The Battle of the Dandified

There was a mood about the air – lingering, subtle. All because the two chaps who’d taken their order of coffees – a long black cold pressed single origin bean from local rooftop pot grown shrubs, the other, a drip filtered expresso with “your best biodiversity fair trade organic beans available (but not the same beans as that guy’s coffee)” – were in this war for attention. The rules were tedious. It was the rule of the inner city dandy, it was the war of the dandified. To look like something yet not to draw the eye too much. Just enough to capture attention for a time and then let the eyes continue on their way. But what complexity when two engage for the same limited resource in the same limited space – an artistically shabby coffee hut on the precipice of a cave-in yet on the edge of modernity’s aesthetic all at once.

The battle was fierce yet nobody could say as much, though all knew as much. The surrounding patrons were intimately involved. Theirs was the battle field. Theirs the attention – the targets, yet not the opponents.

The ornamental soldiers wielded their weapons – one, perfectly styled bed hair, the mixture of belligerence with the pillow and sword-art from the comb. A month-long cultivated ‘week-long’ beard at 3mm growth with even distribution from cheek to mid neck. Australian floral patterned unbuttoned button-up shirt with a shabby singlet which overrides the jeans. Precision torn denim leg bags and cork sandals. Accessorised with a swarthy leather satchel to holster the moleskin and fountain pen. The other – an overall aura of the supercilious poodle with his tight curling locks that spoke volumes as it encompassed the globe of the scalp. To magnify the facial activity was one pair of neutrally powered Perspex glasses functioning only as a symbol of stolid intellectualism. Below a clean shaven chin wrapped a neck bandana which accentuated the poodle-esc aura with its typical canine red colouring. The bandana contrasted in style to the dull matte green suit jacket worn as an abnegation of conventional office-chair chairmen. This sentiment was furthered by a plain black t-shirt holstered in jean shorts rolled slightly above the knees. After a decent journey down the mild foliage of leg hair were a pair of black boots, the mixture of the polished corporate and scuffed hipster with yellow stitching and white lacing.

As they sat at the table speaking to each other in mildly excited tones accompanied by slightly exaggerated laughs and gestures, they elicited the occasional yet consistent glances of new patrons and old. The occasion, a casual catch up over fine individuated coffee. The situation, a deeply subtle battle for the approving eye.