Golden Age of Hollywood actor Robert Montgomery poses for the camera with ample roll: not only on the lapels of his ’30s-cut suit, but on his buttondown shirt collar as well. Wonderful example of Old Hollywood masculine glamor (with obligatory pipe and sleek hair) combined with the youthful nonchalance of a buttondown. Thanks to Ivy …
This is what passed for undergraduate nonchalance in 1934: three-piece suits, suspenders, lace-up shoes, topcoats and hats. From the January issue, here’s Esquire‘s take on the studied carelessness of collegiate style. — CC
Here is a fascinating photo from Yale in 1928. The young man on the left looks old-fashioned to us today with his three-piece suit with plus-fours (which was actually probably part of a four-piece suit that included trousers as well as knickers). In contrast, the student on the right looks perfectly contemporary in his crewneck …
Carmelo Pugliatti is a longtime reader of Ivy Style based in Italy. He is known in the comments section and on our Facebook group for his extensive collection of historic menswear images, as well as his incisive commentary on American culture from a European point of view. It’s especially admirable that he is brave enough …
Tomorrow is International Pipe Smoking Day, so if you don’t have a pipe and tobacco, you can spend your Sunday afternoon procuring them. And you’d better hurry before it’s illegal. Pictured here are two undergrads with tobacco-colored tweeds as depicted in a 1936 issue of Esquire. Here’s to our fellow men of the pipe. — …
In the spirit of tolerance, I’m posting saddle shoes on the website, despite a strong personal allergy to them. But they’re part of a campus-inspired outfit formula from 1940, courtesy of this vintage Brooks Brothers ad recently posted to our Facebook group. The formula consists of corduroy jacket, grey flannel trousers and saddle shoes. You …
Ivy Style recently received a dispatch from scholar Deirdre Clemente, who is busy doing groundbreaking research on the history of college students as consumers. In fact, she said her career might be made if she can get a paper into a certain scholarly journal. When they say academia is publish or perish, they’re not kidding. …
Presented here are some vintage illustrations — presumably from the Esquire archives — posted to Ivy Style’s Facebook group by image collector and comment-leaver “Carmelo.” Sportcoats with stripes — often running through a herringbone pattern — aren’t often seen today, but were popular during the Ivy heyday and, as these images show, back to the …
Nick Hilton is not only a clothier but a great writer who has just lent his prose skills to a tribute of his father Norman, who made some of the finest natural-shoulder clothing during the heyday and who was one of the first to bank his money on a rising new talent named Ralph Lauren. …
Need some fresh inspiration for your wardrobe? Look no further than Princeton in the 1930s. This passage is from the spring 1934 issue of Apparel Arts, and was alerted to us by Dan Flores of the blog An Uptown Dandy, a fine fellow I’ve met on occasion around town. Assuming the report is accurate (and …
Today makers of luxury goods, especially autombiles, like to evoke some imagined ideal consumer. He has impeccable, uncompromising taste, they tell you, and you the viewer of the televised or printed message are meant to aspire to be like him. But this 1948 ad for Atkinsons is from another era, and the ad copy is …
You probably remember a few years ago, back when Ralph Lauren Rugby was still alive, and neo-preps were wearing collar pins with buttondown collars. The buttons were not fastened, and had sometimes been removed, but those of the old guard found the look an incorrigible affectation. I recall going into the New York J. Press …
From John F. Kennedy’s one semester at Princeton in the fall of 1935. He would eventually graduate from Harvard. Head over here for a short write-up on an exhibit held at Princeton in 2011. — CC
Yesterday Esquire announced that David Granger is out as editor after helming the magazine for nearly 20 years. His replacement is Jay Fielden, who had been overseeing Town & Country. Will Esquire return to the way it was from the ’30s to the ’60s? Not likely. All the more reason to put your subscription money …
From the September, 1949 issue of Esquire. Subscribe to the digital archives here. From the University of Maine to UCLA, college men spend most of their time pounding the books in class, in the dorm, or in the library with Miss Distraction of 1949. Their keynote is comfort and neatness. The fellow in the window …
What do saddle shoes and kilties have in common? They’re both featured in the Laurence Fellows-penned image above from the Esquire archives, and they’re both not on my Christmas list. Regular readers will know my aversion to both footwear atrocities. But then again I dig bit loafers. De gustibus, et cetera, et cetera. Below is …
Chris Sharp found these images in the same Esquire issue featured in our last post: September 1940 (sign up for the archives here.) They should provide further inspiration for any of you who feel stuck in a sartorial rut. The text for the top image described this college man as wearing the color combination of …
This image (another find by comment-leaver Carmelo in the Esquire archives), came with a date but no caption. So I decided to give it one for the headline above. It’s easy to think of penny loafers as a casual shoe since, in the grand footwear scheme of things, they are. But much of the charm …
What to wear with a rep tie and OCBD? How about a plaid tweed jacket and a windowpane vest? There were so many options during the Golden Age Of Ivy, even while there was a war going on. Cheers to Chris Sharp for spotting this 1942 illustration from the Esquire archives, which you can access …