1795 / 1975

1794: Robespierre, the beheading heart of French revolutionary Terreur, stood interrupted on the floor of the Paris Commune on July 27, agape as young men clad in grandma’s drapes and pink silk knee-breeches called an end to the session. With them was Eros, her laughing head intact, corpulent and singing in the People’s Chamber…the death-party was over. These scandalous cousins of the recently-departed brashly entered the scene in death-on-sight garb, true fashion outlaws, and they looked Incroyable.  The gig was up for Robie-baby; any cake eaten tomorrow would fall to the floor…

After Revolutionary foreplay came the orgy of bloodletting, the mesmerizing fever of Thanatos, and haute Parisians were suddenly liable for crimes of behavior, thought, and attire. Laborer’s trousers and tunics were the mandated Utopian uniform – Carhartt’s by decree. But this was Paris, not Peking, and counter-revolutionary forces dressed, if not to kill, then to maim.  Packs of Incroyables roamed Paris, dandies in brash silk jackets with huge lapels, their hair cut a lá victime, rough- chopped and short at the back, a shaggy homage to the barbarous shearing prior to the Blade. They hunted down Jacobin Terreuristes with overgrown ‘Hercules’ walking sticks, silk-clad thugs with clubs kicking ass.  Clockwork citrus?  Two centuries early.

Les Incroyables wore a confusing mélange of approved workingman’s cloth (for cravats and vests), that hairdo, loud jackets and exaggerated style.  Reminiscent of the old days, but different - this was fashion, not theory.  Their gals, the Mervelleuses, wore sheer faux-Greek muslin dresses over skintone body-stockings; hoop skirts were out, skin was in.  Their discos were illegal bals de la victime, entrée gained by proof of severed relations, the hand-stamp a red ribbon for your neck, curtsies replaced by sudden downward drops of the head, morbid humor for black times.

copyright Charles Gatewood, used with permission

1974: The idealistic youth revolution of the 1960s had changed everything, and failed. The May ’68 Situationist fervor in France, the Students for Democratic Society in the US, marched the road of Thanatos, devolving into violent rhetoric, vicious infighting, and ‘political correctness’ (to quote Mao). Their numbers thinned as moderate changelings turned off to the Rules, and again, the People’s Uniform sucked.  Early 70s Robespierres robbed banks and planted bombs, hardening into a supercorrect core, attracting no-one at all. Eros descended center stage on a hydraulic lift, amid swirls of smoke… Glam had arrived, a leopard-glove slap to the Weather Underground, who could not believe the true face of Liberty– sexual, personal, artistic – was before them.

copyright Charles Gatewood, used with permission

Predictably, Glam was received with horror, as ‘counter-revolutionary’, ‘hedonistic’, ‘irresponsible’; in other words, a success! Eros laughed as Vidal Sassoon chopped Rod Stewart’s hair a la victime, in his suit cut from grandma’s drapes, with ultra-wide lapels.  Vietnam had quieted, the Pill was finally legal, and the lures of sex and fun drew young eyes young away from the previously cool -revolutionary chic- just as in 1794. It is the oldest story, repeated; the force of creation, Brahma’s eternal inventiveness, becomes codified and boring under the preserving hand of Vishnu, until Shiva gets angry and kicks the whole thing sideways, making space for Brahma’s next good idea.

Busy with continual discovery, Youth forgets, but History remembers, and the big wheel of samsara goes round.

Cue David Bowie!

This article appeared in Men's File magazine #5.   Copyright 2011 Paul d'Orléans.

PIERRE SAVORGNAN DE BRAZZA

WHAT IS A MAN?

Felix Nadar realized in 1854 the glass-plate photos he used as throwaway references for political caricatures were in fact an amazing opportunity, and set about stealing the souls of his friends.  The black-draped ghosts we inherit were the crème of Parisian Bohemia, men and women on the outer banks of proper society, scandalous, sexual, brilliant, and remembered.  Baudelaire, Verne, Delacroix, Hugo, Bakunin, Bernhard, all present and looking sharp, if possibly syphilitic.

A recent exhibit of Nadar photography at the Chateau Tours provided ten rooms’ worth of sartorial splendour from 120 years back.  Male pattern haberdash was, with few exceptions, honed to an edge we could slip our arms into right now and thrill at the forgotten expectation of handmade quality.  Today, fatto á mano has vanished in favor of affordable prêt-a-porter (ie the Gap), but the shape and habit remains; flat, notched coat collars, cotton button-up shirts, fitted trousers brushing the saddle of polished lace-ups.

Surveying Nadar’s 50-year career like an unspooled film, one image burned: Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza, ‘Explorateur’.  Not even NASA uses that job title anymore, how terribly capital R bromantic.  Knowing nothing of the fellow but the depth in his eyes, I thought, ‘ecce homo’ - behold a Man.  Explorer, wearer of chic boho headwrap, dead ringer for George Clooney, and snappy dresser, de Brazza in his double-breasted woolen overcoat and striped trousers might be walking down the Boulevard this very afternoon.  My iPhone revealed he was born an Italian count… de Brazza could have lived a life of courtesan blowjobs, peeled grapes, and slow degradation; the scandal sheets are full of such privileged Neverland boys, entitled dandies hell bent on dissipation - the only unexplored territory within the purview of their shotglass telescope.

And yet, our Man preferred to walk the dirt paths of middle Africa barefoot and nearly in rags, with two loyal friends and 22 African toutes, portaging trade goods and a made-to-order Louis Vuitton folding desk.  De Brazza was the advance man for French colonialism, ‘exploring’ a continent inhabited for, uh, ever, by a highly cultured society (ref: Pyramids).  

But the Man; true to that pacific visage, DeBrazza was a gentle conqueror, taking his sweet time to secure bonds with each village before moving up the path.  By the end of his travels along the river, French Congo was established. The inventor of Fair Trade, he insisted all commercial interests pay a fair wage to the Africans, with decent housing and working conditions. 

Across the Congo river lay the claim of King Leopold, viscous obsidian shadow of Manhood, the first modern genocidalist, and the inspiration for Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’; terror and subjugation were Leo’s tools.  The contrast on opposite riverbanks proved unbearable; Leopold’s smear campaign in the press forced deBrazza back to Paris, and within the year French Congo vibrated in dark harmony with its evil mirror across the river. Shortly, our man was quite dead, likely poisoned by agents of the devil himself, a Belgian.

What the Count sought in his explorations, what we all as men seek, is an Adventure, which must of necessity involve a bit of struggle, some righteous discomfort, the piquant armpit whiff of danger, and autonomy, under the intriguing cloak of mystery. The forge of great character requires an alchemical mix of the Unknown with the discovery of the True.  Which is exactly why deBrazza looks so damn good in a suit.

De Brazza's portable chaise lounge, custom-built by Louis Vuitton, seen at an exhibit of LV history at the Carnavalet Musée in Paris.

 This article originally appeared in Men's File magazine #4.  Copyright 2011 Paul d'Orléans