Branded Male

Dior and the Dandies

Last weekend I loaded up on magazines and made the four hour train journey from Paris to Granville, in Normandy. That's the location of the Musée Christian Dior, at the designer's family home. The place is less ostentatious than you might imagine, built in the stolid half-timbered Anglo-Norman style familiar on this part of the coast.

I was there for an exhibition called, to offer a rough translation, Dandyism: two centuries of dandies from Barbey d'Aurevilly to Christian Dior. Over two floors of portraits, accessories and clothing, it attempts to capture the essence of that elusive figure: the dandy.

The show kicks off with 19th century elegant Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly (right), who never recovered from his encounter with the original dandy, Beau Brummell, in nearby Caen. By then, Brummell was on the run from his debtors and crippled by syphilis, but that didn't prevent d'Aurevilly from idolising him - and becoming his biographer.

The book - Du Dandysme et de George Brummell - sparked a dandy craze in France, with everyone from aristocratic layabout Robert de Montesquiou (left) to respected writers Balzac and Baudelaire fretting about the correct way to knot a cravat or brandish a cane. They also  had some eccentric grooming habits: I was amused by a pot of Veritable Grasse d'Ours (Genuine Bear Grease), said to encourage hair growth and prevent discolouration. There was even a corset for men on show.

So was the dandy a metrosexual avant l'heure? It depends on your interpretation. The meaning of the word has been corrupted over the years. For Brummell, a dandy did not cry out to be noticed, but dressed with quiet perfection. Which brings me to my main criticism of the exhibition: when it enters the modern era, former Dior Homme designer Hedi Slimane barely merits a mention. I know he left Dior under difficult circumstances, but the man who  reinvented the suit for the 21st century deserves more than a fleeting reference. Instead we're lumbered with an homage to John Galliano, who the last time I checked wore fancy dress rather than real clothing. And is in any case a designer of womenswear, and irrelevant here. He even manages to steal the thunder of the current Dior Homme designer, the underrated Kris Van Assche (pictured).

But this glaring omission does not spoil an otherwise enjoyable show, which enables us to gloat at Balzac's turquoise-studded cane, Oscar Wilde's dress shirt, and a smoking jacket once worn by David Bowie (although I'd have opted for Bryan Ferry as the ultimate 1970s dandy). There's also a cigarette case that belonged to Christian Dior himself. If a dandy knows one thing, it's how to accessorise.

The exhibition runs until September 21.

In praise of Parisiennes

"I found a long blonde hair on his jacket, but I didn't say anything in case it belonged to a friend."

Despite the fact that I've now officially lived in Paris for eight years (I arrived on May 11 2000, hardly expecting to stay much longer than a year) there are still huge gaps in my knowledge of French culture. Particularly in terms of popular culture, which is why I was delighted to discover an exhibition devoted to the illustrator Kiraz at the Paris history museum, the Musée Carnavalet.

"My poor husband. He just gets used to my style, and then I change my style."

Born in Cairo in 1923, Edmond Kiraz arrived in Paris in the 1950s and, like many of us, could not bring himself to leave. After dabbling in political cartoons, he was commissioned by the now defunct magazine Jours de France to create a series called Les Parisiennes. Improbably tall, forever chic and not a little seductive, these svelte fantasy figures gambolled across the magazine's pages from 1959 until 1987. Over time, they came to represent a particular type of French woman. As the photographer Dominique Issermann wryly notes: "It's as if [real] Parisian women began to resemble the illustrations of Kiraz."

"She told me so many things I can't repeat that I hardly know where to start."

This may be Art Light - and some of the humour clearly belongs to another era - but there's much to cherish about the illustrations. Kiraz obviously adores Paris, often capturing its streets and moods in a few strokes of his pen. He's also a great judge of fashion, as his girls and their boyfriends are always impeccably dressed. Christian Lacroix says Kiraz has "the eye of a couturier", and who are we to argue?

"If you're determined to take me for a drink, you won't mind if it's an aspirin."

Interestingly, Les Parisiennes have also been used in advertising for brands like Nivea and saccharine brand Canderel. Rather than hiring improbably thin real-life models, advertisers took their notion to its obvious conclusion and used cartoons.

"I see a dark and handsome young man...but I'm keeping him because I saw him first."

But I don't intend to analyze the cultural significance of Kiraz. The fact is that the exhibition made me smile on a humid afternoon, and renewed my love affair - as if that were necessary - with les Parisiennes.

Musée Carnavalet, 23 rue de Sévigné, 3ème arrondissement. Open Tuesday to Sunday from 10am to 6pm.

