Gregg Donnelly thinks he can do both. “There isn’t a go-to player in the khaki market,” says Donnelly, who founded Jack Donnelly Khakis in 2008. “It’s near impossible to consistently find a quality pair. There are so many companies making khakis right now, but I have yet to find a pair that is truly worth my money.”

It’s true that most khakis aren’t made very well. They sag in the seat, the fit and finish are poor, and they fray and fade poorly. Most are made overseas. The few American-made, high-quality brands are prohibitively expensive. It’s ironic for a product synonymous with traditional American style.

Donnelly thinks the solution is attention to detail, and he’s arranged his business accordingly. “Because our headquarters are less than a few hours from where our khakis are actually made,” he says, “we are afforded the ability to keep a close eye on the entire khaki-making process, and to make sure they’re manufactured to our exact specifications.”

Those specifications include a roomy seat and thigh and a waistband designed not to creep up the hips during wear. Jack Donnelly Khakis’ introductory Dalton pants are available for sale exclusively online, in khaki and stone, with pleats or without. Dalton shorts are available in the same color and pleat options. The cost — $88 for pants, $68 for shorts — is steeper than most department-store khakis, but shipping to anywhere in the US is free. Returns, for any reason, are free as well.

Each pair comes unfinished. Having them hemmed is one step more than would be required of store-bought pants, but, given their quality and Gregg Donnelly’s enthusiasm, a day at the tailor’s might prove a small investment in a pair of khakis that’s actually worth your money. — ANDREW S. EASTMAN

Andrew S. Eastman is a 2007 graduate of Dartmouth College, where he was a member of the rugby team and wrote for The Dartmouth Review. After a short stint at a Boston public relations agency, he began pursuing a law degree at the Saint Louis University School of Law.

The following is an interview with Wes Del Val, vice president and associate publisher at powerHouse Books, which brings out “Take Ivy” on August 31.

IS: “Take Ivy” isn’t due to come out for another month, and yet you’ve already pre-sold the first printing. How many copies have you sold in advance of publication?

WDV: Let’s just say we’ve already had to go back to print, which is very rare, especially for an illustrated book. It’s really taken off because of the blogosphere. You guys are just taking the information and running with it. It’s just viral, which is the dream of every publisher.

IS: The book’s original hype was also driven mostly by the Internet.

WDV: Absolutely. I found the book via new media. I saw the Times write about it, and saw it on either A Continuous Lean or The Trad. The Trad had scanned the whole book, so I saw it and thought, “We have got to do this.” Over several weeks I was on the phone at 10 at night trying to find the Japanese publisher, trying to track down who holds the rights to this thing. We finally found them, and were just elated that we got the rights. So many people had been talking about it online that we thought we might be too late, but we weren’t.

All of us here saw scans and knew we loved it: none of us had seen a copy. Very few people have actually held a copy, so we were all just going crazy for scans, which really says something about the material. And now we’re seeing that a large group of people are really into this. But the timing is perfect, too, right in the thick of the American Craft movement, as some people call it, or a celebration of all things American.

IS: Has the number of pre-orders surprised you?

WDV: We thought it would target a pretty niche audience, namely the die-hard prep fans. And I knew that was sizable, I just didn’t know how sizable it was. We’re seeing that it’s going out much farther than just the niche: the historians, fanatics and collectors. And that’s what any publisher hopes, that it transcends the obvious audience. The comments we’re seeing online, people are just so excited for it, and we’re thrilled.

IS: Was Hachette, the Japanese publisher, aware of the book’s cult status in the US?

WDV: It was on their radar, but they didn’t know how big it was. They didn’t realize what the blogs had done with scans. When I sent them some links, they said, “Wow, this is amazing.” They could have seen them if they’d just googled “Take Ivy,” but they just hadn’t. To me it just screamed that it had to be reissued. If anybody had done some googling it would have led some editors to say, “You mean this thing is going for over $1,000 and nobody can read the text?”

