The Golden Years by Richard Press

In his previous columns, Richard Press has shared his memories of the Ivy heyday and his decades at J. Press. This time he shares something he wrote in 1955 while a freshman at Dartmouth. It has the triple importance of being authored at an Ivy League college by a family member of one of the …

Each year J. Press, Brooks Brothers and many other menswear stalwarts launch their big summer sale, reminding me of the mayhem that would followed “cash sale” postcard mailings during the heyday of the Ivy League Look. In the area of Madison Avenue between 44th and 46th Streets — in front of Chipp, J. Press, Brooks …

Next up in our archives is this column from Richard Press that originally ran in 2011. Oddly enough, the opening line is about transmitting diseases from neckties. Now more than ever we must preserve a future for the tie! * * * A new proposal in New York would ban doctors from wearing neckties after …

In honor of Martin Luther King Day, we revisit this column from Richard Press, which originally ran in 2013 and was updated in 2018 with an extended version of  the story and a new photo of his father, pictured later in life, standing in front of the very rack from which he was honored to …

During World War II, Yale professors still wore tweeds, but the boys they taught would soon graduate into khaki. Behind Woolsey Hall are the many rows of names of the boys who never came back. My father, Paul Press, was a riveter who made M-70 rifles at the Winchester factory on Dixwell Avenue in New …

Just a reminder to keep your Internet dial tuned to the Richard “Dick” Press’ column “Threading The Needle” over on the J. Press website. The above image was sent out yesterday. No surprise Richard is the centerpiece of the photo among his classmates.

“Destiny and Power,” Jon Meacham’s surprisingly vivid biography of former President George HW Bush, is Shakespearean in its depiction of family, power and public service. It also briefly described an incident from one of the great days in the life of 10-year-old Richard Press. My beloved uncle, State Senator and New Haven City Court Judge …

As a follow-up to the announcement of Richard Press’ new column for J. Squeeze, here’s his inaugural Ivy Style column from 2011. * * * I remember well the Yale-Harvard weekend of 1962. It was during the time of the War Between the Tailors. In his coverage of the annual football contest, Sports Illustrated scribe …

Ivy Style is proud to present an exclusive news announcement coordinated with J. Press. As of this moment, Richard Press, grandson of founder Jacobi and former company president, has officially rejoined his family’s business. He will write a weekly column for the J. Press website and will hold the title of archival consultant. The 80-year-old …

My farewell at J.Press half a decade after the sale of the family business in 1986 was orchestrated by Norbert Ford. Norbert was a charismatic entrepreneur who began his career dressing windows at the original Abercrombie and Fitch safari, rifle and menswear emporium on 45th and Madison. He was a scrappy senior executive, and when …

It was the best of times achieving rock-star status during my three trips to Japan in the late ’80s for the annual J. Press convention in Tokyo, a series of blowout bashes organized by the new owner, Onward Kashiyama. On three separate occasions I enjoyed the whimsical and intoxicating power of celebrity with incessant flashbulbs, …

Earlier this month was Holocaust Remembrance Day, which inspired Richard Press to pen this new column. * * * Felix Samelson often remarked to me, “I survived the camps because I was lucky, and I was also lucky your grandfather was in New York, not in his New Haven store the day I came for …

Sorry to disappoint you all, but after much delay, the video of Richard Press’ chat at J. Press’ New York store last month is finally ready and…. — brace yourself — it’s been professionally and stylishly edited down to 90 seconds, making it quite literally a case of shoulda been there.

Yesterday marked the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, and so we revisit this relevant column from Richard Press that originally ran in 2012. * * * Jacobi Press opened his Princeton branch on Nassau Street in the mid-1930s and assigned my father regular checkups on the store. Lou Prager, founder of Chipp in 1947 with another …

“Oy, dot muzt be de texxis cab,” was my stage character’s opening line responding to the honking car offstage as the curtain rose on the 1976 Van Dam Theatre production of 1920s vintage classic “Abie’s Irish Rose. ” One of the demands of my leading role as well-to-do immigrant widower Solomon Levy was affecting a …

An extraordinarily witty and cleverly packaged new book by James Gulliver Hancock succinctly titled “The Bow Tie Book” addresses the idiosyncratic cravat style alternately viewed as eccentric, erratic, professorial, bohemian and Churchillian. The book is loaded with a compendium of bow tie history from many eras in an uproarious agenda. Social Primer K. Cooper Ray …

In 1954, LIFE Magazine declared New Haven the home of the Ivy League Look, writing “Sometimes regarded as more of a club than a clothes shop, J. Press is delighted rather than dismayed that its look is now capturing the country.” Though it is closely associated with Old Blue, J. Press was hardly the only …

My four years at Loomis (now Loomis Chaffee) were adolescent days of wine and roses, but lurking behind the bush was six degrees of separation. Our Glee Club concert at the Tabernacle Baptist Church in the middle of a gritty black Hartford ghetto was a long six miles away from the lush Loomis campus down …