BEAU BRUMMELL
London’s streets will soon be teeming with sophisticated and urbane fashionistas, all here for London Fashion Week and many of them staying with us in one of our elegant little central hotels. Their arrival always reminds us of William Hazlitt’s contemporary, George ‘Beau’ Brummell.
Brummell’s penchant for fashion began at a young age. Eton educated, he modernised the standard white cravat that was the mark of an Etonian, sprucing it up with a gold buckle. As an officer in the personal regiment of the Prince of Wales, the Tenth Royal Hussars, his refusal to stint on appearances, or indeed entertainment, meant sky high mess expenses. Indeed, economy was not in Brummell’s vocabulary: he even advocated polishing one’s boots with champagne.
Bathing his whole body, daily, in hot water was something Beau’s contemporaries viewed as rather eccentric. Perhaps a champagne-based boot polish, or taking five hours to dress, haven’t stood the test of time, but we’re delighted to see Brummell’s influence, as well as that of his female contemporaries and those who have followed, echoed today in London Fashion Week.
A Dandy is a clothes-wearing man, a man whose trade, office and existence consists in the wearing of clothes. Every faculty of his soul, spirit, purse and person is heroically consecrated to this one object, the wearing of clothes wisely and well: others dress to live, he lives to dress.
THOMAS CARLYLE