Hachette said some US publishers had shown interest around the time of the New York Times article, but they didn’t feel it was the right fit. And then we came along wiht our proposal, and they thought it would work well with our publishing program.

IS: How did you finally secure the rights?

WDV: It was calls and emails for about a month last year. It wasn’t every day, but I’d try to find links to Hachette and email the corporate office, and they might get back to me or not. One thing led to another and finally with the help of a Japanese intern we tracked them down.

IS: Why does Hachette still hold the rights after all these years?

WDV: That I don’t know. The third printing came out in 2006, and they still held the rights: they had not reverted back to the authors.

IS: What rights do you hold?

WDV: English-language rights. So we can do Australia, the UK and North America. And the countries where we do most of our business — France, Germany, Japan — we’re allowed to sell the book into those territories. And as new territories find out about it and want to order, I just have to ask the Japanese publisher for the rights to sell it in that territory. They’ve been very helpful because they know it benefits them as well to have it widely available. I’ve already asked them about a dozen other countries that have shown interest, and they’ve said yes to all of them. Anybody can go on Amazon and get the book, this is just if they want to get it from one of our distributors.

IS: What about translations into other languages?

WDV: Every book that powerHouse publishes will be in English. But if someone wants to publish it in another language, I can put them in touch with the Japanese publishers.

IS: What’s the nature of the deal? They get a percentage of your sales?

WDV: Correct.

IS: What do you think accounts for the book’s popularity? Is it partly because of the book’s rarity and mystique?

WDV: That’s part of it, and just that it’s timeless style. And the fact that it came along at this time. Prep goes in and out, and we’re right in the thick again of its popularity. Prep style will wane and something else will come along, but it is so endudring and will always have its die-hard niche. And at other times it will be bigger than a niche.

IS: What do you find special about the book?

WDV: Just the effortless style of these 18-21 year olds. Here they are just getting up and going to class. They’re not putting thought into what they’re wearing. They were just wearing the style of the day, and it just so happens that it’s effortless, timeless style. And the fact that the clothes fit, I just love. So many people wear ill-fitting clothes today. That’s the most striking thing: everybody’s wearing clothes that fit him. The seams on the shoulders fit, everyone’s wearing the right-sized pant. Now they’re wearing short, Thom Browne pants, but they’re not thinking about it. They’re just things they got at J. Press or the local store. I don’t think there’s anything contrived abou it. Now people go for the prep thing and they can really overdo it.

They wear things with a nonchalance. Comfort seems to be first and foremost. They’re just going to and fro on the campus, slipping on their Weejuns, or putting on their Converse and pushing down their socks to go rowing, and everything they do looks great. But that’s also because we’re removed from it.

Then there’s the great part that the Japanese did it, almost like it was anthropological. And they did this study and brought it back to Japan, and everyone knows the Japanese are so great at creatively twisting things. You give them something and the way they run with it is just astounding. And then we copy their copies of our originals. I love the fact that they did it, that it wasn’t a fellow student taking these pictures and making these comments.

IS: Are the authors still alive?

WDV: They are, and a lot of people don’t know that. The photographer and the three writers are all alive. They’re quite elderly now, my contact at the publisher says. Every time I send her updates she passes them on to them. Only one of them speaks a little English. They’re just so pleased that a new generation has gotten on to it.

IS: What do you know about how the original project came about?

WDV: Unfortunately the publisher couldn’t give us any information beyond the book and the text translated into English. Whatever is in the text is all we know about it. They’re so far removed from the original, and there’s nobody around there who worked on the original.

I think the clothing company [VAN Jacket] that the writers work for wanted to come to get an authentic look book, but I don’t know that for sure. However they would have come across Ivy style at that time — record covers and movies — I think they wanted a look book for their own purposes. So why not just go to the source?

IS: Who commissioned the translation?

WDV: They provided us with a translated manuscript.

