Macaroni (fashion)

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"What is this my Son Tom?" (1774)
"Pantheon Macaroni" (caricature by Philip Dawe, 1773)
The macaroni painter

Macaroni (from Italian maccheroni ) denotes a certain form of fashion fool in England between 1760 and 1780.

White silk knee breeches and stockings as well as shoes with diamond-studded shoe buckles and red heels were considered typical of the clothing of the macaroni , fashionable attributes of French court clothing that were felt to be unsuitable in England at the time. In addition, a tiny three- cornered hat was the hallmark of macaroni , named Nivernois after Louis-Jules Mancini-Mazarini , Duke of Nivernais and ambassador of France in London .

The name comes from the pasta dish known in England since the beginning of the 17th century , as also derived from the "Macaroni and Theatrical Magazine" in its first edition from 1772. It came up as a (mocking) term for young men who brought with them from their Grand Tour , which mostly also took them to Italy, not only a preference for continental cuisine, but also for unusual fashion and idioms. One of the very many relating to the Macaroni fashion cartoons is probably the time to be residing in Italy and as a portrait painter working Angelika Kauffmann , a friend of Goethe , as "Macaroni-painter" is.

It has been claimed that the macaroni are an early form of a homosexual subculture , but there is no conclusive evidence. The historical perspective can be deceiving here: What today appears to be effeminate and is reminiscent of the fashionable exaggerations of modern drag queens was perhaps perceived back then mainly as (silly) antiquity.

The macaronis were occasionally referred to as members of the "Macaroni Club", but such a club probably never existed, rather such a designation should identify the Macaroni as the diametrical opposite of a member of the " Beefsteak Club ". The "Beefsteak Club", more precisely the "Sublime Society of Steaks", actually existed, founded around 1735 a. a. by John Rich (1692–1761). The caricature “What is this my Son Tom?” With the father as a representative of the English landed gentry who eats beef steak and the son who returned home from the European tour as a macaroni draws the comical effect of the contrast between the two.

Even if there was no macaroni club, there were points of collection and crystallization. These included the young aristocrats around Charles James Fox , the clubs The Scavoir Vivre and Almack’s , the Teresa Cornelys events at Carlisle House in Soho , and the masked balls in the Pantheon .

The number of macaroni was small: even at that time it was found that the number of macaroni jokes and caricatures far exceeded the number of real macaroni . And the fashion was short-lived: Above all, an embarrassing incident in July 1773, the so-called Vauxhall Affair , in which some macaroni were beaten up by a clergyman, caused a stir in the press and even more than ridiculed the macaroni . After 1780 the macaroni disappeared. Nevertheless, one legacy remained part of male fashion in the long run: the inside pocket of the men's jacket goes back to the macaroni .

In English usage, the macaroni finally gave way to the dandy . But the term has been retained in a very prominent place. The first verse of the Yankee Doodle reads:

Yankee Doodle went to town
A-riding on a pony,
Stuck a feather in his cap
And called it macaroni '.

Originally, the Yankee Doodle is said to have been a song of derision by the English troops of the Yankee, who, in its simplicity, means that a feather on a hat lifts it to the height of fashionable sophistication, so turn it into a macaroni .

literature

  • Ingrid Loschek : Reclam's fashion and costume lexicon. Reclam, Stuttgart 1987, ISBN 3-15-010448-3 , p. 340
  • Otto Mann: The modern dandy. A cultural problem of the 19th century. Philosophical Research Issue 1, Springer, Berlin 1925. Reprint: Hoof, Warendorf 2007, ISBN 978-3-936345-60-5
  • Adelheid Rasche, Birgitt Borkopp-Restle: Ridikül! Fashion in Caricature, 1600 to 1900. Catalog for the exhibition in the Gemäldegalerie Berlin from December 5, 2003 to February 15, 2004. DuMont, Berlin / Cologne 2003, ISBN 3-8321-7388-9 , p. 83
  • Amelia Rauser: Hair, Authenticity, and the Self-Made Macaroni. In: Eighteenth-Century Studies Vol. 38 No. 1 (2004), pp. 101–117
  • Aileen Ribeiro: The Macaronis. In: History Today 28 (July 1978), pp. 463-468.
  • Valerie Steele: The Social and Political Significance of Macaroni Fashion. In: Costume 19 (1985), pp. 94-109

Web links

Commons : Macaroni (Mode)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Macaroni is, in the Italian language, a word made use of to express a compound dish made of vermicelli .... This dish was far from being universally known in this country till the commencement of the last peace: when, like many foreign fashions, it was imported by our Connoscenti in eating, as an improvement to their subscription table at Almack’s . In time, the subscribers to those dinners became [sic] to be distinguished by the title of MACARONIES…. “The Macaroni and Theatrical Magazine, or Monthly Register (October 1772). Quoted in Rauser 2004, p. 115
  2. ↑ See e.g. B. Peter McNeil: "That Doubtful Gender": Macaroni Dress and Male Sexualities. In: Fashion Theory 3.4 (1999), pp. 411-448.
  3. ↑ No. 28 St. James's Street, see also BHO: St. James's Street
  4. ↑ The club where, according to "Macaroni and Theatrical Magazine", subscribers to the macaroni menu formed the core of the macaroni movement.
  5. ^ Ribeiro: The Macaronis. 1978, p. 466.
  6. ^ Ribeiro: The Macaronis. 1978, p. 468.