NEW YORK CITY — You can always spot man-about-town Johan Bravo by the sight of his crisp purple ascot and gold-handled cane. He usually sports a monocle and a top hat tipped rakishly to one side of his head. The well-heeled gadabout is always surrounded by friends and well-wishers, and his high-pitched giggle rises above the cocktail chatter at any party.

But there’s another way to spot Bravo: wherever he goes, a competition is sure to break out.

“I love to watch people vie for my favor,” says Bravo, sipping delicately from a chilled choclo-tini in his Manhattan pied-a-terre. “It’s ever so fun to see them design dresses or rooms or whatever I tell them to.”

Indeed, in the past year, Bravo has rounded up groups of interior decorators, chefs, and fashion designers to participate in a series of increasingly byzantine competitions. Often, the competitions will start out with one set of rules, only to have Bravo change them capriciously and without warning.

“I do so enjoy watching everyone caper to my whim,” says Bravo, a bachelor. “And while it’s always nice to see what fabulous creations they produce, I really do it to watch all the bickering and squabbling that goes on. It’s divine!”

No one knows how Bravo amassed his vast fortune. Some say he received it from an aerospace concern; others believe it comes from smart investments; still others believe he’s a profligate heir who tosses good money after bad at whatever shiny bauble catches his eye.

Indeed, where once Bravo was a patron of the arts, now he seems mostly concerned with light-hearted merriment — organizing poker games among celebrities and hiring a band of stylists to terrorize New York City’s poorly dressed heterosexual community.

But Bravo dismisses such criticism. “Who cares what a bunch of fuddy-duddies think?” he says, while finishing his champagne bath. “Perhaps I do love foppish frivolities, but who doesn’t?”

Indeed, everyone seems to be flocking to Bravo’s contrived competitions between creative types, no matter how poorly conceived and organized they seem to be.

“People don’t care if they see a pretty dress or a tasty meal or a beautiful room,” says Bravo, squealing with girlish delight. “They just want to watch total strangers being catty toward one another in order to win some trinket or bauble.

“And when they see Bravo,” he adds with a wink, “That’s exactly what they get.”