When my sister and I were kids, our parents encouraged an appreciation of the great American musicals. They enrolled us in dance classes, and when “The Sound Of Music” would air on TV, it was one of the rare times when they would let us stay up late with school the next day. They also …
Our last post was on the fondness of rich WASPs for junk food, which leaves crumbs on their frayed pink buttondowns. This post is on how rich WASPs dressed in Southampton in 1959. Pictured are Vincent Banker and C. Henry Buhl III going Ivy chic in blazer with sockless bit loafers and madras jacket with …
As a follow-up to our birthday post on George HW Bush, we present this 1988 newspaper column by writer Calvin Trillin, who recently caused an uproar of outrage with his New Yorker poem on Chinese cuisine. Here he takes on the peculiarities of the WASP diet. It was sent to Ivy Style by reader CW, …
Funny, both candidates in the current presidential race are Ivy League… Maybe finally we know the difference between Ivy and preppy: you can have an Ivy degree and be anything but prep. Happy birthday to GHWB, a true American sartorial patriot. — CC
GQ has just launched a new magazine called GQ Style, which features an extensive profile on Sid Mashburn. If you don’t know a lot about him, Mashburn worked at Ralph Lauren for a spell and has been considered a tastemaker since opening his eponymous store in Atlanta (it helps that his wife used to work …
Today is National Seersucker Day, which grew out of Seersucker Thursday on Capitol Hill. But while the day’s origins are clear, the beginnings of the fabric itself are somewhat contested. Both Haspel in New Orleans and Brooks Brothers in New York claim to have either introduced or popularized seersucker. This is from Haspel’s website: On …
Here’s an idea for the new CEO at Ralph Lauren. How about more of the magical photo shoots that whisk you away to an island of the imagination? Back in the ’80s, Polo would take out 20 pages in GQ or Architectural Digest and run epic narrative ad spreads shot by Bruce Weber. These marketing …
The Wall Street Journal has a major feature on the struggles at Ralph Lauren, whose profits are down 50% over the past two years while market value has fallen from $16 billion to $8 billion. A new CEO has been appointed to help turn around the company, which will include closing stores and reducing discounts. …
These photos were spied on Facebook and, if I follow correctly, depict a pop-up shop for Hey Gentleman Cafe, an Osaka-based dealer in vintage American clothing. The pop-up was installed in an Isetan department store at a Japanese train station. HGC’s motto is “Loose Traditional Style,” which is a pretty good one. Enjoy the photos, …
This is the latest in our series of reader anecdotes about the ’60s. If you’d like to participate, please use the contact button above. * * * I graduated from an affluent suburban high school in the mid-Atlantic region in 1963. Although my father owned a men’s clothing store, I was not terribly interested in …
Ivy Style Facebook member Sammy Al-Rawi has dug up some great photos from National Geographic Magazine chronicling student life from the ’40s through the ’60s. If you were a kid in the pre-Internet age, you may have had friends show you copies of National Geographic because there were occasionally pictures of naked women from the …
Today I stumbled across the custom boat shoe program on Sperry Top-Sider’s website. For $120 you get to choose everything, down to the color of laces and outsole and type of eyelet, and they send them in about three weeks. The software is fast and slick for instant gratification, though you’ll need some design skills …
My latest piece for Ralph Lauren Magazine allowed me to learn about how the US prepares for the Olympics, as well as bringing the opportunity to interview gold medal wrestler Jordan Burroughs. RL has a close relationship with the Olympics, having provided the uniforms for a number of years. But the games in Rio are …
The recent New York Times piece on the the new/old Brooks Brothers oxford shirt contained the source of an important sartorial anecdote. Years ago I’d seen a reference online to the custom that Princeton boys back in the day who didn’t come from WASPy families and prep schools would sandpaper the collars of their shirts …
Founded in Virginia in 1776, Hampden-Sydney College is America’s 10th oldest and one of only three remaining all-male schools. Earlier this month the college, whose motto is “come here as boys so you may leave as men,” graduated its class of 2016. Here are some photos of the commencement, along with other shots of campus …
This is the latest installment in our occasional series on the fall of the Ivy League Look in the late ’60s. If you’d like to share your memories, use the contact button above. * * * I was born in 1952, so I was 15 in 1967. A friend of mine says the height of …
Social media sources are reporting that Bobby Garnett, founder of Bobby From Boston, has died. Garnett was considered a pioneer in vintage fashion. His influential store was well known to the props department at Ralph Lauren (as well as to Lauren himself), and the store’s reputation was global. More info as we get it. — …
Today is National Golf Day, for which I offer three documents for your enjoyment. The purely sartorial among you can pore over the details in this photo of the 1959 Yale golf team. * * * Update: Richard Press just sent me an email saying this photo blew his mind, whereupon he proceeded to …
Our recent post “In Praise Of Style And Grace” brought about some brisk discussion on Facebook, mostly on matters of proportion when it came to lapel and tie widths back in the day. For the first half of the ’50s they were fairly neutral, and by the late ’60s they had already swept back to …