On the Ivy Style Facebook group, we started a playlist of songs that were Ivy for one reason or another. Click here for the playlist as currently constituted. The reasons varied. The artist dressed Ivy. It was jazz. The artist attended an Ivy school. It reminds one of an experience one had at an Ivy …
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Matthew Longcore, J. Press Icons Campaign 2024-25 Ivy Style (Ivy-Style.com) is the leading authority on the Ivy League Look. We feature traditional, classic, timeless style. Editor and publisher Matthew Longcore is the founder of the Preppy Handbook Fan Club. He has been featured in The Wall Street Journal and in the J. Press Icons Campaign.
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This weekend Main Streets across the US are full of ice and snow. But here’s something to warm your heart in whatever town you call home. A delightfully random assortment of heyday-era “Main Street” magazine ads and fashion shoots was posted to Ivy Style’s Facebook group, which you’ll find below. Peruse the images and then …
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After all these years, has anyone in Tradsville pointed out that March 2 is 3/2? That makes it the perfect day to celebrate the history of the Ivy League Look with National Ivy Style Day. If it’s been noted, please excuse the lapse as I’m fast approaching the point where I’ve forgotten more than I …
The “Main Street” Ivy brands that flickered briefly during the heyday often touted their wares as “authentic natural shoulder fashions,” as if one were buying an ethos along with a jacket cut. Of course, among the original arbiters of the Ivy League Look, the natural shoulder was an expression of values and culture. But because they …
The 1965 Dexter ad above looks rather like a penny loafer graveyard, which is really where the Venetian loafers below belong. Such a ghastly shoe, like a face with the eyes, nose and mouth missing. Of course, others likely feel that way about the bit loafers in the final image.
If you haven’t decided on what to wear for your virtual Christmas celebrations, consider taking inspiration from JFK. For his final Christmas, celebrated in Palm Beach 1962, the President donned white shirt, necktie, yellow trousers, white athletic socks, and crested velvet slippers.
Each year I try to listen to a new Christmas album from the postwar years, and this year I happened upon The Brothers Four. The pop-folk group often wore matching buttondowns, apparently even with ascots or turtlenecks underneath. You can find them on YouTube, while below is a sampling. God rest ye merry, gentlemen. If …
Pictured above on right, as captured in the twilight of the Ivy heyday, is Timothy Leary. That’s probably just a name to Xers and Millennials, but Leary — who was a Harvard professor and advocate for the use of LSD — coined a number of cachphrases that came to symbolize the late 1960s, when the …
Back in the heyday, if you couldn’t afford to shop at the right stores and mom was handy with a needle and thread, you could get your very own homemade Ivy League jacket for a fraction of the cost, as these images from a 1965 McCall’s pattern book show. It’s possible the in-crowd might not even …
“Oh what a night,” goes the Four Seasons tune, “late December back in ’63….” Well about that time, Tennessee-based Hardwick was selling its natural-shouldered clothing to the masses in a series of chivalrous print ads. According to this one, your “natural shouldered presence” will earn approval from a “damsel”: Hardwick was in the clothing business, but they …
I was just down at the popular Cliff Walk here in Newport and lamenting the change of seasons that’s in the air. That line from “The Great Gatsby” popped into my head, the one about wishing you could reach out and grab onto summer and keep it just a bit longer. But the seasons come …
Going through our archives, I found this post I originally wrote in 2012 and am pleased to update it for summer 2020, which I think we can all agree is the strangest summer in any of our lifetimes. One year ago I’d decided that 10 years in New York were enough and was planning to …