Double Lecture and Afternoon Tea | Swagger: Gentlemen of Fashion 1700-1900: from Macaroni Man to Perfumed Poodle and Decadent Dandy with Distinguished Professor Peter McNeil

Dress has always been central to how men manage their social, political, and inner selves. What does messy hair and a slouched posture mean? In this special double lecture, Distinguished Professor Peter McNeill leads us on a sartorial journey from the studied negligence of Restoration Rakes to the elegant Australian artists living it up in in Edwardian London.  

Many men pursue ‘swagger’ and have done so since Classical Greece and Ancient China. Eighteenth-century macaroni men set up a clash with the older generation and embraced flashy, cosmopolitan dressing. Following the French Revolution, Europeans struggled to dress well without looking like servants. Artists, writers, and bohemians as well as manufacturers and merchants created new fashions for mass markets.  

This two-part overview will range across the cult of youth rooted in medieval and Renaissance culture; French and English aristocracy; colonial Australia; untidy bohemians; and the studied elegance of nineteenth century dandies and eccentrics. 

Distinguished Professor Peter McNeil FAHA is an award-winning design historian. His book Pretty Gentlemen’: Macaroni Men and the Eighteenth-century Fashion World  was published by Yale University Press (2018) and was a Marina Warner ‘Book of the Year’ in London Review of Books. McNeil worked with Los Angeles County Museum of Art on the major exhibition ‘Reigning Men’ (2016). During lockdown he wrote on the fate of his fifty pairs of shoes for the bi-lingual Swedish/English Men’s Fashion: An Untold Story (2022).

Your ticket includes:
- Two lectures by our special guest Peter McNeil
- An afternoon tea of petit fours with tea or Market Lane coffee, served on our Wedgwood fine bone china
- Time to browse our exclusive range of books, gifts, and homewares at TJC Emporium

These lectures are presented on-site at The Johnston Collection. Please see your ticket for details. NOTE: Tickets for this event do not include access to our exhibition-house, Fairhall. Guided tours of the current exhibition can be booked separately.

This event is supported by The Colin Holden Charitable Trust.

Image: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Monsieur Louis Pascal, 1893 (detail). Musée Toulouse-Lautrec. Albi, France.