Green’s Dictionary of Slang

extremely elegant (usu. used ironically or deprecatingly); also as n. (see cite 1964); thus n. piss-elegance.

1949		‘Swasarnt Nerf’ Gaedicker’s Sodom-on-the-Hudson 12: At not too great a distance, we find a cluster of piss-elegant places.
1959		W. Burroughs Naked Lunch (1968) 149: He is the most piss elegant fag of them all.
1962		F. Norman Guntz 99: A bunch of piss-elegant queens arrived.
1964		Homosexuality & Citizenship in Florida 26: Glossary of Homosexual Terms [...] piss elegant: A homosexual who brags or is outwardly conceited.
1970		J.P. Stanley ‘Homosexual Sl.’ in AS XLV:1/2 58: piss-elegant adj Pretentious, ostentatious, egotistical (used with reference to male homosexuals).
1970		P. Burton Amongst the Aliens 15: ‘There aren’t any good clubs to go to now. The ones that are open are either too piss elegant or are so grotty that it’s an embarrassment to be seen going into them’ [Simes:DLSS].
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 149: PE, pissy fussy, respectable, proper, overly preoccupied with one’s conception of correctness.
1978		A. Maupin Tales of City (1979) 166: ‘What can I tell you, Mona? It [i.e. a party]was sheer piss-elegance!’.
1983		R. Price Breaks 110: A section of the Bronx so piss-elegant and green that residents [...].
1984		Flame : a Life on the Game 127: Piss-elegant, boring queens. Most of them were really dull.
1985		‘Thommo’ Dict. Aus. Swearing & Sex Sayings 95: PISS ELEGANT — Perfect style, grace, refinement, beauty and dignity.
1989		J.P. Goodwin More Man Than You’ll Ever Be 19: Piss-elegance is pseudo-elegance, a dimestore version of true luxury and taste.
1990		A. Davies Candor 117: Is this what is meant by piss elegance? / this preening.
1992		Daring Hearts: Lesbian and Gay lives of 50s and 60s Brighton n.p. I would be invited to cocktail parties, which isn’t my thing. Gay males, rich, living in swanky, elegant – piss elegant – places, ghastly taste, actually, to my mind, with the interior decorator boyfriend.
1997		D. Harris Rise and Fall of Gay Culture 68: [T]he so-called new clones who scoff at the piss elegance of ballet and opera and embrace instead the screeching , primal energies of Kurt Cobain and Nine Inch Nails.
2000		P. Scott Get Over It 235: This joint is nothing but a piss-elegant abattoir’ [Simes:DLSS].
2002		Observer Rev. 16 June n.p.: He frequented gay clubs when he first arrived in London from South Africa, but didn’t like them much, although he did find the Rockingham ‘piss-elegant’.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 158: piss elegant Think yourself the height of fashion, do you? ANZ.
2005		Guardian G2 10 May 7: That sounds sound piss-elegant to me.