment arrives, has the ability to tone it up a notch or two for immediate effect. Flirtation, he begins, is the switch key to start turning over the cylinders. He should know.
The great Porfirio Rubirosa, sportsman and dandy, certainly had his priorities right, when after marrying the heiress Barbara Hutton, he immediately ran off to pay his overdue tailors bill at Cifonelli. He knew the value of remaining ‘elegant’; he was never known to utter an unkind word of the many women in his life, rich or poor. Even when money got tight, he insisted in still driving a Ferrari, “how awful to be killed in anything else?” In the early hours of July 5 1965 on the Bois de Boulogne the steering column of his speeding Ferrari crushed his chest in the terrible accident, his last words, whispering the name of the young hatcheck girl he had recently met.
Duellists seem to make excellent lovers though, and it makes sense. In the Golden Rule Book along with “Deny, deny, and deny. Confessions are for amateurs” and e“always fake jealousy, it’ll serve you well”, is “get close enough, but not too close, persevering all the time”. My seduction wardrobe advice for this Spring is inspired by the great d’Annunzio. Eau de Cologne from Turnbull and Asser, Jermyn Street, SW1, a surprisingly light and fresh daytime scent at only £25.00. A bit more for a pint of it.
At New And Lingwood, also at Jermyn Street, SW1, nothing goes as well with a rboutonniere than a bright stiff collar and neckband shirt. My choice is the blue poplin cotton collarless shirt at £135.00 and a stiff white turndown collar, £20.00. If you want to go the whole kimono, there’s nothing to stop you buying the quite stunning William Morris inspired artichoke embroidery silk dressing gown with velvet shawl collar, made to order, if you can bear to wait, at £2,500.00.
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