IS: Did you then edit it for things like clothing terminology that may not have sounded right?

WDV: Yes, our editor worked closely with the Japanese publisher. If something stood out, we’d say, “Are you sure about this?” They’d either say, “Yes, that’s correct,” or they’d go back and rework it a little bit.

IS: On the opening page there’s a disclaimer that any errors in the original text have not been corrected.

WDV: They added that just in case some of the die-hards. This was made by a trade publisher, not a historian or collector. So that was added just in case some expert says, “No, I don’t think that’s right.”

IS: In addition to the stellar advance sales, you must be pleased with the media attention.

WDV: It’s a dream come true when it becomes viral. When you’re making a book, you want people to come to you, as opposed to “Can you please feature this?” The people I’ve gone to have all said, “I know about it and I’d love to do something with you.”

IS: Does that mean you don’t need a marketing budget?

WDV: Right, but we also don’t because we’re a small independent publisher. We put our money into the production of the book.

— CHRISTIAN CHENSVOLD

Will Fall 2010 be remembered as the peak —and therefore beginning of the end — of the Preppy/Ivy/Trad/Americana trend, or will it mark the beginning of a much larger and longer influence on American style and culture?

Time will tell, and things are heating up in preparation.

In this weekend’s Sunday Styles section of the New York Times, there’s a big “Take Ivy” feature, and J. Crew is now selling the book, and will be offering a special edition.

According to Amazon, “Take Ivy” is scheduled for release on August 31 (J. Crew’s site says 8/24, the NY Times article says “next week,” and the powerHouse Books website does not have a date). On September 7, soon after the release of “Take Ivy,” Lisa Birnbach’s “True Prep” will be published.

With the double-shot of trad tomes on store shelves this fall, it will be interesting to see how the PITA trend plays out in the media — and society at large.

In the meantime, tune in on Monday for Ivy-Style’s interview with powerHouse Books publisher Wes Del Val about the process of acquiring the rights to “Take Ivy,” with plenty of arcane trivia about the book and its origins. — CC

Until somebody finds the official “Take Ivy” video (our man in Tokyo is working on it), this may be the closest thing to surface so far.

For the past couple of months I’ve been subscribed to the Princeton Campus Life YouTube channel. Most of the archival footage has been recent or early twentieth century. Then the other day I noticed something closer to the heyday: the crew video from 1948-50. So I skimmed through the channel’s videos again and found an absolute gem: a 25-minute, professionally shot (and scripted) orientation film from 1962.

It’s all here: “Princeton” haircuts, stretched-out shetland sweaters, white socks and no-break trousers, natural-shouldered jackets, collar rolls and ties askew, bow-tied professors, pipe-smoking in the classroom, touch football on the lawn, bicycling across campus, and khakis as far as the eye can see, all from the school most credited with setting the styles of the Ivy League Look. — CC

It’s Menswear Market Week here in New York, and I’ve spent the past few days at a couple of the trade shows. First up, Designer Forum, sponsored by the Custom Tailors & Designers Association, the oldest trade organization in the US.

Pictured above are rep bow ties from Collared Greens, which has combined the preppy, domestic manufacturing, and eco trends all into one. Based in Sun Valley, Idaho, the brand showed neckties and brightly colored, organic-cotton polo shirts.

Next up, patch-madras shorts in a nice hefty fabric from Castaway Clothing, the wholesale arm of Murray’s Toggery Shop of Nantucket Island.

The New England Shirt Company was founded six months ago, though its Fall River, MA shirt factory has been around for 80 years making shirts for J. Press, Sero and others. Below is an oxford sport shirt with patch pocket and contrast stitching. Price range for the collection is $125-$175.

Necktie maker Atkinsons Royal Irish Poplin was there, a longtime staple of many regional trad shops. “Poplin” today is mostly used to describe cotton suits, and yet the term is actually a conjunction of “papal linen.” To further confuse matters, Atkinsons’ ties — which are about the finest you’ve ever felt — are actually made of silk and wool. Below is Atkinsons sales rep Hal Choyce, with seersucker sack jacket and rakish collar roll:

Recognize this guy?

