The dandy gentleman
Michael Davis, a jazz musician in New York City, was wearing a trenchcoat and fedora, like Sam Spade, when he was eight years old.
The new book, "I Am Dandy: The Return of the Elegant Gentleman" (Gestalten), by Nathaniel "Natty" Adams and photographer Rose Callahan, studies these unconventional but impeccably-clad men for whom elegance is all.
"With dandies, it's their whole being -- they couldn't exist any other way," Adams told CBS News' Serena Altschul. "If they were on a desert island, they'd polish their shoes with squid ink, and they'd use a fish bone as a tie pin."
Dandy Wellington
Bandleader Dandy Wellington told CBS News' Serena Altschul, "My style is a little bit of Jazz Age. There's that old Harlem feel."
Raymond Chu
New York filmmaker Raymond Chu.
Mickael Francois Loir
Mickael Francois Loir, a financial consultant and clothing designer in Paris, says it is easy to be fashionable or eccentric - but difficult to be elegant.
Cator Sparks
Cator Sparks, a Southern gentleman and editor in chief of themanual.com ("The essential guide for men"), admits he once wore Adidas sneakers (!), but on a trip to London became transfixed by the city's dandy gentlemen. Still, he's not beyond wearing a kaftan.
David Carter
David Carter, an eccentric dandy, is a London interior decorator and hotelier - he owns 40 Winks - who is also the city's "Lord of Pajama Parties."
For Carter, "dressing up" is not about being yourself, but being like an actor creating a character (and exhibiting an inner confidence to be able to withstand public heckling).
Domenico Spano
Clothing designer Domenico Spano says he has hope for the future of menswear: today fewer people on the street ask if he's in the Mafia.
Winston Chesterfield
Winston Chesterfield, a pianist and writer in London, says that being elegant catches a woman's eye.
Edward Hayes
When asked if the rumor was true that he refuses to wear a bullet proof vest, New York City attorney Edward Hayes said yes: "What happened was, I represent a guy who beats his wife to death. Terrible, terrible man. I go to his house with the cops, and the cop says, 'Put on a bullet proof vest.' I said, 'No way -- it'll ruin the fit of my suit, and if the TV stations show up I'll look terrible!'"
Gay Talese
Author Gay Talese ("Thy Neighbor's Wife") has always had an elegant fashion sense, and it's come in handy: In the 1960s, when he reported on civil rights protests in the South, he kept tear gas at bay by covering his nose with his silk pocket square.
Michael Haar
Michael Haar, of Queens, N.Y., is a barber, disc jockey and radio host. A "vintageist," he drinks from a special mug designed to keep his moustache dry.
Sean Crowley
It does take work to be elegant.
Sean Crowley, a menswear designer in Brooklyn, once had an Anglophilic teacher who gave him extra credit for wearing ties and jackets to school. A collector of vintage objects, Crowley expresses an affinity for traditional English style, and owns between two and three thousand ties.
Patrick McDonald
Patrick McDonald (occupation: "New York Dandy") says that clothing is the paint with which he covers himself, like a canvas, but also that "dandyism can be an armor, attracting certain people and keeping others away."
Michael "Atters" Attree
English escapologist Michael "Atters" Attree, and his moustache, are photographed in his ornate Regency townhouse.
Ray Frensham
Londoner Ray Frensham, a "professional Bohemian," with top hat and monacle.
Massimiliano Mocchia di Coggiola
Massimiliano Mocchia di Coggiola, member of a family tied to Italian nobility, is a "gentleman of leisure" who says, "Dandyism is a life philosophy. It will never die."
For more info:
"I Am Dandy: The Return of the Elegant Gentleman" by Nathaniel Adams and Rose Callahan (Gestalten)
The Dandy Portraits – The lives of Exquisite Gentleman of Today – blog by Rose Callahan
By CBSNews.com senior producer David Morgan