Editing Dandy (section)

== Quaintrelle ==
{{Redirect|Quaintrelle|the restaurant|Quaintrelle (restaurant)}}
[[File:Dandizette.jpg|thumb|upright|An 1819 caricature of a Dandizette]]
{{More citations needed section|date=May 2008}}
The counterpart to the dandy is the ''quaintrelle'', a woman whose life is dedicated to the passionate expression of personal charm and style, to enjoying leisurely pastimes, and the dedicated cultivation of the pleasures of life.

In the 12th century, ''cointerrels'' (male) and ''cointrelles'' (female) emerged, based upon ''coint'',<ref>Old English Dictionary</ref> a word applied to things skillfully made, later indicating a person of beautiful dress and refined speech.<ref name="Brooks">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eQncCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA57|title=Popular Culture: Global Intercultural Perspectives|last=Brooks|first=Ann|date=2014|publisher=Macmillan International Higher Education|isbn=9781137426727|language=en}}{{Dead link|date=April 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> By the 18th century, ''coint'' became ''quaint'',<ref>Dictionary of Early English</ref> indicating elegant speech and beauty.  Middle English dictionaries note ''quaintrelle'' as a beautifully dressed woman (or overly dressed), but do not include the favorable personality elements of grace and charm.  The notion of a quaintrelle sharing the major philosophical components of refinement with dandies is a modern development that returns quaintrelles to their historic roots.

Female dandies did overlap with male dandies for a brief period during the early 19th century when ''dandy'' had a derisive definition of "fop" or "over-the-top fellow"; the female equivalents were ''dandyess'' or ''dandizette''.<ref name="Brooks"/> [[Charles Dickens]], in ''All the Year Around'' (1869) comments, "The dandies and dandizettes of 1819–20 must have been a strange race. "Dandizette" was a term applied to the feminine devotees to dress, and their absurdities were fully equal to those of the dandies."<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VvFIAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA189|title=All the Year Round: A Weekly Journal|date=1869|publisher=Chapman & Hall|language=en}}</ref> In 1819, ''Charms of Dandyism'', in three volumes, was published by Olivia Moreland, Chief of the Female Dandies; most likely one of many pseudonyms used by Thomas Ashe. Olivia Moreland may have existed, as Ashe did write several novels about living persons. Throughout the novel, dandyism is associated with "living in style". Later, as the word ''dandy'' evolved to denote refinement, it became applied solely to men. ''Popular Culture and Performance in the Victorian City'' (2003) notes this evolution in the latter 19th century: " … or ''dandizette'', although the term was increasingly reserved for men."