Dandies and fops have always been ephemeral productions, and the former are now extinct, or sobered down into gentlemanly, well-dressed men. Within the last ten years, we have had some stars of considerable lustre in each department, but few survive the trial of three summers. Mr. Ball Hughes, or Mr. Hughes Ball, alias ” Golden Ball,” as he was called, may be mentioned first for his taste in dress, appointments, and equipages. The papers rang with his doings, and he succeeded to the seat of fame then lately vacated by the ” fortunate youth.” Mr. Ball was a man of exceedingly good taste; and in whatever he did, he never lost sight of the appearance and character of a gentleman. Coaching was the rage of the day ; and those who saw his well-built, dark, chocolate-coloured coach, with the four white horses, and two neat grooms in brown liveries behind, saw that it is possible for a gentleman to drive four-in-hand without adopting the dress or manners of a stage-coachman. Mr. Ball was a beautiful dresser ; his colours were quiet, chiefly black and white; and he was the only man we ever saw that could carry off a white waistcoat in the morning. He was the introducer of the large, blackfronted cravats, which helped to set off this otherwise difficult attire. It is said that no man is a hero in the eyes of his valet. Mr. Ball was an exception to the rule ; for we heard of his valet declaring publicly, at a table d’hote on the Continent, that he was the hansomest man in the place, except his master. Mr. Ball has resided for some years in Paris.
Mr. Haine was a contemporary of Ball Hughes, though immeasurably below him in point of taste. He entered life with all the advantages that fortune could bestow ; and, for a time, shared the polite attention of the newspapers. He is now remembered as the owner of a dressing-case that cost 1,500 l, and the wearer of a pea-green coat in the spring of 1825, which he threatened to wear brown before the autumn of that year. This gentleman, we believe, resides at Brussels.
Mr. Long Wellesley is also a man of excellent taste, though he rides in kid gloves, which Brummell used to say, a man should be scouted for doing. He was one of the first of the “turned-back-wristband ” gentry, and was rather in the Ball school, substituting a blue frock for a black. His taste in equipages is quite unexceptionable. Mr. Wellesley is also abroad.
Mr. Bailey was a dandy of the butterfly order: he was a patron of bright colours,
light-blue coats, coloured silk cravats, fancy waistcoats, and was a warm supporter of nankeen trousers. To have seen him cantering up and down Rotten Row on a summer evening, on his well-groomed black, perfuming the air as he fanned the flies, from the noble creature with the well-scented, cambric handkerchief, and to observe his gauze silk stockings, thin pumps, and silver buckles ; or to have seen him lounging with folded arms against the door of the crush-room at the opera, his hair hanging in ringlets over his ears, with a waistcoat of pink or blue satin, embroidered with silver or gold, and all his apparel of the finest, gaudiest, and most expensive texture, a stranger would have set him down as the impersonation of a puppy : and yet he would have been wrong, for Mr. Bailey was a fine, manly fellow, and thrashed all the watchmen in Bond-street single-handed, one night. Still, he was by far the gayest dandy that has been seen about London for years; and when he reached the end of his tether, and the day of reckoning arrived, the tailors’ bills for cashmere trousers, and the mercers’, for French cambric shirts, excited the astonishment of the humble – minded jurymen who sat in judgment on the charges. The last time we saw him, he was vegetating on the beach at Ostend.
Count D’Orsay has long been raised to the presidency of fashion’s court, by general acclamation. He is a beau of established reputation, having arrived in this country with credentials from half the courts in Europe. We remember him in Paris, the star of the opera, with his blooming bride, on their first arrival from Naples. If we recollect right, he used to wear a full dress suit of rich, black velvet, and his equipages and gray horses were at once the envy and the admiration of the Parisians.
We should be doing this great master of the art an injustice, were we to class him as the follower of any school. His changes are so rapid, so numerous, and so complete, that he may be said to be of ” all schools, but blindly wed to none.” Still, were we to name any particularizing feature, we should say, his was the ” shew leg” school. Whether he wears the tight, white buckskins and patent leather Hessian boots, or the more unassuming trousers, there is always an abundant display of the limb that excited the admiration of Mr. ” Penciller Willis.” We cannot say that we admire the cut of his coats, which are too broad and fan-tailed for our taste. Count Charles de Mornay, who reigned before Count D’Orsay, essayed to bring them into fashion some few years ago, but gained few followers ; and we trust the latter may not be more successful. Still, Count D’Orsay is always beautifully dressed, though his versatility of talent in this line will prevent his leading a fashion, because no one can possibly follow him. We see what he has on to-day, but there is no saying what he may wear on the morrow ; so his followers,
” Like the hindmost chariot-wheel are curst,
Still to be near, but never to be first.”
Lords Ranelagh, Chesterfield, and Castlereagh, have each figured on the town, and each tired of the trouble of being very smart. Lord Poltimore has excellent taste both in dress and equipage. Lord Albert Conyngham is a well-dressed man, so is his brother, the Marquess ; and Mr. Sutton promises well. Mr. Reynolds, commonly called Beau Reynolds, has as much taste in dress as anybody ; and his clothes fit better than most people’s. He has all the advantage of height and figure that Bailey possessed, with a soberer taste in his colours. Mr. Charles Jones, brother of the Welsh baronet of that name, is what is regularly called, “well put on.”
Mr. Duncombe, M. P. for Finsbury, is one of the best dressed men of the day. He selects and matches his colours admirably. There is a subdued richness about every thing he puts on ; all harmonize and are in good keeping. His quondam friend, Lord Edward Thynne, is (or was) extremely correct in his costume ; and Mr. Horace Claggett has long been celebrated for his taste in dress, horses, etc.
Lord Jersey is at the head of the sporting school of dressers, and has always had a host of imitators. He is regarded as an authority in all matters relating to dress or appointments; and the Jersey hat and Jersey spur are in equal repute. We believe he introduced the tight-kneed order of trousers. The Duke of Leeds is a very well dressed man; so is the Duke of Dorset, though of the old, top-boot school. Col. Lea and Sir Charles Knightley are equally neat and firm in their support of that costume ; nor must we omit to mention “old John Warde,” the father of foxhunters, who, like Sir Roger de Coverley, with his doublet, has worn leathers and boots till they have been in and out of fashion, over and over again, and is the last man we know that sports ruffles instead of wristbands. There used to be a breed of swells in the city, great, fat, bluff, tight-dressed fellows ; but we think they are all off the pave at present.
Looking at the great change that has taken place within the period we have glanced over, it must, we think, be admitted, that if we have gained in comfort and economy, we have lost in point of beauty, dignity, and elegance of costume. Moreover, the confusion of classes occasioned by the removal of the lines of demarcation in society that dress afforded, is productive of any thing but convenience, or the maintenance of aristocratic pretension. Formerly, a gentleman was known by his clothes; indeed, by the sumptuary laws, his income was almost defined by his dress : now, the only difference between a gentleman and his valet is, that the valet is frequently the better dressed man of the two. Instead of its being necessary for a man to dress in accordance with his station, a new rule has been introduced, which says that, ” when a man’s character is established, he may wear an old coat.” The meeting of the two gentlemen in the theatre, is a happy illustration of the confusion a similarity of dress occasions. Coming from different points, each in a great hurry, one addressed the other with, ” Pray, are you the box-keeper?”, “No,” replied the other : ” are you ?”, Fraser’s Magazine.
From: THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT AND INSTRUCTION. Vol. 24 (1837)