Page 1 of 3 Jefferson Hack celebrates the return of the urban dandy There is a certain ego and attitude that comes with having a definite sense of style, of being comfortable with yourself in individualistic clothing. For me, the opposite - a uniform sense of style - has always meant a uniform mind at work. Classic combination: the new dandyism takes its cues from style icons such as David Bowie My style icons have no such thing and, as a result, have taken the classical elements of a man's wardrobe and subverted them, as a new generation of men is doing today: witness the return of the urban dandy.
The dandy, as Baudelaire said, has a burning desire to create a personal form of originality, within the external limits of social conventions. It is a kind of cult of the ego, embodied by two of my style icons, David Bowie and William Burroughs - opposites at first glance, but connected in many ways. I have a picture of them taken by the celebrity photographer Terry O'Neil in 1972.
Bowie wears a fey felt hat and a Clockwork Orange T-shirt peeking through an almost unzipped, waist-hugging leather jacket; Burroughs sports a tough trilby and an elegant, loose, three-button suit. Both men are sartorially minded, and both are anti-establishment figures. We know Bowie is straight, but he looks provocative as he careers towards the feminine.
We also know Burroughs was hell-bent on chemical exploration, yet he could easily have passed as a friendly doctor. Imagine a combination of both men's styles - a loose-fitting suit worn with a T-shirt underneath; a tight-fitting, fine-leather bomber jacket over a shirt and tie - and you get the look of today's urban dandy. Russell Brand is raking this look on TV, while bands such as Grinderman, featuring Nick Cave, are wearing vintage three-piece suits and hats and making them feel cool and unpretentious again.
Tough, mature-looking men are also making it look cool to dress up; men such as Joseph Corre, co-owner of Agent Provocateur, the artist Harland Miller and the comedian David Walliams. They celebrate an individualistic but grown-up sense of style - and they feel comfortable with themselves and their personal riffs on formality. This is at the heart of the new dandyism, a look that is as cocksure and egocentric as it was 140 years ago.
Baudelaire would raise his glass. The new subversion: Stefano Pilati Laurent when he was describing how he took ideas from the beat of the street and transformed them into formidable fashion. It is this subversive approach to elegance that is now being redefined by Stefano Pilati, the current design director of YSL.
"Everything I design is really a reflection of something I want to wear," says Pilati, 40, who is wearing narrow Prince of Wales check trousers, cut to stop at the ankles, and an oversized woollen cardigan, both from his latest collection. "It's something that I am looking for now, that I want to have for myself in the future." Three years after taking the helm at YSL, Pilati has finally hit his stride with this season's men's collection.
If you want to see the new urban dandy on the catwalk, this is where to look. It was Jean Cocteau, the original Dada-dandy, who said: "In every landscape or still life, a painter portrays himself." And so to Pilati, who has also found the confidence to paint himself into this collection.
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