Norman Hilton, who ran an eponymous Ivy League clothing brand and was Ralph Lauren’s first investor, died yesterday at the age of 92, his son Nick told Ivy-Style.com.
Hilton’s motto was “Doing One Thing Well” and his logo features a weathervane. Tonight it points not north or south, east or west, but towards the sky.
Below is a copy of Hilton’s obituary, provided by his son:
Norman Joseph Hilton, 92, passed away peacefully at his residence on St. Simons Island, on Monday October 31, 2011. Formerly a resident of Rumson, New Jersey, Mr. Hilton resided at Sea Island and St. Simons Island since 1995.
Born April 13, 1919 in Newark, New Jersey to Alexander and Lillian G. Hilton, Mr. Hilton attended Newark Academy and Princeton University. Upon graduation from Princeton in June, 1941, Hilton enrolled in graduate school, at Harvard Business School, in Cambridge. Mr. Hilton entered the U.S. Navy, achieving rank of Lieutenant, during World War II. He met Constance Carens of Wellesley, Massachusetts, in that period and the couple were wed in July, 1947.
Mr. Hilton entered his family’s 80-year-old clothing manufacturing and retail business and quickly became a pioneer of the emerging “Ivy League” look in menswear. His Norman Hilton brand of fine, traditional suits and sport jackets achieved nation-wide renown for quality and style, and his collection thrived for nearly five decades in men’s clothing stores from coast to coast.
In 1967, Mr. Hilton made the first significant investment in a business venture begun by a then-young employee by the name of Ralph Lauren, effectively making Hilton the man who helped to found Polo Ralph Lauren, now a multi-billion-dollar, worldwide enterprise.
Hilton was selected by Burberry of London to lead their efforts in the US, overseeing the growth of sales of the Burberry brand in America thirty-fold between 1975 and 1987. His ability to see the marketing potential of a brand and an idea were responsible for the continuing series of successful ventures to which he dedicated himself.
Mr. Hilton participated in the Board of Directors of Riverview Hospital in Red Bank, New Jersey. He was an avid golfer and member of elite clubs, including Sea Island, Ocean Forest, Pine Valley, and the Royal Company of Edinburgh Golfers, at Muirfield, Scotland. He also was an avid New York Giants football supporter, and enjoyed walking for relaxation. Mr. Hilton was also a member of St. William Catholic Church on St. Simons Island.
Survivors include his wife of 64 years, Constance Hilton of St. Simons Island, three sons, Norman Junior (Nick) of Skillman, NJ, Alexander, of Oklahoma City, OK, and Dr. Thomas Hilton of Jacksonville, FL, as well as one daughter, Laura Hilton of Brunswick, GA, and thirteen grandchildren.
A memorial Mass will be held at 2PM Thursday at St. William Catholic Church on St. Simons Island with Monsignor John Kenneally and Father George Greenway officiating. Memorials may be made to Amity House or the charity of your choice. Edo Miller and Sons Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.
If you’re a sucker for the “Mad Men” vibe of cool dudes, sexy chicks and midcentury style, you should really check out “Playboy’s Penthouse,” Hugh Hefner’s variety show from the early days of his budding Playboy empire. Episodes are available on DVD, including through Netflix.
The episodes were taped in a party atmosphere that brought together a cross section of fashionable society (the kind of crowd seen in our post “A Swellegant, Elegant Party“), and adult music (jazz, vocalists) that’s a far cry from the musical acts featured on today’s late-night shows.
And then there’s everybody smoking, including the singers while they perform. Is smoking glamorous? Don’t be daft: Of course it is.
In a February 1960 episode, a young beauty from Hef’s harem asks him about the turnback cuffs on his dinner jacket. Hefner, who had previously donned the Ivy League Look, proceeds to bore the girl to death with a dissertation on men’s tailoring, pointing with his Dunhill shell briar for effect.
Here’s what he says:
Well, this suit is Continental, Elsa. It’s a new style in America. Look, Tom’s formal is Ivy, which has been very popular. The difference is in the cuff. This has a little more cut to the jacket; it’s a shorter jacket. You’ll notice Tom has flaps on his pockets. These pockets are slanted.
After the war, when everybody was wearing full shoulders and full suits, Ivy came in. Ivy had been with us in the East for a long time, but it became very popular on a national level. Ivy has enjoyed a strong popularity, but just this last season something new has come over from Italy, and it’s Continental. It’s like Ivy in that it’s slim, but it’s a little more trimmed at the waist, a little more padding in the shoulder, the pockets are often slashed, and in addition the jacket is a little shorter, and you get accessories sometimes like the cuff and no belt.
Then Tom (the Ivy-clad fellow pictured above at left), perhaps concerned that the fashionableness of his attire may be nearing its expiration date, asks “Do you think Continental will replace the Ivy League style?”
Hef replies:
Playboy doesn’t think so. We did an article on it a couple of months ago. Ivy is so fundamental that I think it’s going to be with us. It’s basic, good conservative dress, and we think it’ll stay with us always. But Continental has a little more flair, it’s a little more elegant, and we think it fits those occasions when a man wants to dress up. We think there’s a place for both.
Ditching Ivy for Continental may be an error in judgment for us natural shoulder fans, but it’s not as bad as ditching clothing altogether in favor of pajamas.
