A dandy in The Presidency

Abidjan is bleak and warm, the night smells of decay of the lagoon and cocoa, with traces of fear. Fear of tomorrow, uncertainties. Fear of "authorities", uniformed men who blocked the roads, remove the recalcitrant Gbagbo camp or those they do not like nasty little soldiers of this interminable crisis where two chairs facing each other in the same city for the same power.

Alassane Ouattara Laurent Gbagbo. Nearly 20 million Ivorians are watching them argue the presidency, in an atmosphere of disintegrating more and more insistent. In the middle of the night, a door opens to enter the Presidency. Music, lights whirling, dizzy. The President then is not so easy to take, it offers everything that Abidjan has an elegant, crazy dancing, the miraculous style of designer glasses.

Amidst this microrépublique of the night, recited the song of songs cut the offset (a musical style), locating a prince from afar. Serge Defalet made his debut in The Presidency, "proclaims the DJ, before detailing the menu that bears the dandy tonight. With an economy of gesture, here he takes off his jacket to the flamboyant style already and returns to the cheers of the public: the lining, in python, is two fingers to cause fainting.

A block style in its purest form in the thin air. DJ, choosing his words, lost his temper: "The beast is out! Serge Defalet door python skin." Serge Defalet is a founding member of the jet set. The jet set is very simple, made it up. All that matters outside the cruel rules of the political game, that is to say the coupe offbeat mix of music, reconstruction of reality, dance steps and a grammar of style to the precepts complex, summarized in a "constitution" known only to few.

Members of the jet-set - with their fire Douk Saga leader, called "Summit of the Himalayas" - have created the elaborate rituals that govern this great mystery that is life in a nightclub when the world is in despair. And Serge Defalet with other knights as Kuyo junior whose ears glow tonight two beautiful stones, rules over this behind the scenes by the energy of style.

We must remember the words of French writer Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly (1808-1889) in one of his most penetrating of dandyism and George Brummell, dedicated to the greatest dandy of all time: "Later intoxicated with the unique position that he had done, he gave up this role as a dancer too vulgar for him.

There remained only a few minutes at the entrance to the ballroom. He walked with a glance, the thought of a word and disappeared; thereby applying the famous principle of dandyism: "In the world, as long as you do not produce any effect, stay and if the effect is produced, will you. " He knew his withering prestige.

For him, the effect was no longer a matter of time. "After the Presidency, Serge Defalet again into the night, head for the VIP in the legendary Princess Street, laboratory inventions jet settiennes, or Pink Bacardi to Treichville, before finishing the grandiose New Ice. It cuts through the night in his car (with driver, of course).

Watch out for police who dare stop at a roadblock - the "authorities" to which the rest of Abidjan addressed with great respect that causes fear. "You do not know who I am? You do not know the jet set? "And" authority ", facing the master of the night to apologize for and to give way. With Molare, another jet-setter, the dandy has taken a position for Alassane Ouattara.

In the galaxy of coupé décalé, others argue Laurent Gbagbo. Does it even matter? "We invented the coupé décalé when the crisis began (after the attempted coup of 2002 and the introduction of the curfew), we wanted to live, and we lived in nightclubs, "says Serge Defalet. And if an "authority" ventured to reproach him for his opinions? And if the pro-Gabgbo patriots were attacking him? "If they touch one of my hair, they will see the true youth of Côte d'Ivoire, the youth staggered cut, down the street," says he.

We think. In contrast to the city, there's another man for whom the night is not a bubble chamber in which we run as a free particle, but a prison. Venance Konan is one of the consciences of Côte d'Ivoire, a reassuring light in stormy weather. The former reporter was dismissed from his drafting by the government of Laurent Gbagbo frowning.

Since then, he wrote books on serious and hilarious life in Côte d'Ivoire (The Catapilas these ingrates, ed. Picollec Jean, 2009). Since the presidential election, he writes lyrics with the line that says the crisis between the elegance of intelligence to all the horrors being. There are still a few days, he swallowed a glass in a hurry before returning safely to bed, knowing that his name is "lists" of those whom the death squads can come pick it.

On Monday, six men in uniform tried to remove it. Luckily, they got the wrong house, visiting his old home. Since then, Venance Konan began a new journey, far from his hometown, forced into exile for saying things so simple and fair, without losing his smile, like a true dandy. Email: jpremy @ bbc.

fr. Jean-Philippe Rémy Article published in the edition of 14.01.11

• Handy-Dandy Wall Organizers (13/01/2011)
• Don Meredith Was Simpy Dandy on Monday Night Football (06/12/2010)
• Men's Fashion PR: Fine & Dandy Shop To Host Pop-Up Store This Weekend @ The Blind Barber (05/12/2010)
• Ryeowook, dandy look with bow tie and neat hairstyle (01/12/2010)
• Video: Dandy Wellington's Fashion Obsessions (17/09/2010)