Dandies reclaim the streets of London
Last Sunday a mob of fops gathered in Jermyn Street to begin the fifth Grand Flâneur Walk, organised by The Chap magazine. The purpose was to celebrate the art of flâneurie, a concept that arose in the late 19th century and is all about drifting through the city without direction, simply seeing and being seen. As is observed each year, the very nature of flâneurie makes it impossible to really organise—I personally suspect this is one of its appeals to Chap editor Gustav Temple, who seems to feel that he should organise events but isn’t very keen on the actual organising part of it. On this occasion Gustav did seem to have thought about a route, but it didn’t make any difference, as the mob usually ended up going the opposite way from what he had planned. (This makes it sound like decisions were made by some hive mind, but in fact it was mostly Katie Holt and Helen Chapman who were marshalling people from one location to the next.)
The event started with a lot of standing around and chatting by the statue of Beau Brummell while a host of photographers wove through the crowd, snapping the foppish finery. Eventually the 150 or 200 dandified souls squeezed into the end of Piccadilly Arcade while snappers such as myself tried to get a group photo (which usually just means holding your camera above your head and hoping for the best), and Gustav read an extract from Edmund White’s The Flâneur. Eventually we started to move, through the arcade and along Piccadilly. Reader, it won’t surprise you to hear that the route was slung across a series of pubs, the first of which was Soho’s infamous Coach and Horses. I honestly suspected we might just stay there, and I don’t doubt that Gustav would have been happy to do so, but Katie and Helen had other ideas and we marched off to the Old Bank of England on Fleet Street. This McMullen’s pub has an old double-decker London bus in its courtyard, adapted to have benches facing each other across tables. Although I took a few snaps up on the top deck, I somehow forgot to photograph the outside of the vehicle, so you’ll have to take my word for it. You can see all my photos from the day at www.flickr.com/photos/sheridanclub/albums/72177720326113162.
Around 5pm the posse moved on, but Mrs H. and I peeled away at that point—I had been running a Candlelight Club event the night before and hadn’t got to bed until 5am, so I was beginning to flag. But judging by others’ photos at least a couple of other pubs were visited after that. Many thanks to all who joined us and made for a lively and gregarious event: it was great to catch up many friends and meet new faces—including at least two people who had known nothing about the event and had just been walking down the street when they encountered the tweedy phalanx and decided to join it. I hope they will join the community (and perhaps the New Sheridan Club).