Come on, I did. It’s Sid Mashburn, who was wearing one of his signature looks: white Levis 501s, loafers (Belgian Shoes, in this case), no socks of course, and a natural-shouldered Italian sportcoat. “Tell me if this isn’t the most comfortable thing you’ve ever worn,” he said, putting it on me. He wasn’t kidding.

Sid didn’t want to be photographed without a necktie, but consented anyway. He’ll be glad to know the shot didn’t come out, so I cropped it at his shins. He made white jeans and loafers without socks look so cool I ordered some Levis as soon as I got home. Of course, what it reminded me of is the guy in white chinos/jeans in this widely circulated shot from the LIFE archives.

I asked Sid how a regional shop in Atlanta started getting such sudden buzz among the myopic New York fashion media. “My wife used to work at CondeNast,” he confessed. Yep, that explains it.

Then Bruce Boyer wandered over, along with former DNR reporter Vicki Vasilopoulos, who’s currently making a documentary on Italian tailoring, and business cards start getting exchanged — and compared. Mashburn and Boyer find they’ve used the same shade of green, whose number on the color wheel they’ve got memorized. So I make a crack about that scene in “American Psycho” where the guys compare business cards. Boyer doesn’t know the scene, but comes back with, “But I’m in the book.”

The rest of us float incredulous looks. “What do you mean you’re in the book?”

“There are two pages of me,” Bruce says. “The character says, ‘Look, here’s what Bruce Boyer says in Town & Country….’ I was going to write Bret Easton Ellis a note saying, ‘What’s a nice guy like me doing in a book like that?”"

Anyway, it was pretty much the snappiest comeback ever. “Seen the movie?” “No, but I’m in the book.” Touché, Monsieur Boyer.

The following day I went to the Capsule show. As it was hot, and held at a funky industrial space in Chelsea, instead of the Warwick Hotel, I felt no obligation to wear long pants. I was clad in khaki shorts, Weejuns, and this patch-madras shirt from Brooks, accessorized with Clubmasters and this skinny belt from J. Crew. I had barely walked in the door when a guy grabs me and says, “You’ve been dressing like this all your life, haven’t you?”

“Actually, I’m more of a born-again prep.”

“Because you look so natural. Most of the guys I’ve seen doing that look are trying way too hard.”

Nice compliment, but to put it in context, here’s who it came from:

Lawrence from Sartorially Inclined was there, doing some live blogging. A great guy with a much deeper voice than you’d expect from a fashion blogger with a category called “lusting after“:

Sebago showed lots of work boots, including several reproductions from its original 1946 catalog:

Next spring the Eastland Shoe Company will bring out these fine Maine-made penny loafers, priced at $250:

More shoes, this time longwings by Florsheim by Duckie Brown, made from Horween hides and Goodyear welts. “These shoes are indestructible,” said Duckie Brown founder Danny Livingston.

One more remark on shoes: Mark McNairy was there with his Bass collection (see below), and said he’d like to open a shoe store in the near future. In the meantime, his long-tailed oxford shirts ($120-$190) are made in the Brooks Brothers factory. “A dream come true,” said the avid collector of vintage Brooks shirts.

Finally, we have a patch-pocketed, chambray half-lined herringbone jacket by Billy Reid. If you’re not sure exactly where Billy Reid fits in the marketplace, you’re not alone. “It’s like a Banana Republic designer stumbled into a J. Crew meeting,” someone quipped, “and fell asleep halfway through.” — CC

This is a 20-minute clip, so watch it over lunch if you’re the kind of poor schlub who eats lunch at his desk. And if you’re at home, pour yourself a drink and get comfortable.

