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The Chap is a British humorous men's lifestyle magazine published quarterly. It was founded in 1999 by Gustav Temple and Vic Darkwood, and was edited by Temple until 2025.
The magazine proposes that men everywhere return to a more gentlemanly way of life by rejecting modern vulgarity and careless, shabby or faddish dress sense through the restoration of the lifestyle, habits, manners and traditional fashion sense of a mid-20th century (or earlier) British chap. Thus it advises men to wear traditional British suits and other similar well-tailored clothing, especially those cut from tweed; to keep their trousers sharply Trouser press; to be impeccably Body grooming; to wear quality handmade shoes, brightly polished; and to return to the everyday wearing of hats.
The Chap has a comic and eccentric twist on this. It jokingly espouses its own unique lifestyle philosophy called Anarchy- and has its own 10-point manifesto, The Chap Manifesto, which mandates that a chap is to Tobacco pipe, is to Hat tip his hat when good manners require, is never to wear what it calls Jeans, and to sport a moustache (never a beard), among others.
The Chap is a mixture of articles on clothing, footwear and headwear; on sport (mainly cricket and horse racing); on moustache grooming; on polite manners and traditional British etiquette; and on pipes and tobacco, all written in an Anachronism late-Victorian to mid-20th Century British style, interspersed with humorous jokes. For instance, the "Am I Chap" section sees people sending in photos of themselves dressed in vintage attire, on which the magazine's editors almost always comment derisively in a very withering, but humorous, fashion.
The Chap also features articles on a diverse range of things related to Chappism, such as tales of First World War and Second World War military derring-do, stories or tips on unusual ways to travel when abroad, or the late Victorian and Edwardian martial art of Bartitsu.
The magazine has often been very satirical or whimsical, with content such as a series chronicling "A Year in Catford" and "Amusing Monograph as to the Various Pleasures and Diversions Afforded by One's Valet".
Notable contributors to The Chap include Michael "Atters" Attree who conducts interviews with those known for their gentlemanly or ways, and Miss Martindale, a prominent spokesperson of Aristasia, who from 2003 to 2005 wrote the Ladies' Column. Its current literary editor is the author and historian Alexander Larman.
The Chap was published bi-monthly from 1999 to May 2017.
From issue #92 published in May 2017, the magazine has been published quarterly, has double the number of pages, and has been graphically redesigned. On this "relaunch" the editor said:
In summer of 2025, the magazine ceased publication and announced it was becoming a members’ society.
The magazine has also conducted a number of balls called the Grand Anarcho-Dandyist Balls.
| Gustav Temple & Gestalten |
| Gustav Temple & Olly Smith |
| Gustav Temple & Clare Gabbett-Mulhallen |
| Gustav Temple |
| Gustav Temple & Vic Darkwood |
| Gustav Temple & Vic Darkwood |
| Gustav Temple & Vic Darkwood |
| Gustav Temple & Vic Darkwood |
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