The Machiavellian Dandy
By Izzy
Izzy just found a highly amusing review of a new book by Nicholas Antongiavanni called The Suit: A Machiavellian Approach to Men’s Style. The article begins:
Bewildered and intimidated out of ignorance, or perhaps dismissing the subject as effeminate, few American men are willing to give much thought to their attire. The result? All too often, no matter who wears the pants in a relationship, it is the woman who chooses the trousers.
Always a fan of newly coined terms, Izzy was especially pleased to discover that the reviewer inventively used the word “prose-horse” (a play on “clotheshorse”) to describe “writers, such as Max Beerbohm and Tom Wolfe, who have been dandies in person and in print.”
Make sure to read the whole thing.
October 3rd, 2006 at 7:16 pm
You know, maybe it’s just me, but I’ve always thought that Rudi Gulliani bears more than a passing resemblence to Machiavelli. I seem to recall a protrait engraving in “Jansen’s History of Art” that’s a ringer.
December 1st, 2006 at 5:13 pm
I would also like to submit Robert Parker as an author with a solid eye and an entertaining voice for what men AND women wear; it’s actually fairly easy to trace better than two decades’ worth of styles reading his Spenser novels.