Love the towel worn as a scarf in the opening. Great chinos and sweaters in action at 2:28. Jackets and ties for trip to Cornell at 4:28. White bucks and grey flannels at 5:51. Rowing against Columbia through New York City at 8:29. More traveling clothes at 10:32.

And finally, at 19:28, the climax: a kiss from a debutante in cashmere and pearls.

I’d row a couple of miles for that. — CC

As a fellow Queens kid who grew up listening to Yankees games on the radio, Sheppard’s voice — dubbed “The Voice of God” by Reggie Jackson — was an integral part of my relationship with the team. Through the dark days of the mid-’80s to the early ’90s, to the triumphant years at the end of the century, the distinctly sonorous cadence of Sheppard’s announcements offered fans an enduring reference point beyond the team’s fickle American League standings.

Sheppard’s manner harkened to a different era, when baseball was largely followed on the radio. In an interview with ESPN, Sheppard said, “The modern public address announcer is a screamer, he’s a shouter, and he is very, very flamboyant,” better suited for a wrestling ring. In contrast, Sheppard described his method as “clear, concise and correct.” As a baseball fan who listened to both Yankees and Mets games, I witnessed the contrast and understood Sheppard’s intent. The game was perfect by itself; it did not need a promoter, but merely someone who respected its dignity. Sheppard did so superlatively and stylishly, as seen in the sack-jacketed 1972 photo above.

“I don’t go to work; I go to a game,” Sheppard once said, as if baseball was too sacred to be a job. As the announcer for the sport’s most storied franchise, Sheppard served as a trustee charged with protecting a key part of New York’s heritage and capturing the imaginations of succeeding generations. He will be missed by millions of fans, including this one. — WILL CHOU

Recent Yale grad Will Chou is currently pursuing graduate studies in history at Ohio State University. He avidly indulges in sports, travel and food and would like Roger Sterling to be godfather to his future son.

Sheppard photo from the New York Daily News.

Think you’re smart? Think you’re — you know — Ivy League smart?

Then see if you can figure out the cryptic meaning of this vintage Chipp emblematic necktie.

Pictured are four motifs. They are:

A clock reading 3:55

An empty whisky bottle

A woman with one breast exposed

A toilet

What does it mean? Hint: It’s about baseball.

Click “Continue” for the answer.

Given up? It’s really quite simple. Here’s what the symbols mean:

Clock = 5-4

Whisky bottle = Bottom of the fifth

Exposed breast = One out

Toilet = No one on

This testament to the wit of the legendary Chipp — the company that popularized patch madras and put Kama Sutra linings inside conservative suits — is available for $42 from Paul Winston at his tailoring shop next to Brooks Brothers on E. 44th Street. Paul has a few dozen left, and estimates them to be about 30 years old. Snatch one up by calling 212.687.0850. A sure-fire conversation piece, and just the thing to wear to the ballpark in honor of the days when men got dressed up to head down to the yard. — CHRISTIAN CHENSVOLD

Gazing at these idyllic scenes of campus quads, where groups of stylish young men live out the best years of their lives in tranquil isolation, cut off from the pressures of work and family that await them, it’s easy to feel drawn into some kind of halcyon golden age far removed from contemporary college life.

And this is what makes “Take Ivy,” created by photographer Teruyoshi Hayashida and three writers, such a special book. For in fact what it depicts is not a golden age at all, but the last rays of twilight on a declining silver age.

Although Hayashida and his team could not have known it, they were preparing the obituary for a moribund celebrity whose demise is imminent. “Take Ivy” chronicles the beginning of the end of the Ivy League Look, the final group of classmen for whom oxford shirts and penny loafers were a uniform, and the last gasp of a sartorial tradition that had slowly germinated, codified, and risen to popularity over the course of 40 years.

