The Bespoke Woman: Meet Fashion’s Women Of Dandy

Photo: Christian Vierig/WENN 

In the not so distant past women wearing pants (any pants) meant literally borrowing from the boys. Although trousers, blazers and suits and other once men’s only styles have long since been designed for women, many stylish women still shop the men’s department.

Even still, there are women who aren’t just wearing menswear but making dapper dress all their own. Janie Cai, Sarah Ann Murray, Esther Quek and Donya-Patrice Campbell are the latest women in the fashion industry iconizing female dandy style.

Dandyism is very much about a look, an image that requires an unapologetic devotion to style and commitment to purposeful, artful dressing with such intent and exaggeration that it could be considered over the top. In the novel The Charms of Dandyism the female dandy or “quaintrelle” is signified as “living with style”. To dress dandy is to embody a persona, not just wear an outfit.

Photo: Christian Vierig/WENN 

The quaintrelle as we know her, decked out in a style with vintage 1920-30’s menswear overtones like Janelle Monae shares the subversive, philosophical qualities of the original male dandy. Dandy men were looking to appear a part of the aristocratic, upper class although they were of a lower status. Dandies made claim to power, status and equality through dress, a concept readily associated with women donning men’s clothes.

Although being quaintrelle historically doesn’t mean women wearing men’s clothing, the old world craftsmanship and expert tailoring found in menswear atelier’s like Savile Row lend well to the principals of dandyism. Here is where we find the iconic hallmarks of the female dandy – bespoke tailoring of blazers and trousers in tweeds, pinstripe wools and velvet accessorized with derbies, brogues, ties, tie bars and pockets squares.

The emphasis on tailoring calls for blazers and trousers to be tweaked for gamine waistlines, petite shoulders and a womanly curves. Take Esquire Singapore’s Fashion Director, Janie Cai’s denim and tweed mix below or her pinstripe suit above for example. The look comes together to be simultaneously masculine and feminine for a take on androgyny that isn’t all that ambiguous. For other women who do dandy the polished look is made more effeminate with flawless make up for a femme dandy look that’s more Marlene Dietrich than Katherine Hepburn.

Click through to discover the coolest icons of female dandy style in the fashion industry.

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