Dirty White Bucks & An Ivy League Coat

We’ve previously featured pop tunes from the Ivy heyday (and from the good old days when guys would sing about their clothes), and here’s another one: Ronnie Haig & Jerry Siefert singing the praises of dirty white bucks and “an Ivy League coat to burn out your eye.” Ignore the references to tight pants. 

8 Comments on "Dirty White Bucks & An Ivy League Coat"

  1. Dickey Greenleaf | March 24, 2012 at 4:17 pm |

    Theme music to the new televison series, “The White Shoe Lawyer’s”, maybe, just a suggestion, if anyone’s listening? What ya say? C.C.

  2. Of course the best of all time is “Collegiate” by Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians (1925). Still was popular thru the heyday into the 1950s on campus.

  3. Richard Press on dirty white bucks:

    https://youtu.be/5s78RYqwWxo

    Two minutes before the end (-2:00).

  4. Charlottesville | July 17, 2020 at 8:58 pm |

    Long ago (two decades perhaps?), I disposed of a pair of bucks, formerly white but by that time with various gray and brown marks, an overall greenish cast for some reason, and one red rubber sole almost completely separated from the upper. They had served me well throughout school and beyond. I went to Brooks and bought a new pair, but now I wish that I had applied a bit of glue or duct tape and kept them. Ah, well. That would probably be a look better suited to a 20-year old than to someone who has arrived at man’s estate. And I still have a pair of white bucks with tan leather saddles, weathered to a dull creamy shade of tan with a couple of scuffs and cuts on the toes, so I always have them to fall back on. Still, one can’t help but think what might have been …

  5. “…arrived at man’s estate.” What an intriguing turn of phrase.

    Reminds me of Charles Hill’s reflections on the mature, wisdom-filled life–a life that’s gathered years upon decades.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hCqAIkkuQA

  6. Charlottesville | July 18, 2020 at 8:54 am |

    S.E. – I wish I could take credit for it, but the phrase “grown to man’s estate” comes from a poem in Robert Louis Stevenson’s “A Child’s Garden of Verse” and was later used by Wodehouse in one of the Jeeves books. Not sure whether it was original to Stevenson, but it may have been. Or perhaps it is simply an old fashioned phrase, the genesis of which is lost in the shades of time, but I agree that it is a nice turn of phrase.

  7. Old School Tie | July 19, 2020 at 12:04 pm |

    I have always had a pair of white shoes on rotation since the early 1980s, the latest are C&Js – absolutely destroyed, which is my preferred state for these things. I have always loved suede and nubuck shoes too, again, always trashed very soon after their debut. I guess that’s the charm…

  8. RaleighPrep | August 17, 2022 at 9:47 am |

    Had a pair once, for the warmer months, but still reached for the tan or tan & saddles more often. One of my older frat brothers—a requisite Trad/Prep—practically lived in his white bucks. I saw him at a few recent reunions and nothing had changed. At one gathering, I think I uttered, “It’s November dude; time to retire the white ones.” His response, “Nope!” (He preferred the white ones, with 30 years worth of earned patina.)

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