After Hef’s style speech, he introduces Cal Tjader, who goes on to play the vibes in a gray sack suit and black knit tie (and with his specs and receding hairline, kinda looks like Newton Street Vintage circa 2009).
Here’s Tjader doing the lovely “Shina no yoru,” originally a Japanese propaganda song from the ’30s.
Men who work in the arts generally aren’t known for sartorial conservatism. That’s why this photo of George Steel, general manager and artistic director of New York City Opera, caught my eye in a recent issue of the New York Times.
In 1952, LIFE Magazine ran a profile on the Taft family, one of America’s great political dynasties, having produced President William Howard Taft.
The family also produced a prep school — The Taft School in Watertown, CT — which was founded by William’s brother Horace Dutton Taft, an early Skull & Bones member.
Pictured above is Peter Rawson Taft III, great-nephew of the school’s founder. The kid is the epitome of ’50s preppy sportiness with his good looks, well worn school sweatshirt, and roman numeral after his name.
The LIFE profile on the family can be found here. — CC
August 26th marked the 25th anniversary of the so-called “Preppie Murder.”
In 1986, Robert Chambers, a former student of Choate Rosemary Hall, left the Upper East Side bar Dorrian’s Red Hand with 18-year-old Jennifer Levin, whom he later strangled in Central Park behind the Metropolitan Museum.
They were fleeting friends, Chambers and Levin, not a couple. Two prep school kids from New York’s affluent Upper East Side, who made their way to Central Park after meeting up at Dorian’s Red Hand, a bar popular with Manhattan’s young and privileged.
During the trial and the investigations that led up to it, Chambers was exposed as a thief who stole from many people, including a teacher at an elite private school that expelled him. It was also revealed that he had a serious drug habit since the age of 14.
After initially denying involvement in Levin’s death, Chambers later pleaded guilty to manslaughter and served 15 years. Several years after his release he was convicted of selling cocaine and is currently serving a 19-year sentence.
I’m going to stray off-topic here a bit with something I’d like to share with you guys.
I have lousy penmanship, and years ago I got an idea to write a piece on how to have a stylish signature. Inspired by a description of the brushwork of one of my favorite artists, Belle Epoque portrait painter Giovanni Boldini, and being a fencer, the word I stuck on was “swashbuckling.”
For research, I interviewed a calligrapher who gave me a good overview on fresh ways to stylize your signature, and it turned out my own handwriting was not irremediable.
After I turned the story in, I stumbled by chance across a YouTube clip from the old TV show “What’s My Line.” Celebrity guests used to sign their name on a chalkboard when they came on stage. There was talk that P&B might be able to cut a video that would allow you to actually watch guys with cool signatures write their names — all the better to copy their strokes — but it didn’t happen.
But I must have watched 40 or so clips, and here are my favorites. Check out the “John Hancock” of these guys:
Today is Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’ birthday (she would have been 82), and obliquely in her honor we present a photo of her late husband captured wearing a buttondown collar, which he eschewed upon entering the national spotlight, saying they were “too Ivy League.” — CC
Earlier this week Nathan Clark, great-grandson of the founder of English shoe company Clark’s and inventor of the desert boot in 1947, died at the age of 94. Last week The Guardian ran this fine tribute.
The casual ankle-high boots found a place in the Ivy canon, as the following photos from the Yale-Harvard football game of 1960 illustrates. — CC
Lisa Birnbach’s “True Prep” raised plenty of Old-Guard eyebrows with its inclusiveness. Whereas 1980’s “The Official Preppy Handbook” was WASPy to the core, the sequel opens the club to black, Asian, gay and Muslim preps as Birnbach declares “It’s a whole new old world.”
As an example that those flying the preppy flag in 21st century America are from all walks of life, meet Gagan Singh. The 21-year-old NYU finance and marketing student was born in New Jersey to Indian parents and is fond of true-blue American style. And if you though wearing a striped watchband added an extra component to dressing, just imagine getting to color coordinate a turban every day.
The latest issue of Menswear — the consumer magazine put out by trade pub WWD Men’s — features a profile on Brooks Brothers CEO Claudio Del Vecchio, shepherd of the Golden Fleece empire, which will pass $1 billion in sales this year.
Fairchild Publications has kindly ungated the story for Ivy Style readers.
Old-school types may have a tough time swallowing some of the quotes, such as:
“We have a healthy respect for the past, but we’re not completely influence by it,” Del Vecchio says. From the outset, he explains, his plan was to be “an innovator, not a conservator.”
Of course, it was Brooks Brothers’ innovation that gave us the pink oxford, the Number One Sack Suit, rep ties going angled in the American direction, and everything else the company is famous for. It never stood still — companies that stand still don’t last for two centuries. It’s just that a certain segment believes it reached a state of perfection between the ’50s and the ’80s and wishes it would stay frozen in that mold.
The article boasts several bits of trivia:
• Del Vecchio lives on Long Island
• His father is the second-richest man in Italy, and 59th on the Forbes billionaire list
• Luxottica (the company his father founded, and where Del Vecchio began his career) was the first foreign company to go public on the NYSE before going public in its own country.
Finally, the article reveals that two of Brooks Brothers’ potential suitors during the troubled Marks & Spencer years included Men’s Wearhouse and Polo Ralph Lauren.
One can’t help but wonder how the company would be different today with either of those two as stewards.
