BEAU BRUMMELL

'George Bryan Brummell' (born June 7,1778, London; died March 30,1840, Caen, France), better known as 'Beau Brummell', was an arbiter of fashion in Regency England and a friend of the Prince Regent. He led the trend for men to wear understated, but beautifully cut clothes, adorned with elaborately knotted neckwear known as the cravat.^[1] Brummell is credited with introducing and bringing to fashion the modern man's suit worn with necktie; the suit is now worn throughout the world for business and formal occasions. He claimed to take five hours to dress, and recommended that boots be polished with champagne.^[2] His style of dress came to be known as dandyism.^[3]
Brummell was an undergraduate student at Oriel College in 1794. He embarked upon a military career, but abandoned it when he learned that his regiment had been ordered to Manchester.
A falling-out with the Prince of Wales was Brummell's downfall ^[4]; Brummell's famous remark, "Alvanley, who's your fat friend?" (referring to Prince George, who had snubbed him shortly beforehand) probably didn't help. Brummell fled to France in 1816 as the result of thousands of pounds of accumulated debts to tradesmen.^[5]
Brummell lived in France for the rest of his life. He died penniless and insane from syphilis in Caen in 1840.

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Contents

Brummell in popular culture

Incidental mentions

References and footnotes

Further reading

Brummell in popular culture

Brummell appears as a character in Arthur Conan Doyle's 1896 historical novel ''Rodney Stone''. In the novel, the title character's uncle, Charles Tregellis, is the center of the London fashion world, until Brummell ultimately supplants him. Tregellis' subsequent death from mortification serves as a ''deus ex machina'' in that it resolves Rodney Stone's family poverty, as his rich uncle bequeaths a sum to his sister.
Brummell's life was later dramatised in

★ an 1890 stage play by American playwright Clyde Fitch;

★ a 1924 movie with John Barrymore and Mary Astor;

★ a 1937 production on Lux Radio Theater with Robert Montgomery as Brummell and Gene Lockhart as the Prince; (during the introduction of this episode, Cecil B. DeMille calls for prayers for finding Amelia Earhart);

★ a 1954 movie remake, ''Beau Brummell'', with Stewart Granger playing the title role;^[6]in this film the rape of Lady Patricia is played as romantic; if violent lovemaking.

★ A 2006 BBC television drama, '' starring James Purefoy as Brummell, and first broadcast on BBC Four in June 2006.^[7]
Georgette Heyer, author of a number of Regency romance novels, included a character named after Brummell in her 1935 novel ''Regency Buck''.
Watchmaker LeCoultre made a watch named after him during the 1940s and 1950s. It is an extremely simple watch with no numbers and a small modern face.
Brummell's name was adopted by the faux-British Invasion band The Beau Brummels who had top 40 hit records in 1965.
Brummell is the detective-hero of a series of period mysteries by Rosemary Stevens, including ''Death on a Silver Tray'' (2000), ''The Tainted Snuff Box'' (2001), ''The Bloodied Cravat'' (2002), and ''Murder in the Pleasure Gardens'' (2003).
A statue of Brummell by Irena Sedlecka was erected on London's Jermyn Street in 2002.^[8]

Incidental mentions

T. S. Eliot mentioned him in ''Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats'' (which Andrew Lloyd Webber later made into the hit Broadway musical ''Cats'') in his poem about Bustopher Jones: "In the whole of St. James's the smartest of names / Is the name of this Brummell of cats."
French novelist Honoré de Balzac, in his Traité de la vie élégante (1830s), depicts an aging, wig-wearing and somewhat overweight Brummell discussing fashion and defining the "elegant" lifestyle with the French.
He also is affectionately remembered by Little Orphan Annie in the Broadway musical ''Annie'' (1977), wherein she refers to his keen sense of fashion: "Your clothes may be Beau Brummelly, they stand out a mile ... you're never fully dressed without a smile".
From singer-songwriter Billy Joel's "Glass Houses" album (1980), the listener is told in the hit "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me" that "you could really be a Beau Brummell, baby, if you just give it half a chance".
In the television series ''Doctor Who'', a 1984 episode entitled "The Twin Dilemma" featured a recently regenerated Sixth Doctor, who, upon choosing his clothes and being told he "looks dreadful", retorts: "That, my dear, is what they said about Beau Brummell."
In his autobiography entitled ...And I Havent Had a Bad Day Since, Charlie Rangel mentions that when his grandfather dressed up he looked like Beau Brummell.

References and footnotes

1. A Poet of Cloth, a Spring 2006 article on Brummell's cravats from ''Cabinet'' magazine
2. Beau Brummell and the Birth of Regency Fashion, from the Jane Austen Centre's online magazine
3. Barbey d'Aurevilly, Jules. ''Of Dandyism and of George Brummell''. Translated by Douglas Ainslie. New York: PAJ Publications, 1988.
4. The Wits and Beaux of Society, Volume 2, Grace and Phillip Wharton, 1861
5. Brummell's gambling debts, as "debts of honour," were always paid immediately.
6.
7. James Purefoy as Brummell in a BBC television drama
8. Memorial to Brummell from londonremembers.com

Further reading

★ Campbell, Kathleen. ''Beau Brummell''. London: Hammond, 1948

★ Jesse, Captain William. ''The Life of Beau Brummell''. London: The Navarre Society Limited, 1927.

★ Kelly, Ian. ''Beau Brummell: The Ultimate Man of Style''. Hodder & Stoughton, 2005

★ Lewis, Melville. ''Beau Brummell: His Life and Letters''. New York: Doran, 1925

★ Moers, Ellen. ''The Dandy: Brummell to Beerbohm''. London: Secker and Warburg, 1960.

★ Nicolay, Claire. ''Origins and Reception of Regency Dandyism: Brummell to Baudelaire''. Ph. D. diss., Loyola U of Chicago, 1998.

★ Wharton, Grace and Philip. ''Wits and Beaux of Society''. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1861.