There is little doubt that Mary Mccarthy’s short story “The Man in the Brooks Brothers Shirt” is now probably more famous for its punchy title — a dream for the Brooks Brother’s marketing team — than it is for the actual story. But it remains a classic part of the mystique of the Brooks Brothers …
Sunday is the day for making a big breakfast, such as French toast. Which rhymes with post. Because, well… Happy Bastille Day from Eric Twardzik, who wrote this poem in honor of French Ivy. * * * The French Ivy look doesn’t, exist some say It’s imagined, conjured, invented yesterday Such opinions are offered online …
Before his untimely death, few men of letters embodied the jazz-fueled cool of midcentury New York better than poet Frank O’Hara. The Whitman of the modern urban landscape, O’Hara captured the essence of the city, its multitudes, and its motions of constant speed punctuated with moments of stillness. Heavily influenced by Abstract Expressionism and jazz, his …
It’s been a decade since John Updike died at the age of 76. While his status as a Great American Novelist is well known, his role as an icon of sartorial understatement is not. And so we present this homage to a master not only of English literature, but of dressing with quiet flair. Our …
Richard Yates was one of those guys who adopted the Ivy look early in life and never let go of it. Whether due to good taste, lack of imagination, or being too impecunious to afford new clothes, Yates’ perennial style was described by Dan Wakefield (author of “New York in the Fifties”) as follows: Yates …
The Ivies are not the same, including when it comes to matters of style. In 2008 Slate posted an article analyzing Fitzgerald’s heroes and whether they went to Harvard, Yale or Princeton. Fitzgerald has Amory Blaine, hero of “This Side of Paradise,” his first novel, offer the following assessment of the three schools: I want to go …
As we’ve repeatedly been told, WASP nonchalance is merely an affectation, a performance that renders its mannered marionettes ever anxious about committing some cred-crushing gaucherie. And if it’s like that for members of the tribe, just imagine what it’s like for Jews. Tobias Wolff’s 2003 novel “Old School” belongs to the prep-school-coming-of-age genre, while its central …
In 1962 Life ran a group of photos of American authors. Pictured above is James Baldwin, while below is Philip Roth. John O’Hara: Herman Wouk: Peter De Vries: Harrison Salisbury:
Philip Roth, author of prep-lit novel “Goodbye Columbus,” has died at the age of 85. You can find an NPR tribute here. — CC
Today is World Poetry Day, and since much of the East Coast is housebound from the snow storm, what better excuse to light the candles, pour some tea (or cognac) and enjoy some rhyming verse by Ivy Style’s founder Christian Chensvold and special correspondent G. Bruce Boyer. Both men studied English in college (Boyer even …
The recent cocktail blast celebrating the new J.Press flagship store on 44th Street, prompted a question from MC media maven, journalist, man-about-town Zach Weiss about my brief time with Robert Frost at Dartmouth. Frost attended Dartmouth in 1892, joining Theta Delta Chi fraternity, but problematic family circumstances forced return to his home in California after …
This post originally ran in 2010 and was Ivy Style’s 200th post. Today we’re up to 1,600. * * * For Ivy-Style’s 200th post, I thought I’d break out something special I’ve been sitting on for awhile. Last year, between Los Angeles and New York, I spent six months in my old environs of the …
Penny loafers: suitable for everyone, including old bearded men who like safari-hunting, sea-fishing, arm-wrestling, bullfighting and hard drinking. Shout-out to longtime comment-leaver “Old School” for submitting this great photo. — CC Addendum: photo info: “Ernest Hemingway at his standing writing desk on the balcony of Bill Davis’s home near Malaga where he wrote The Dangerous Summer.” …
Since starting this website I’ve looked at countless hundreds of trad outfits. Some on regular guys posted on the web, some in catalogs and magazines, and some on gents I’ve met around the fair city of New York. But one outfit has stood out above all the others, and though it’s been three years since …
“Entry E” is something of a pulp novel, telling a tale of Ivy League life in America that was considered startling on its release in 1958. But for all the adolescent angst and raucous action in this story, there is plenty of mid-century Ivy League style and quiet consideration of the “Ivy Man,” described in …
This weekend the New York Times Magazine ran a feature story entitled “The Esquire Man Is Dead; Long Live The Esquire Man.” It centers around the magazine’s new editor and its search for relevance in 2017. There’s a lot of interesting history in the piece, though one thing’s for certain: the magazine won’t be going …
A member of our Facebook group recently presented the opening page of the Owen Johnson’s 1911 novel “Stover At Yale,” a coming-of-age tale about a young freshman at New Haven. Dink Stover, freshman, chose his seat in the afternoon express that would soon be rushing him to New Haven and his first glimpse of Yale …
This story originally published in November, 2009 and is being reposted in honor of National Coffee Day. * * * For the Beat Generation, there were only two places to live: New York’s Greenwich Village and San Francisco’s North Beach. North Beach has been an old stomping ground of mine since my early twenties. I …
It’s actually Professor Week here at Ivy Style, instigated by the Wall Street Journal article we posted, which delared that corduroy and elbow patches are in. Members of our Facebook page already submitted photos of a number of tweedy pedagogues in fact and fiction, and you’re welcome to email me any suggestions. We’ll be rolling …