Editing Dandy (section)

==French dandyism==
[[File:Montesquiou, Robert de - Boldini.jpg|thumb|upright|The French Dandy: The symbolist poet [[Robert de Montesquiou]] ([[Giovanni Boldini]]).]]
In monarchic France, ''dandyism'' was ideologically bound to the [[Egalitarianism|egalitarian]] politics of the [[French Revolution]] (1789–1799); thus the dandyism of the ''[[jeunesse dorée]]'' (the Gilded Youth) was their political statement of aristocratic style in effort to differentiate and distinguish themselves from the working-class ''[[sans-culottes]]'', from the poor men who owned no stylish [[Breeches|knee-breeches]] made of silk.

In the late 18th century, British and French men abided Beau Brummell's dictates about [[fashion]] and [[etiquette]], especially the French [[bohemianism|bohemians]] who closely imitated Brummell's habits of dress, manner, and style. In that time of political progress, French dandies were celebrated as social revolutionaries who were self-created men possessed of a consciously designed [[personality]], men whose way of being broke with inflexible [[tradition]] that limited the social progress of greater French society; thus, with their elaborate dress and [[decadence|decadent]] styles of life, the French dandies conveyed their moral superiority to and political contempt for the conformist [[bourgeoisie]].<ref>Meinhold, Roman. "The Ideal-Typical Incarnation of Fashion: The Dandy as … ." essay in ''Fashion Myths: A Cultural Critique''. Bielefeld, Germany: transcript, 2014. pp. 111–125. books.google.com/books?id=1XWiBQAAQBAJ {{ISBN|9783839424377}}</ref>

Regarding the social function of the dandy in a [[Social stratification|stratified society]], like the British writer Carlyle, in ''Sartor Resartus'', the French poet Baudelaire said that dandies have "no profession other than elegance … no other [social] status, but that of cultivating [[Aesthetics|the idea of beauty]] in their own persons. … The dandy must aspire to be sublime without interruption; he must live and sleep before a mirror." Likewise, French intellectuals investigated the sociology of the dandies (''[[flâneur]]s'') who strolled Parisian boulevards; in the essay "[[On Dandyism and George Brummell]]" (1845)  [[Jules Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly]] analysed the personal and social career of Beau Brummell as a man-about-town who arbitrated what was fashionable and what was unfashionable in polite society.<ref name=Walden>Walden, George. ''Who's a Dandy?{{snd}}Dandyism and Beau Brummell'', Gibson Square, London, 2002. {{ISBN|1903933188}}. Reviewed in [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/oct/12/featuresreviews.guardianreview3 Uncommon People], ''The Guardian'', 12 October 2006.</ref>

In the late 19th century, dandified bohemianism was characteristic of the artists who were the [[Symbolism (arts)|Symbolist movement]] in French poetry and literature, wherein the "Truth of Art" included the artist to the work of art.<ref>Meinhold, Roman. "The Ideal-Typical Incarnation of Fashion: The Dandy as … ", essay in ''Fashion Myths: A Cultural Critique''. Bielefeld, Germany: transcript, 2014. pp. 111–125. books.google.com/books?id=1XWiBQAAQBAJ {{ISBN|9783839424377}}</ref>