Pretty Gentlemen

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Macaroni Men and the Eighteenth-Century Fashion World

Peter McNeil

View Inside Format: HC - Paper over Board
Price: $45.00
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The term “macaroni” was once as familiar a label as “punk” or “hipster” is today. In this handsomely illustrated book devoted to notable 18th-century British male fashion, award-winning author and fashion historian Peter McNeil brings together dress, biography, and historical events with the broader visual and material culture of the late 18th century. For thirty years, macaroni was a highly topical word, yielding a complex set of social, sexual, and cultural associations. Pretty Gentlemen is grounded in surviving dress, archival documents, and art spanning hierarchies and genres, from scurrilous caricature to respectful portrait painting. Celebrities hailed and mocked as macaroni include politician Charles James Fox, painter Richard Cosway, freed slave Julius "Soubise," and criminal parson Reverend Dodd. The style also rapidly spread to neighboring countries in cross-cultural exchange, while Horace Walpole, George III, and Queen Charlotte were active critics and observers of these foppish men. 
 

Peter McNeil is distinguished professor at University of Technology Sydney and Aalto University, Helsinki.

“[McNeil] creates an in-depth understanding of the macaroni world. . . . Both interesting and enjoyable for an insight into aspects of late eighteenth century society.”—Alison Fairhurst, Journal of Dress History

Long listed for the Historians of British Art Book Prize
 
ISBN: 9780300217469
Publication Date: April 10, 2018
256 pages, 7 1/2 x 10
150 color + b/w illus.
ADDITIONAL MATERIALS