Dandys extrafinos

Abstract

In 2012 in the publishing house, out of the social center CSA LA Tabacalera de lavapies, Papel de Fumar, this book was published taking inspiration from the tobacco package of “Mencey extra filters”. Mencey was a dark tobacco, very strong, very common in Spain during the fifties. As a pack of Menceyes has 20 cigarettes, this book has twenty texts, each lasting exactly what a cigar lasted in 2012.The book goes through the concept of crossdressing, essential to understand the feminine dandyism. From the hand of the “dandysymas”, we meet Hannah Gluckstein, alias Peter, and Marguerite Radclyffe Hall alias John, the crucified of the dandys, Brooks, and their ladies, Barnes and her close friend Elsa. We also meet Florine Stettheimer and her crystal palace, and Rrose, the one that was like life. In every artistic vanguard we find lots of dandys, male and female. Alejandro Sawa, Paul Arabian, Arthur Cravan and many and many others. The fifties arrived and also the kitsch and camp sensitivities, Jackie Kennedy became dandy, the hipster distributed heroine in fancy dresses, the mods began to appear and the rockers wanted to hit them. And already in the 70s, women again became the queens of a new scene where the dandy attitude became a performance, Tracy Emin, Koons, Guilbert & George and Tony Manero arrived.