Last night the Broadway revival of “Anything Goes,” which had received nine Tony nominations, ended up winning three. As I watched, I couldn’t help but remember one of the great historical anecdotes of J. Press: The time my grandfather Jacobi helped the musical’s composer Cole Porter evade the New Haven police.

During a 1912 football game at Yale Field, just across the street from where the Yale Bowl was being constructed and would open the following year, Cole Porter joined the band for the halftime march down the field to introduce his new song, “Bulldog, Bulldog, Bow Wow Wow, Eli Yale.” By the time the game was over, Porter and his Delta Kappa Epsilon band of brothers were well lubricated and spotted a Chapel Street trolley passing the stadium. Porter gave the cry: “Hijack!”

A “Keystone Kop” chase ensued to York Street, when Porter leaped out of the trolley and ran to J. Press next to the DKE house where my grandfather hid him in the store cellar until the coast cleared.

Jacobi Press and Cole Porter are both long gone, but a commemorative line has stayed in “Anything Goes” since it first opened in 1932. In one scene, standing on a set designed to be the deck of an ocean liner, the romantic lead throws a stuffed animal to his drunk boss, who is heading for the Henley Regatta to cheer for Yale. “Here, Boss,” he says, “I got you the bulldog at J. Press.”

The following year Cole Porter, along with fellow Yalie Dean Acheson, roomed together at Harvard Law School. Porter eventually abandoned law to return to music, but years later, while serving as Secretary of State in the Truman administration, Acheson, who was renowned for his elegance, was featured in a LIFE Magazine half-page portrait that noted his clothes were from J. Press.

In closing, it’s worth looking at the lyrics of “Anything Goes”:

In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking
Now heaven knows, anything goes!

Campus shenanigans have certain come a long way since Porter highjacked a trolley. “The world has gone mad” indeed. — RICHARD PRESS

Richard Press is the grandson of J. Press founder Jacobi Press. A graduate of Dartmouth, he worked at the family business from 1959-1991, ultimately serving as president. He also spent four years as president and CEO of FR Tripler. He lives in Connecticut.

Pop-Up Prep, a multimedia fashion presentation of Tommy Hilfiger and Lisa Birnbach, popped up recently in Lower Manhattan with the slogan “Nothing proclaims preppy like patchwork madras print.”

It should only be so easy.

The history of the plaid cotton fabric dates back to the turn of the 20th century when it became an informal sporting costume of the Raj. It was British Colonial long before Holden Caulfield enrolled at Pencey.

Brooks Brothers introduced the fabric to America in 1920. Not to be outdone by his competitor, my grandfather Jacobi Press followed shortly thereafter, initiating a longterm trade agreement with Welch Margretson, manufacturers headquartered in London, who supplied him with a wide range of clothing, furnishings and haberdashery made exclusively for J. Press, including “Indian Madras recreational shirts and bathing wear.”

Madras went ballistic 30 years later in our New Haven and Cambridge stores, only to be joined by further promotion at Brooks Brothers and Trimingham’s in Bermuda. Hideaways from Northeast Harbor to Martha’s Vineyard and Newport began flowing rivers of bleeding madras.

Entering the family business in 1959, I used to accompany my uncle Irving Press on his buying trips around New York. He was a legend in menswear and possessed  an uncanny knack to stimulate resources he nurtured and assisted to maturity.

A poignant example was the mill jobber who specialized in textiles from India out of a shabby warehouse facility off lower Sixth Avenue. I remember crawling under the boards to salvage untended and wrinkled bolts of ancient madras that my uncle transformed into classics of the Golden Age. Remains of the day exist only in ancestral closets, vintage shops or textile museums.

Madras survivors reminiscent of the era are helter-skelter nowadays and not likely found either on Madison Avenue, Nantucket or the malls. I did find a classic example in Ralph Lauren’s Rugby shop in Greenwich. It was one of three remaining from last year, but passed the test for authenticity with its label marked “Colors will run; clean or wash separately.” The RL spectacular mansion/store a couple of doors down the street had a magnificently inked and dyed sportcoat that was unfortunately sized like a Victorian girdle.