What's your Rosebud?

Was your life changed by a specific object or incident? The question was inspired by Pierre Assouline's book Rosebud, which I picked it up at an airport recently and thoroughly enjoyed.

Film fans will know that the title is drawn from Orson Welles' masterpiece Citizen Kane. Ruthless media mogul Charles Foster Kane is haunted by the memory of his childhood sledge, the glossy red Rosebud, which symbolises his lost innocence. Assouline wanted to find out if some of his friends and interviewees had a Rosebud in their lives. They range from the photographer Henri Cartier Bresson's treasured shooting stick - which converts into a chair when he's gazing at paintings in the Louvre - to Rudyard Kipling's Rolls Royce, The Duchess.

(I'm told that the word "rosebud" also has another, more erotic connotation, but this is not that kind of blog.)

My own Rosebud is a combination of two objects. As a young boy, I was obsessed by the roll-top desk that sat in my late grandfather's office. Even though he had died a couple of years previously, the desk remained on guard as if he was expected to return at any moment. Inside the desk was an ancient portable typewriter. On rainy Sunday afternoons, my grandmother would let me thread a sheet of paper into the machine and peck a few hesitant sentences. By the age of 12, I was a pretty confident two-finger typist (and I still type that way today).

The typewriter became fused in my mind with the back cover of a book by the writer Wilbur Smith. He wove rollicking tales of heroism set in Africa. The black and white photo showed Smith sitting at his typewriter in his study. He was wearing a safari jacket, and there was quite possibly the head of a stuffed animal on the wall behind him. This was the writer as traveller and adventurer. The picture impressed me more than any of Smith's novels.

I wrote constantly throughout my teens: anguished short stories, abandoned novels, articles for the school magazine. At the age of 19, instead of going to university, I got a job as a trainee reporter on my local newspaper. And I've been making a living with words ever since.

Can a desk, a typewriter and a second-hand paperback inspire an entire career? I'm inclined to think so.

What's your Rosebud?

On elegance

I just wanted to share a quote snatched today from the pages of the book Rosebud by Pierre Assouline. I'll have more to say about the book later, but for now I'll leave you with this, which I've no doubt poorly translated from the French:

"Real elegance is impalpable and invisible: it becomes useless and vulgar if reduced to mere fashion...[For instance], the British will always lack the certain je-ne-sais-quoi possessed by the Italians. In fact, I know what it is: that famous sprezzatura so well evoked by Castiglione in his Livre du Courtisan. It is something like nonchalance, which confers a natural grace that dissipates any trace of effort or affectation."

Return of the Mack

If you are experiencing a rain-soaked spring, as I am, you'll be aware of the advantages of posessing a great raincoat. The trouble is, it's not as easy to procure one of these items as you might think. Oh yes, you can go your classic Burberry trenchcoat route: but personally the little belt gives me decision block. Tie it at the waist? Works for Bogart, but makes me look like an understuffed corn dolly. Leave it to dangle? Potential elevator door hilarity.

Until recently I possessed an affordable but reliable number from Springfield. Straight, black, falling just above the knee and ever so slightly glossy, it did me proud until it began to fray at the hem. I wanted to replace it with the version Steve McQueen wears in Bullitt (which, like so many other things in that film, is perfection). Technically it's more of a car coat, but it's short, fawn and waterproof, so who's arguing? I was also a fan of the pared-down mack that Michael Caine wore as sardonic spy Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File (pictured).

But could I find a minimalist item such as this in my size in Paris stores? Reader, I could not.

That was until the Branded Female directed me to a new boutique called Kitsuné (left), which has just opened near Palais Royal. Painfully hip, Kitsuné ("fox" in Japanese) is also a record label and a graphic design studio. To give you an idea, one of the founders is the manager of the band Daft Punk. Cooler than that, one does not get. Oddly though, the clothing verges on the classic. The brand's spokesman even revealed to me that it sees itself as "a contemporary blend of Ralph Lauren and Charvet".

It was at Kitsuné that I found my perfect raincoat: straight, fitted and beige, with horn buttons. The label said "Made in England". When I inquired further, I discovered that it had been made by the original Mackintosh Rainwear. I imagined this to be a dusty old concern until I clicked on its website. It was quite a shock: Mackintosh had gone hip! Although I will certainly return to Kitsuné for its beautiful one-button blazers and other items, I know where I'll head next time I need a raincoat - back to the source.

Kitsuné: 52 rue de Richelieu, 75001, Paris