Midway through “Take Ivy” is a photo of a freshman wearing a sweater emblazoned with the expected year of his graduation: 1968. He could serve as a single representative of his generation at this time of unprecedented change. Clean cut and “collegiate” (how archaic that word sounds!), when he receives his diploma, he will probably look very different. And a decade later, the staples of his wardrobe — natural-shouldered sack jackets, oxford-cloth button-downs, Weejuns, discreet rep ties — would become symbols of stodginess and elitism in a new age of free-thinking egalitarianism.

Released in September of 1965 and apparently shot in spring of the same year, “Take Ivy” is a chronicle of the penultimate year of the heyday of the Ivy League Look. Only one year remained in which this style would still be considered smart by the majority of students. When the fall semester of 1967 began, following the torrid Summer of Love, America would begin to change with head-spinning rapidity, and the Ivy League Look would tumble into sudden free fall like a sartorial albatross hurled from the top of Nassau Hall.

In his novel “The Final Club,” Princeton alum Geoffrey Wolff tersely summarizes the rapid fall of the Ivy League Look. Referring to the Ivy Club, Princeton’s most exclusive eating club, he writes:

Lining the second-floor hall were group portraits of Ivy members, and Nathaniel paused to examine them. Till 1967 the club sections were photographed indoors, in the billiard room; dress was uniform — dark suits, white shirts, Ivy ties. In 1967 a white suit was added here, an open collar there. In 1968 the insolent, smirking group moved outside, and was tricked out in zippered paramilitary kit, paratroop boots, tie-dye shirts, shoulder-length locks, and not a necktie in view.

The photos in “Take Ivy” show the Ivy League Look as a house of cards trembling in the winds of change. The students pictured are more stylish than those of today, but they are also less formal than those who had come before. “Take Ivy” shows more tees than ties, more sweatshirts than Shetlands. While the clothing items themselves are purebred Ivy, the students’ lack of formality, elucidated in the text, is the first step in the gradual casualization of the college wardrobe, a process that has reached its logical conclusion in the flip-flops and pajama bottoms on today’s campuses.

If “Take Ivy” were a glass whose contents were the Ivy League Look, it would be both half empty and half full. Much is gone, but much remains (though what remains won’t be there for long). With their seemingly effortless nonchalance, the students teeter on the edge of a fence, with the past on one side and the future on the other, simultaneously upholding tradition and dismantling it. And it’s for this reason that “Take Ivy” is bittersweet on the eyes.

A few years later, in jeans and sideburns, after Vietnam War protests, public-figure assassinations, and a zeitgeist demanding a complete revaluation of all values, these students would have looked back on their college years the same way we look at “Take Ivy” nearly half a century later: as a simpler time forever gone. — CHRISTIAN CHENSVOLD

American Indian: Madras, named for the Indian city where it originated, remains a distinctly yankee summer staple
By Christian Chensvold
The Rake, issue 10

Though Brooks Brothers and Chipp were just across the street from each other — at 44th Street and Madison Avenue in New York City — their customer base was miles apart. That’s why one summer evening in the early ‘60s, Chipp employees moved dozens of unsold patch-madras sportcoats from one side of street to the other, changed the labels from Brooks to Chipp, and started ringing up sales the next day.

It’s one of Paul Winston’s favorite stories. Fresh from college, he had just joined his father’s legendary company Chipp, purveyors of the Ivy League Look but with a predilection for experimentation and whimsy — like Kama-Sutra linings in sober grey-flannel suits. This creativity also gave birth to the patching of madras, that comfortable, inexpensive and quintessential summer fabric. The fateful “Late-Night Madras on Madison Merchandise Swap” consisted of sportcoats from a third party used by both Chipp and Brooks Brothers. “We couldn’t get patch-madras sportcoats in fast enough, and Brooks couldn’t sell them,” Winston remembers. “Relatively speaking, we were considered edgy, and they had old-line, conservative blue-blood customers who looked down on it.”

The passing of time makes fertile ground for irony. Brooks Brothers has all but declared 2010 the year of madras, offering dozens of products in categories from shirts and shorts to sportcoats, ties, pocket squares and even loungewear. And guess what? Patched items are the best sellers.

