“Where are we headed?” asked a moustached man in a Saville Row suit so sharp that it would have made Tom Wolfe feel underdressed. “Haven’t the foggiest,” said a tall gent in a pith helmet. “But someone’s in charge, surely?” No one was. But that was precisely the point of this saunter sans purpose. And so the accidental leaders of some 100 dandies ambled off – perhaps by muscle memory – in the direction of Soho.

Granted, the intrepid duo didn’t have far to go. The Grand Flaneur Walk, organised by Chap magazine and now in its fifth year, starts at the statue of Beau Brummell in St James’s and has no set destination. Brummell, the quintessential 19th-century dandy who spent a mere five hours getting dressed each day, once said that “to be truly elegant one should not be noticed.” By that logic, this writer was among the event’s most elegantly invisible participants. It’s hard to stand out when the person next to you is wearing a floral-patterned Gucci suit with a straw boater and the serene expression of someone who has never heard of cargo pants. Another attendee was dressed like an 18th-century corsair after a particularly lucrative raid: period buckle shoes, velvet dress breeches to the knees, a waistcoat that looked incomplete without a pair of flintlock pistols and a cravat accessorised by – wait for it – another cravat. Even London made an effort with a day adorned in clement May sunshine.

Gustav Temple, editor of Chap, was busy distributing lapel pins and posing for photographs. “It’s getting bigger each year,” said Temple. Indeed, the 100-strong crowd was big and bright enough to have been Instagrammed from orbit. “But the interesting thing is that people are dressing better too, every year they’re raising the bar.” 

That bar was somewhere between Soul Train and an Edwardian séance. Floating through London like a flotilla on the Thames, the procession of flâneurs had come from far and wide to kick it with their kin. An American woman flew in from Munich just for the stroll, so too a contingent from Italy. “There has to be some way for us to parade,” Temple added. “I just wish we hadn’t gone down Shaftesbury Avenue. But a true dandy accepts.” 

Soho, however, was a fitting backdrop. The district’s dandified history was close at hand as the procession drifted past Meard Street, once home to Sebastian Horsley, whose unauthorised autobiography, Dandy in the Underworld, shows the lengths some will go to stand out from the crowd (Horsley had himself crucified in 2000). One is reminded that dandyism isn’t just about dressing up. It’s a reaction against tired trends and feed-filling algorithmic conformity, a refusal to be boring or – God forbid – generic. 

The dandy, once presumed drowned under a high-street tsunami of lycra, puffer jackets and sweatshop-made sneakers, is today sauntering toward a 21st-century comeback, albeit at a suitably meandering pace. From museum exhibitions to last week’s Met Gala theme of black dandyism, the figure’s 21st-century incarnation is reasserting the right to overdress for absolutely everything.

Beneath the panama hats and parasols there was something sincere. At one point in the limbo between pub pit stops, someone produced a clutch of scotch eggs and distributed them among the crowd. The cry went round: “One should never saunter on an empty stomach!” Nothing is too high nor too low for dandies, all the world’s their stage – or in this case, their snack. Far from snobbish, the event’s overarching mood was supportive and celebratory – individuals enjoying a rare jaunt together as a tribe. 

One exquisitely dressed dandy, whom Monocle was assured had never been seen without a waistcoat, was saying his goodbyes when someone entreated him to fix a small frill of leather that was starting to fray from the handle of his vintage cane. “Oh goodness me,” he said. “I’ve let the side down.” He hadn’t. Next year, the tribe will return – lapels pressed and cravats aplenty, sauntering proudly without purpose. 

Matich is Monocle’s digital sub editor and a regular contributor.