O’Connell’s comes through with a well designed patchwork madras sportcoat that fully justifies Lisa Birnbach’s encomium even though it’s not a Hilfiger-Birnbach product. Definitely more New England boarding school than — ugh — preppy.

Brooks Brothers has little to offer other than a random selection of walk shorts, shirts and bathing suits in the madras category, but as in olden days a glimpse of something shocking comes through at my old J. Press stomping grounds with a very effective sport coat presentation in bold multicolor madras that looks like it derived from a yacht club awning.

There may be pop-ups of madras apparitions from Wal-Mart to Polo. Cut and sewn patches are six furlongs in a longer race. Inked and dyed real madras can only be birthed by hand and cannot be produced in large quantities. The cloth is fragile and not successfully tailored by computer. A bleeding madras that has been bled in an unforgiving wash basin can be imitated only by a poet.

The challenge remains for a smart retailer who can meet the demanding craft requirements to whet the palate of a discerning niche clientele. Do it, and there won’t be any bleeding remainders left on the racks. — RICHARD PRESS

A new proposal in New York would ban doctors from wearing neckties after a study revealed that the dangling strips of silk can transmit bacteria leading to infection. This would have been sad news back during the heyday, when J. Press sold many caduceus ties in colors appropriate to the Harvard and Yale medical schools. One of our customers was New Haven resident and Yale alumnus Dr. Benjamin Spock.

In fact, in 1968 we stored 10,000 ties in corrugated boxes piled randomly on the mezzanine of the New York store on 44th Street. The neckties were simply thrown on top of the counters and sorted according to their breed. They were never imprisoned under glass. Jacquard emblematics were on one side of the stairway, regimental stripes the other, the back space divided by challis, ancient madders, silk knits, Macclesfields and Indian Madras, depending on the season. Irving Press used to walk around the store messing up the ties. He challenged browsers to stroke and finger the fabrics. The algorithm was touch, feel and buy.

The signature emblematic tie at our campus store in New Haven was the “grasshopper,” a three inch navy blue field emblazoned with thick yellow insects. Anecdotally, a story circulated on York Street that a Smith girl asked her date if the tie he had on was his club tie and he responded that yes, he belonged to Grasshopper.

The emblematic collection was encyclopedic and included zoo animals, a barnyard population including pigs, geese, wild turkeys, ducks and horses. There was athletic gear featured, a closet full of squash rackets golf clubs, lacrosse sticks and Wall Street wasn’t denied its bull and bear.

How does this play today? Much of the old Ivy persona favors Hermes, and Vineyard Vines is hot in Greenwich, but ask any college student if he ever wears a tie. The answer, at least to a tie salesman, is scary.

“Morning Joe” Scarborough covered the royal wedding in London with a suit and no tie. Meanwhile Michael Kay does the Yankee games from his booth at the Stadium garbed in what looks like a Joseph Banks off-price price remainder garnished with a wide knotted neon-lit tie. I leave you to decide which is worse.

Discordant form goes coast to coast, and as usual LA is the paradigm. Agents perform “the Hollywood pirouette” at Craig’s in suit and tie and their clients wear untucked James Perse shirts over Seven for All Mankind jeans.

New York has always been less permissive and some might argue more sophisticated than the rest of the country. The University Club and the Regency Whist Club still insist on coat and tie. The Harvard Club requires a tie for dinner in the main dining room. Suits and ties are “not required” in the corporate dining room at Goldman Sachs, but executives would never appear at headquarters any other way. The Yale Club bends the rules reducing the dress code to jacket with “collared shirt.”

Not at the Racquet & Tennis Club on Park Avenue where they still sing the old songs. Members jump in the pool naked, wear neckties everywhere except in the steam room, and polo coats and fedoras are still being checked into the coat room off the lobby.

