There have always been daring trendsetters throughout history, from fops and dandies to our more modern hipsters and fashionistas. The ‘Macaronis’ of 18th century Britain outdid them all in their extravagant fashion excesses and pretentiousness. These young, male British aristocrats were famous not just for their extremely elaborate (and often effeminate) dress, but for their snobbish attitudes as well.
By greatly over-exaggerating the current European styles, they managed to start their own unique fashion trend. Then came the odd ‘macaroni’ reference in the patriotic song, Yankee Doodle. But the world wasn’t quite ready for the Macaronis. Their reign in society was short-lived and came to an abrupt end. The subculture sadly fell victim to stereotypical caricature and public ridicule.
How did the Macaronis come about, and come to be named for an Italian pasta?
In the mid-1760s, after the Seven Years’ War ended, Europe had reopened its borders to travelers. Young, aristocratic, British men went on their ‘Grand Tour’ to France, Italy and Greece. For the wealthy, still unmarried male traveler there was a whole world waiting to be experienced. Europe offered a Bohemian frenzy of feasts and festivals. Many indulged in Parisian delights, Roman baths, and Mediterranean wines. It was certainly more rewarding than anything available to them in cold, damp England.
When they returned, they began to appear in London dressed in a distinctive, extravagant style, that copied French court dress in particular. Their penchant for the curved, tubular pasta (quite the exotic delicacy back then) earned them the nickname ‘Macaronis.’ The daringly-dressed gentlemen joined Macaroni Clubs; flaunting their self-proclaimed worldliness, sophistication and enlightenment.
To be a Macaroni, it wasn’t enough just to travel abroad. You had to adopt the latest continental fashions – clothes, shoes, hats and fabrics from Paris and Milan. Lace ruffles exploded from their collars and cuffs. They wore brightly embroidered jackets, along with tightly-fitted silk waistcoats, partly unbuttoned to display a chest brooches. Similarly tight velvet breeches, cut to the knee, that allowed them to display fitted, embroidered silk stockings. And finally, red, Spanish leather, heeled shoes with jeweled buckles.
A Macaroni would also follow a vigorous personal regime – rouged lips and cheeks, powdered wigs, bejeweled fingers, and manicured and painted nails – as was the rage in Versailles. For accessories, he might carry a lace parasol, an elaborate cane, or a ribboned dress sword. Other accessories included a nosegay in a jacket’s buttonhole, oversized buttons, and numerous fobs and watches – all hanging on long gold chains.
The most show stopping feature of a Macaroni was his hairpiece.
18th century upper class men typically wore perukes (curled and powdered wigs). The Macaronis were famous – and later infamous – for their ‘high hair.’ The front part of the wig was brushed up vertically, jutting up to nine inches above their head, with side ringlets of curls and a thick club of hair hanging down the back. Their bejeweled wigs resembled a giant wave of whipped cream with sprinkles. It was often topped with a very small hat called a Nivernois, a sort of French tricorne.
[As an aside, the Macaroni Penguin is so named because of its distinctive, yellow crested head.]
These daringly outrageous, yet exquisitely tailored gentleman became the public image of the Macaroni – somehow part male and part female at the same time. [Keep in mind, women in the 1770’s often wore ‘high hair’ wigs as well, adding tall plumes to increase their height and thereby garner greater attention.] These androgynous peacocks became an 18th century version of an influencer, strutting their stuff on London’s society catwalks.
At the start of the trend, their clothing was described as luxurious and extravagant. Keep in mind, men’s everyday dress at the time favored darker colors and woolen cloths. In 1764, Sir Horace Walpole explained in a letter to a friend that the Macaronis were ‘a club composed of all the travelled young men who wear long side curls and quizzing-glasses.’ He attributed their ability to wear such expensive fashions to the wealth their families brought back from India. Dress had long been an indicator of social class in England.
Initially seen as odd and belligerently anti-establishment, their distinctive fashion was tolerated at first, then even enjoyed by an amused public. These well-travelled, dainty aristocrats built a distinct image of themselves through their unorthodox dress and snobbish attitudes. The term became so embedded in British society that all things in vogue, were described as ‘very Macaroni.’
William Hickey in 1769 noted the complete transformation of a friend after joining a Macaroni club. ‘Instead of the plain brown cloth suit we had last seen him in with unpowdered hair, we now beheld a furiously powdered and pomatumed head with six curls on each side, a little dish of a hat on top. His coat was of sky blue silk, lined with crimson satin, the waistcoat and breeches also of crimson satin, bedizened with a tawdry spangled lace.’
