Previous manifestations of the " petit-ma�tre " ( French for small master ) and the Muscadin have been noted by John C . Prevost, but the modern practice of dandyism first appeared in the revolutionary 1790s, both in London and in Paris.
2.
The term "'Muscadin "', meaning " wearing musk perfume " came to refer to mobs of young men, relatively well-off and dressed in a dandyish manner, who were the street fighters of the Thermidorian Reaction in Paris in the French Revolution.