Starting today Ivy Style celebrates the back-to-school season. We’ll start over the weekend with vintage ads from college papers welcoming freshmen and telling them where to get correct clothes. And next week you’ll get entertaining reads on the heyday from all of us. — CC, CS & RVP
Fantastic advertisings!
But please,may indicate the year of the first three?
Thanks!
Oh,oh…class of 55..that tuxedo is double breasted and have broad shoulders!!!
Langrock how could you?,
Lloyd and Haig footwear! My first pair of tassel loafers. Had completely forgotten the brand! Thanks for the memory refresher!
“…hangs straight and easy, with no suppression at the waistline.”
Sounds comfy.
@Camelo 1942, 1946, 1941 The third image was used in ads as early as 1938.
The drawings in the ads–they prompt some reflection upon the current state of affairs, sartorially speaking. The fit–the style–is reminiscent of what I recall from various Rogers Peet ads. Granted, some of the shoulders in these ads appear a tad exaggerated (it was the 40s, after all), but even as I take in the more natural, sloping shoulders among the lot, they contrast sharply with the look for which many 60s era campus shops came to be known–an almost slouchy shoulder matched with lots of skinniness elsewhere (lapels, pants, jacket waist).
The Southwick Warwick and Douglas fit the bill. The former is natural shoulder all the way, but no wait suppression and four plus inch lapels. Componented with a full fitting pant and voluminous Oxford, and one is offering a nod to the best of pre-Heyday weirdne–excuse me, narrowness.
S.E.
Any info on what model the Southwick tweed jackets at O’Connell’s are? I need a replacement.
http://www.oconnellsclothing.com/product.php?productid=17646&cat=250&page=1
I think they’re Douglas all the way.
A few of the older shops had Southwick modify the older sack models, most notably The Andover Shop.
Take a look:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1963/10/4/a-brief-guide-to-mens-fashions/
From this circa ’63 piece:
“There are two distinct models of the natural shoulder with gradations in between. The Warwick model, as one manufacturer calls it, has a high and not overly narrow lapel, a rounded bottom to the jacket, and the first button is set slightly above the pocket.
On the Andover model the buttons begin lower, the lapel is longer and narrower, and the cut of the bottom of the jacket is squarer, giving a less sporty look than the Warwick suit.
Both styles omit waist suppression, narrowing the middle by darts over the side pockets. Unpleated trousers are an important concomitant of the natural shoulder look.
Worn by about nine out of ten Harvard men, the Ivy look is smart and trim. It is supposed to make a man look masculine without the phoniness of padding. However, these effects are attained only by wearing a natural shoulder model which suits you. The Warwick model is slightly clubbier than the Andover model which hints of Madison Avenue. Both are appropriate for almost every occasion the college man encounters.”
The Andover model sounds a lot like the Douglas, which is a good bit more squared off at the bottom than the Cambridge. The Cambridge lapel gorge is higher than the Douglas. Of course, with MTM all sorts of adjustments can be made.
The Cambridge is now being offered with French facing and butterfly yoke lining. Rendering an even more lightweight/unpadded feel.
S.E.
Thank you
S.E.
May I ask your experience with New England Shirt Company’s OCBDs? I remembering you mentioning they make a good collar through MTO or MTM. What specifics do you give them? Thank you for any information.
Interesting to see that even back then, some of the jackets were not authentic sacks with absolutely straight sides.
New England Shirt. The larger fit (I think it’s called Alden). A bit of extra length, which I need. One inch collar space, 3.75″ button down. No lining in collars and cuffs. They offer a solid white beefy Oxford, as well as a solid blue and four or maybe five university stripe colors.
The “Columbia” coat of 1955 advertising is very similiar to Chipp and JPress coats of early 50s.
http://s178.photobucket.com/user/AldenPyle/media/jpress1954.jpg.html
http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/2347/gentry1952chipp.jpg
S.E.,
Thank you.
Most welcome.
Carmelo, good catch. I think the same is true of 50s era Brooks.
That Chipp ad. Note the not-at-all-pejorative use of the word “conservative.”
That the phrase was used in referenced to Chipp’s “styling”–interesting.
I look at these ads and I contrast what they reflect with what I heard about campus life this week at a legal conference on the “campus rape epidemic.” Well, I learned that there actually is such a thing as (and I’m not making this up) a “hookup culture scholar.” I won’t spoil the good conversation that’s taking place here, but I will say that the repeated reference in these ads to college “men” is, frankly, jarring. It’s jarring because it reflects a societal expectation which fell by the wayside long ago.
@ M Arthur: I wore Lloyd & Haig shoes well into the 1980’s. I thought their tasseled loafer was superior to Alden’s.
I just noticed that at least one of the Langrock ads references the term “conservative.”
Princeton is declared one of America’s centers of style.
AEWM is so correct. When I was in college (early 60’s) we were expected to become men, not stay adolescent.
Among the (real life) Princeton men of this era is a former Secretary of State who one of the best dressed men in public life. I refer to James Baker, Princeton class of ’52. A fan of club ties, button downs (yes, even with suits), and tassel mocs, I can think of of few men who represented the professional, grown-up version of American traditional style with such elegance. I recall Chris Matthews referring to him was “WASPy.”
But these early 1950s Ivy coars from these companies (Langrock,Chipp,JPress,BB) are “conservative?
I mean that they seems different from Ivy sacks of late 30s and 40s.
Are more soft in shoulders and with more evident lack of waist suppression (look fror comparison at this BB sack of 1941 http://www.retro-housewife.com/images/fashion/1940/1942-brooks-brothers-ad.jpg )
My impression is that in the last 40s a significative change is occurred in the Ivy sack shape,that become more “natural”.