“It is an interesting year in terms of madras,” says Jeff Blee, divisional merchandise manager of men’s furnishings for Brooks Brothers. “We made a much more sizable investment in it this year. It fits the two ends of the fashion spectrum: It can be very subdued and traditional in a Nantucket way with blues and reds, but can also be a good vehicle for what I like to call Palm Beach Prep, which is a little more over-the-top in terms of color, with pinks, greens and oranges.

“Madras ebbs and flows in popularity,” Blee continues, “but we always do it. And at this point in the cycle we’re doing it head to toe — not that we want people to wear it that way. It’s a cloth that just screams summer.”

And it screams it in Tamil. Madras is named for the Indian city where the light, textured cotton fabric was first loomed (Madras became known as Chennai in 1996, part of a continuous process of redubbing Indian cities with Anglicized names). Its origins go back to the early days of the British Empire, when locals created cotton plaids inspired by Scottish tartans.

Today madras, as they say in the fashion industry, is “having a moment” — a long moment that’s been building for several years. Atlantis Fabrics, a New York-based importer of Indian textiles, reports that wholesale madras sales have risen 20 percent in each of the past five years. And this moment, like all the others since Brooks Brothers introduced madras resort wear in 1920, is a largely American phenomenon. Though Brooks Brothers maintains stores in the UK and Continental Europe, when it comes to annual madras offerings, “They’re never as gung-ho about it as we are here,” says Blee. “But in Asia, it’s a whole different story: Madras is wildly popular in our Japanese stores.”

However, madras may be slowly returning to its British roots, one pair of patchwork shorts at a time, thanks to designers like Nottingham-based David Keyte, who launched the line Universal Works last year after 12 years at Paul Smith. “I’ve always loved madras check,” Keyte says. “Paul was buying it years ago, even before I ever saw it in a Ralph Lauren ad!” On a recent trip to India, Keyte was captivated by the brilliantly colored fabrics he saw. “The array of fantastic patchworks in India is amazing,” he says. “The hardest things is limiting yourself to just one or two choices.” The result of Keyte’s travels is a pair of patch-madras shorts in Universal Works current collection. And while Keyte admits Brits are generally less adventurous with their summer clothes than Americans, “the shorts seem to be flying out the stores.”

For every material object there is a purist who wants it a certain way — usually an archaic way no longer available. With madras, the most coveted type is “bleeding madras,” something all but extinct, according to Ethan Huber of O’Connell’s, purveyors of traditional American style in Buffalo, New York since 1959. “We haven’t seen bleeding madras in years and years,” he says. “The old hand-loomed bleeding stuff is just impossible to get, and the dyes today just aren’t the same.”

Good thing O’Connell’s is prone to hoarding — or overbuying. The store boasts some 900 pieces of deadstock bleeding madras dating from the ‘60s to the ‘90s. When trickled out into the store or on the website, they sell immediately. And while photographing the many one-offs for e-commerce purposes is tedious, says Huber, “I like to get them out there and see people get excited about them.”

Always an inexpensive fabric (O’Connell’s’ current colorfast madras costs $6 a yard), the traditional vegetable dyes would “bleed” into each other during washing. They’d also bleed into other garments: Get caught in a summer shower wearing a madras sportcoat and your white oxford underneath might just turn pink. Bleeding madras is also highly sensitive to sunlight, and will fade after a few afternoons on the golf course. “If I put a sportcoat on a mannequin in the window,” says Huber, “if it’s not out of there in a week, you’ll see that the fabric under the lapel is darker.”

Purists have come to prize the quickly developed, lived-in look of bleeding madras, perhaps at the encouraging of manufacturers. “Genuine Indian madras, guaranteed to bleed,” was an ubiquitous label sewn onto garments during the madras heyday, a fine example of marketing spin, and vice recast as virtue.

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