#shoutout to them and the 1892 December Issue

[justastrugglinghotchocolate]

If Dorian is a swan, Henry Wotton is a peacock. He wears a sack coat; this coat would have just begun to grow popular in the early 1890s. The coat Henry wears over his shoulders is called an opera coat—I used an article from Vogue 1892 as reference. When it comes to fashion Henry is ahead of everyone—sometimes even being the one to set trends. Fashion is both a pleasure and tool for Henry and he uses them in every way he can, from genuinely expressing himself to creating pretentious outrage (yall just wait for when I get Henry in the Rudi Gernreich bathing suit!)

Henry’s status as a middle child (2 of 5) contributes to his desperation for attention. He loves being the center of attention—this man does not have a shy bone in his body. Because of this, he is the only one of the trio to consistently use color in his outfits, often accenting in golds or silvers.

Even the frame of his glasses (he is nearsighted and not happy about it) are plated in gold, catching in the light, because attention, like his glasses, is a necessity in his life. Henry also wears a cravat as a nod to Beau Brummel—the original dandy. My Henry idolizes Beau Brummel which is my excuse for not giving him facial hair; it’s just a dandy thing.

Henry’s hair, unlike Basil’s, loosely hangs around, only styled so it doesn’t catch on fire from his cigarettes. My version of Henry was directly inspired by Basil to have longer hair back when they were in Oxford. Until he met Basil, he hadn’t realized he was allowed to just have long hair. This realization was accompanied with further desire to break away from Victorian norms in the most flamboyant (but not openly illegal) way he could.

A lot of decisions that Henry makes are a result of something he fancied in Basil/something Basil did for him. In the Modern Reimaging AU, Henry lives to be 75, dying in 1940. But even when he was mostly with Dorian or living as an old ass man, Henry kept his hair long, never quite able to forget Basil.

Fun story: My friend and I were talking about cigarettes, so I showed them this page and they said they “no longer like cigarettes because that dude made them too pretentious.” Honestly iconic of them.