King of the Dudes
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
“Dude” was first used in the city around 1883 as a pejorative for a man who affected excessive refinement in dress. But one New Yorker embraced the insult as an honorific. E. Berry Wall was King of the Dudes, beau ideal of masculine fashion, whose life was a pursuit of pleasure, and who was probably the first American to wear a dinner jacket, commonly known as a tuxedo, in public.
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