A quick look back at this charming photo posted a decade ago, with dating customs that go even farther back.
* * *
London-based Ivy Style contributor Rebecca C. Tuite, currently at work on a book on the iconic Vassar Girl of the ’50s, posted this photo on her personal blog. The shot is from the Vassar archives and commemorates the school’s sesquicentennial.
Writes Tuite:
Vassar students and their weekend dates take a stroll around Vassar’s beautiful Sunset Lake. The weekend ‘mass exodus’ of the Vassar campus as students went off in droves to neighboring Ivies is well publicised, but students did enjoy some chaste dates on campus too.
Afternoon walks and dinners at the Pub in the Alumnae House were especially popular. It’s entirely likely that these four enjoyed a double date over “Vassar Devils” at the Pub, which were incredibly gooey chocolate sundaes and the toast of Poughkeepsie throughout the 1950s. Of course, there’s the ubiquitous 1950s bermuda shorts and shirts, as we’ve seen before, but here are some equally dapper Vassar dates in clothes that foreshadow, rather than exemplify, the heyday of the Ivy Look Look that will soon come.
Tuite also has several more posts planned for Ivy Style that shed light on campus life at mid-century. — CC
The juxtaposition on your site of the Vassar photo and the Ben Silver ad brought to mind a pet peeve: sweaters that are too long. Vassar guy’s V-neck is nicely proportioned, whereas Ben Silver guy’s cardigan is so long that extra material flops over the waist band
My only question is, is this a real picture of real people? Or is this just like the photo of those fake Princeton guys…
jk, there wasn’t much to this style. This was when you could go to sears, get a $10 haircut the same day and look great and in style.
I’d prefer the spelling “beaux” that would have been used in 1951.
I considered that spelling, in the end opting for the spelling above.
The French spelling would definitely be “Beaux”, but you are the English Masters not me ;)…
laughable,
A haircut in ’51 would be $1.00. Maybe you accidentally omitted the decimal.
Sorry, the jacket is awful. Makes Don Johnson circa 1985 look positively demure…