The old WASP ethic remains an island unto itself. — RICHARD PRESS

Richard Press is the grandson of J. Press founder Jacobi Press. A graduate of Dartmouth, he worked at the family business from 1959-1991, ultimately serving as president. He also spent four years as president and CEO of FR Tripler. He lives in Connecticut.

Richard Press, grandson of J. Press’ founder and who worked at the clothier from 1959-1991, herein debuts his column for Ivy-Style.com with a look at the competition between Ivy League clothiers during the heyday.

* * *

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 Bob Boyle reported on the presence of representatives of the New Haven Tailoring Establishment — J. Press, Fenn-Feinstein, Chipp, Arthur Rosenberg — “who make their biennial obeisance to see what the young gentlemen are wearing. By custom they do not speak to one another, and upon arrival each goes his separate way.”

Like any small industry, the world of Ivy League clothiers was small and incestuous. Some left to work for their competitors, others to start their own companies. We all knew each other and for the most part respected each other, but competition for our niche market was often fierce.

Boyle doesn’t mention Charlie Davidson of The Andover Shop, regaling Porcellians at his shop on Holyoke Street in Cambridge. A keen competitor, Charlie always kept the place loaded with heavy bolts of English woolens in every nook and cranny of the narrow quarters.

Meanwhile the New Haven schneiderei, as they would be depicted if they practiced their trade on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, are characterized sporting “alpine hats, double-breasted tweed topcoats and blue oxford shirts to offset their sallow complexions.”

Boyle continues: “Paul Press descends into the basement of J. Press, where he stands his Cambridge branch employees to a buffet luncheon of cream soda and hot pastrami imported from New Haven.”

My uncle Irving and father Paul always enforced a dictum that is set in stone: “Have nothing to do with anybody who tries to screw J. Press.” That meant anyone who “borrowed” the mailing list, copied suit patterns, or took away fitters, tailors, salesmen or — God forbid — customers.

Nevertheless, several competitors were actually born of J. Press.

After the Second World War, Lou Prager of the Princeton store and Sid Winston who showed J. Press at prep schools like Andover, Groton, St. Paul’s and Hotchkiss, started Chipp along with Jonas Arnold from our Cambridge branch.

In 1958, premier Midwestern roadshow salesman Mack Dermer and West Coast traveller Sam Kroop went out the back door to purchase the Arthur M. Rosenberg Co. Previously Dermer sold J. Press clothes retail at the LaSalle Hotel in Chicago and eight other cities on his road trips. He generated more business pushing the Ivy League Look out of a hotel showroom eight times a year than many men’s stores do in a full season on their own premises. A couple thousand postcard notices proclaim each showing at the La Salle Hotel for our Chicago list would go out, plus a rough equivalent to 25 other cities nationwide.

Arthur M. Rosenberg actually preceded my grandfather as the top custom tailor at Yale at the turn of the century. A talented cadre of needle-and-threadmen emerged from this base, including Fenn-Feinstein, White’s of New Haven, Rosenthal-Maretz, and Langrock.

Competition sometimes got personal. When I had to represent J. Press during contract talks with the Custom Tailor’s Union in New Haven at age 22, my father and uncle wouldn’t sit in the same room with Sidney Winston or Mack Dermer.

Those were the golden years of the business, but things are different now as I enjoy my own golden years.  Today I admire Paul Winston, who retains the snappy Chipp look his father nurtured, and continues the family tradition at Winston Tailors across from the Harvard Club on 44th Street.

On a more personal note, Mack Dermer’s son Peter utilized his know-how after Rosenberg’s closing by spending several years at Southwick. A couple of years ago he married my cousin and is now family. That helps salve old wounds.

We all talk to one another now. At least the ones who are still breathing. The battlefield trenches are all quiet on the western front. — RICHARD PRESS

Richard Press is the grandson of J. Press founder Jacobi Press. A graduate of Dartmouth, he worked at the family business from 1959-1991, ultimately serving as president. He also spent four years as president and CEO of FR Tripler. He lives in Connecticut.