Nowadays it’s hard to imagine college students dressing like this. The other day my wife’s father was asking us how could we go to college in jeans (that was in the mid 80’s) when he and his fellow students (early 60’s) always wore a jacket and a tie. In my campus, Lacoste polo shirts, Levi 501’s and boat shoes were de rigueur.
Then my wife and I started talking about how awful today’s college students look in their graphic tees, cargo shorts and flip flops. We suddenly felt so old. 🙂
When my sons started college, I explained it to them like this. You can either dress like everyone else, wearing t-shirts and shorts everywhere, or you can dress better, perhaps wearing khakis, polo shirts, etc. One of these will get you noticed by the hot girls and one won’t.
And then I took them to a restaurant (Buffalo Wind Wings, IIRC) as an experiment. They wore t-shirts and shorts while I dressed like I do for work. After watching the young waitresses flirt with me and pretty much ignore them for the duration of the meal, they seemed to have learned the lesson.
The only drawback to this has been that my clothes started disappearing from my closet, never to return. But in the big picture, it’s a small price to pay.
Im – I’ve learned that women are attracted to charisma/confidence, social standing, and money or signifiers (like clothing or cars) of wealth. It’s great if you have all three but you have to have at least one in spades. The first is the most valuable and other two are about equal. Then context comes into play: what is the women looking for at that moment? Resources, social confidence, being associated with the center of everyone’s attention? Based on your view of your restaurant experiment, I would say that the waitress was flirting with you based on the third and that your sons lacked all three.
Also, you paid the bill, right? It probably seemed obvious to the waitress as well and she identified the one source of the potential tip. A cynic would attribute the flirting to this.
A better experiment would have involved your sons using different behaviors, engagement techniques, and clothing to see what worked best.
Some of the skeeziest looking dudes and ugly wealthy guys who are poor dressers attract the most beautiful women.
Last night I watched Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in “Indiscreet” from 1959. Grant’s suits were heavily padded in the shoulders. They looked old-fashioned to me, but actually, taking another look at the ads here, they were very close to the suit in the upper right hand corner of the 1959 Langrock ad.
@A.E.W. Mason I learned more about manhood in sixteen weeks at Ft. Benning than I did in four years (’00-’04) at Amherst College.
Some say that the most important pursuit in the sixties at Ivy schools was chasing ass. 😉
http://chronicle.com/article/A-Manly-Old-Guide-to-the-Ivy/148655/
@ J.G. I have absolutely no doubt you did. At the legal conference last week when the feminist “hook up culture scholar” said that college girls were suffering PTSD as a result of unwanted sex (i.e., she explained, if the woman is drunk then she cannot give consent to sex even if she goes ahead and does it) just as our returning service men were from combat, I wanted to explode. But, the Federalist Society debates, held every week in most of the big cities across the country, are very civil and it would be bad form to “explode.”
@RJG. I watched Indiscreet about a month ago. You’re right. The shoulders on Grant’s suits are quite exaggerated. In point of fact, take a look at Grant’s suit in the opening scene of Notorious; even more exaggerated. Therefore, I think Christian’s comment about the 50’s still being stuffed with the padding of the 40’s is exactly right. Carmelo’s link to that 1941 BB sack is proof positive. Which, of course, is not to say that one couldn’t find natural shoulder jackets back then. But they weren’t the norm in the sense that they became the norm in the “heyday.”
@A.E.W. Mason I admire your restraint. You’re a credit to the Federalist Society.
Unwanted sex? I never want to trip over my wife’s coffee table. But whenever I drink too much, I do.
Every feminist “scholar” knows that regret sex is the same as dodging roadside bombs. Regret sex should not be confused with disappointing sex, the former is considered sexual assault on college campuses. We live in a rape culture as a result of the patriarchal construct, especially if you define all heterosexual sex as rape, as Marxist feminist “scholars” do, the science is settled.
@ A.E.W. Mason — Great movies by the way. And I noticed there is also visible padding in the glen plaid suit you referred to recently that Cary Grant wore in “North by Northwest,” though not quite as much as in “Indiscreet.” Clearly, as you say, there were also natural shoulder jackets in circulation too. So I was wondering if there wasn’t a difference between suits and sports coats, with suits more likely to be padded and sports coats more likely to be natural shoulder.
An interesting aspect of Ivy League related clothing adverts is that their message is ‘dress like an adult’ to get it right and be accepted. The models shown are all men in their thirties or forties dressing in business rather than being represented as contemporaries. We now think of early adult hood as a time to express distinctiveness before maturing into adulthood, these adverts predate that even though they are often into the early 1960s and post rock and roll. It seems to have taken longer to seep into the campus environment and by the time of Take Ivy, casual informality seems the norm.
As I understand it, Cary Grant was concerned about his overly-muscular shoulders that were a remnant of his early days as a tumbler. In order to hide what he considered a defect, his suits had heavy padding in the shoulders.
So whatever we might learn about classic, tasteful dressing from Cary Grant, natural shoulders are not on the list.
Grant in Notorious.
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1650694144/tt0038787?ref_=ttmi_mi_all_sf_1
A lot like Zero’s tan suit. 😉
http://suckersonparade.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2014-08-30T21:58:00-05:00&max-results=10&start=10&by-date=false#.VA9P0fldX3Q
@MAC At least I know now that you’re being sarcastic. Yes, indeed, you are reiterating the feminist critique. The hookup (it’s one word, I now get it) culture scholar used your very words over and over: “We live in a rape culture.” I wonder: Is there such a thing as a Bro-Culture scholar?
Grant wore padded shoulders to balance his large head.
A.E.W. Mason
“Is there such a thing as a Bro-Culture scholar?”
Yes, it’s called Western Civ..