At the same time, the early 1770’s saw the rapid growth of printed newspapers, magazines and pamphlets. The British public had an insatiable appetite for ridiculing the upper class and the Macaronis were a gift from heaven for caricaturists. Publications capitalized on the young men’s’ outrageous fashions. All relied on heavily sarcastic jokes at the expense of the Macaronis.
The Oxford Magazine, in 1770 stated, “There is indeed a kind of animal, neither male nor female, a thing of the neuter gender, lately started up among us. You may know one by his fragrance of scented waters. It is called a Macaroni. It talks without meaning, it smiles without pleasantry, it eats without appetite, it rides without exercise, it wenches without passion.’
The origins of the name was explained in the Town & Country Magazine in 1772. ‘The Italians are extremely fond of a pasta dish they call macaroni. Our young travelers judged that the title Macaroni was very applicable to a clever fellow. Accordingly they instituted a club which was supposed to set the standards of taste in the fine arts, the genteel sciences; and fashion. But they soon proved, they had very little claim to any distinction, except in their unusual appearance.‘
What began as a poke at aristocratic privilege soon turned more sinister.
Then came the scandal of Captain Robert Jones in 1772. Jones was described as a ‘sensitive’ military man and Macaroni who wrote books on his favorite pastime of ice-skating. There he extolled the virtues of the artistic poses of young males while in motion. A socialite writer, Hester Thrale, claimed the ability to ‘recognize homosexuals’ and made a public allegation against Captain Jones. He was vilified in both the press and public. Jones was found guilty of sodomy, capital offense at the time, and forced to leave the country to avoid a death sentence. He was caricatured in the press as ‘The Military Macaroni.’
Promiscuous behavior was rampant behind the walls of proper Georgian etiquette. One was just not permitted to flaunt it in public. As Macaronis blurred gender boundaries, homosexual implications abounded If a gentleman was proclaimed a Macaroni now, he was not only a showoff of fashion, but a weak, effeminate, unmasculine xenophile. To the lower classes he was a poof or a bugger.
Macaronis were soon reprimanded as ‘unmanly’ and ‘un-English.’ The French influence on their fashion was now deplored. The London Magazine complained that ‘the appearance of a Frenchman … which formerly set every Englishman laughing, is now adopted in this country’, adding ‘who can see, without indignation, a parcel of powdered baboons bowing and scraping to one another.’
One scything description comes from The Macaroni Jester, purporting to be a ‘Journal of a Maccaroni’: Rise at Eleven – survey my sweet Face in the Glass. Breakfast at Twelve. Dressed by Half-past One to saunter to the Park and stare at Women, for the Reputation of having a Taste for them. At Three o’Clock saunter into the City, to show myself to the Brutes who are void of taste. Dine at Four and saunter off to be seen at a Coffee Shoppe. Nine o’Clock – take a Woman to a play and talk louder than the actors. Sup with our own Club at Eleven – drink, swear and invent new Toasts till Three.
In the late 1770s, Britain was also fighting a long war with its American colonies. Consider the famous song “Yankee Doodle” and the lyrics: “Yankee Doodle went to town – A riding on a pony – Stuck a feather in his cap – And called it macaroni.” The familiar tune was actually created by the British to mock Americans. The joke being that colonists were so unruly and unsophisticated, that by sticking a feather in one’s hat, they thought they were fashionable – like a Macaroni.
The joke was on the British as American colonists enthusiastically adopted the song as their own.
The public’s outcry, like the Macaronis themselves, was short-lived. By the 1780’s, due to relentless public ridicule, the young men had begun to abandon the brightly colored and embroidered silks, the explosions of lace, and red high heels. After a tax on hair powder in 1785, the high-hair wigs went out of fashion.
The Macaroni craze was the last explosion of extravagance in British men’s dress. At the beginning of the 1800’s came the arrival of the more somber, pared-down style that set the standard for men’s clothing for decades. Only the Victorian dandy, a toned-down metrosexual version, would later have its day. A hundred years later, the name macaroni would be remembered for the pasta and not the pastiche.
The forgotten Macaronis were born out of The Age of Enlightenment, which encouraged delving into the arts and sciences, challenging religious dogma, and seeking societal tolerance. But 18th century British society wasn’t yet enlightened enough for any real discussion on LGBTQ or even the acceptance of effeminate, androgynous dress.
Only aristocratic privilege had allowed the upper-class Macaronis to push the envelope in public without incurring the full wrath of the law. It became a brief period of public amusement and a transient fashion-bending moment before the press and public turned on them. In the end, the Macaroni would not be the flagbearer for an 18th century gay enlightenment.