There will always be Americans and Englishmen who find the other culture more appealing. You don’t have to look hard to find Anglophiles in the States, and “Downton Abbey” has relit the Anglomania torch that never really gets extinguished.

But while having English taste points your class arrow upward in the US, having American taste in England appears to steer you towards the bohemian. It’s hard to imagine someone muttering over a cup of tea, “What a model gentleman Lord Billardcue is, he absolutely adores American culture!”

This weekend The Observer ran an extract of a story from 50 years ago that reported on an Englishman who took his style cues from Madison Avenue. The timing of 1963 is especially interesting in the perennial give and take between the US and UK, since in the postwar years America’s global influence and exporting of popular culture was higher than ever, and yet the British Invasion, which would send fashion and culture back this way, was just around the corner.

According to the article:

Another acquaintance, in advertising, covets that American Ivy League look, patented by Brooks Brothers: the trousers are slim and without front pleats, the jacket unwaisted and with the minimum shoulder padding. Altogether, it can miraculously make an overfed Madison Avenue executive look like an ex-football quarterback. My friend, after a long search round Savile Row, eventually crossed over to Soho and found a tailor who togged out American embassy personnel. Now, in Berkeley Square, he has the look of a fast-rising Manhattan executive and keeps his English suits for his annual trip to New York.

The chap certainly sounds more exception than rule, as Ivy never really caught on in England as it did in Japan. But most noteworthy is the part about American embassy personnel stationed in London — what many would consider a dream job with the added bonus of being in the world’s sartorial capital — who wanted their suits cut American rather than take advantage of England’s legendary tailors, which reminds us that it’s still a small number that wants to ape the other guys. — CC

Sears called its Christmas catalog the “Wish Book.” It, along with other oversized glossy catalogs, came to American households every year heralding the Christmas buying season and giving children plenty of images to fantasize over.

Studying them is a remembered rite of passage. In the days before gender neutrality, girls’ thoughts turned to Mrs. Beasley Dolls and Easy Bake Ovens, while boys dreamed of Red Ryder BB guns and Lionel trains. The clothing pages were annoyance you had to flip through to get to toy nirvana. If the clothes were thought of at all, it was with certain trepidation that some well meaning relative might linger on one of those pages and buy something practical, like a snow suit.

What was unknown to us was that mysterious mechanism called puberty that would somehow transform neckties, briar pipes and pheasant-phestooned highball glasses into desirable Christmas gifts. With that in mind, I was a little surprised that the Sears catalogs were not as toy-centric as I remember. And on that note we present the Sears “Wish Book” of 1964. (Continue)

Frequent comment leaver James Kraus recently told us of his new e-book on bachelor cuisine. Now you’ve got the perfect single-serving recipes to cook up while wearing your heyday-inspired outfits and listening to Miles Davis.

In the following piece, James talks about how the project came about.

Oh, and for those of you who don’t get the headline… — CC

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If you enjoy an occasional foray into the kitchen and happen to own an iPad, you may be interested in checking out “Jet Age Cooking for the Bachelor Gourmet,” a cookbook targeted at the single male with an affinity for 1960s style.

I am a big fan of everything from the mid ’60s — art, architecture, furniture, clothing — and in fact that’s how I stumbled upon Ivy Style several years ago. As an amateur chef, I naturally gravitated to cooking the 1960s classics that I fondly remembered from my youth. Yes, I was actually alive then.

Sometime last year I got the idea of putting together a cookbook of my favorite vintage recipes. My normal routine sees me cooking at home only on weekends, keeping it a pleasure rather than a task. When I decided to go forward with the project, I vowed to keep the same regimen: nothing was cooked specifically for book photography. When weekends came along, I set up a tablescape appropriate to what I was making, cooked the meal while enjoying a tipple, took the photos, struck the set, then finally partook of my repast. As a result, the book took nine months to complete.

Each of the recipes is portioned for the solo diner, but is easily doubled for entertaining à deux. Pour yourself a martini while you create vintage Jet Age entrées such as Steak Diane, Spaghetti Maria Grazia, and Veal Milanese Four Seasons. (Continue)

In honor of Ivy Style’s 666th post, we’re lighting the fire-and-brimstone-scented candles, putting on Berlioz’ “Witches’ Sabbath” (or maybe the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy For The Devil”), and paying tribute to the 1968 movie “Rosemary’s Baby” with a hearty cry of “Hail Satan!” (Continue)

This may look like a penny loafer graveyard, but the Dexter shoe is apparently alive and well (sort of). Though the company doesn’t have much of an online presence, there’s a 1957 collection, named for the year of its founding, available from Shoeline.com.

The above ad is from 1965. Below is one from 1966, which features some handsome tassel moccasins as well as those ghastly Venetian loafers, which are like a face with the eyes, nose and mouth missing: (Continue)

Recently we mentioned the “Main Street” Ivy brands that flickered briefly during the heyday, which 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 the values and culture of America’s WASPy upper middle class. But because they got their clothes from Brooks and Press (and The Andover Shop and Langrock and so forth), their clothes weren’t advertised as “authentic” because they actually were.

To wit, check out the ad by Varsity Town’s Madisonaire line from 1966, one year before the fall of the Ivy League Look. What do you bet that by ’68 the street-sign logo was changed to Haight-Ashbury?

Either way it’s still Main Street, a wonderful example of commerce at work and the flourishing of the Ivy League Look to men across the nation, who, if they couldn’t get the real deal, could at least get a replica. — CC