Over the past few years, the Ivy Trendwatch has helped bring scholarly attention to the clothing and social customs of college men during the heyday of the Ivy League Look. “Take Ivy” shined an outsider’s lens on college life in the mid-’60s with a specific eye for what men were wearing. Then came the MFIT exhibit, and previous contributors Rebecca C. Tuite and Deirdre Clemente both have books coming out on postwar college life and style. Meanwhile, Richard Press is also cranking out his memoirs.

All this has helped bring us to the point today where a kid can say he wants to do an independent study course on the history of prep-school fashion and the teachers actually go for it.

Pictured above is George Cleveland, a student at The Hill School, a private institution founded in 1851 in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. He’s an Ivy Style reader who seeks to connect with guys who prepped in previous decades in order to gather their sartorial recollections for his research paper.

Here’s his project in his own words:

In the fall I will return to The Hill School for my senior year. Throughout the summer and next year I will complete an independent study on the history of culture and clothing at boarding schools in the United States.

My final project will consist of an in-depth analysis of culture and clothing at boarding school and its influence on society. Moreover, it will show the history of “preppy” clothing. I will attain this goal with the following endeavors:

The Boarding School Look Book  This book will depict the current and past styles expressed at boarding schools across the East Coast. It will contain pictures and snippets of writing. The snippets will articulate historical research, advice on attire, and interesting facts.

Research Paper  This paper will be roughly 20 pages. It will weigh heavily on the history and influence of clothing at prep school. However, it will also touch on aspects like seniority in school, coed vs. single-sex schools, and socioeconomic influence on status. Lastly, the document will include first person memories of boarding school.

Exhibit  An exhibit containing “preppy” clothing, sports equipment, short clips from boarding school films, and in-depth research will be on display in the coming year at The Center for the Arts at The Hill School. I will be accepting any items to be donated or on loan to the exhibit for the display, in case anyone is willing to provide relevant artifacts. (Similar to the Ivy-Style exhibit at The Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.)

Please contact me at gcleveland [at] thehill.org if you would like to be interviewed for the research paper, or if you have anything to donate to the exhibit.

Follow @takeprep on Instagram to stay connected with the project.

On Wednesday George HW Bush celebrated his 89th birthday, and well-wishers were encouraged to honor the occasion by donning whimsical socks. Go-to-hell hosiery has become Bush’s trademark now that he’s at that age when dressing becomes something of a challenge.

Although JFK often gets credit for being America’s preppiest president, the honor really goes to Bush 41. A couple of months ago, BuzzFeed.com created a gallery tribute to the preppy gear the president wore throughout his life  (thanks to Muffy Aldrich for the head’s up via Twitter). Here are some highlights:

Head over here to see the full 21-shot gallery. — c C m

Over the years we’ve chronicled many pop culture references made to Brooks Brothers throughout the 20th century. Starting some 70 years ago, the brand began to serve as shorthand not only for affluence and tradition, but for their flipside, the stodginess and narrow-mindedness of the Eastern Establishment. Examples range from Mary McCarthy’s 1942 short story “The Man In The Brooks Brothers Shirt” to the lyrics from 1950′s “Guys And Dolls,” with its reference to “the breakfast-eating Brooks Brothers type.”

Although the WASP stranglehold on power has long toppled, the grey-suited conformity of the Eisenhower years is just a page from history, and Brooks Brothers has become a billion-dollar global fashion brand, the company still serves as a symbol of door-shut inquality, especially to those from a certain American experience.

The latest to invoke the unique set of connotations that hangs over the Brooks Brothers brand as is Myrlie Evers-Williams, legendary civil rights activist and widow of Medger Evers, who was assassinated 50 years ago Wednesday.

In an interview with Al Sharpton on PoliticsNation on the anniversary of the assassination, Evers-Williams said, “Jim Crow is alive, and it’s dressed in a Brooks Brothers suit, my friend, instead of a white robe.” The reference comes at 4:30 in the video above, and the quote served MSNBC as headline material for its recap of the interview. The remark was also tweeted many times on Twitter, though it’s impossible to say how those who retweeted it interpreted the comment. Needless to say, as race in America always is, it’s a complex issue.

Evers-Williams’ remark, linking a clothing brand to institutionalized racism, may be hard for younger people to understand. It feels unfair Brooks Brothers, which, like America, has changed with the times. During the ’70s and ’80s, its catalogs featured illustrations of idealized gentlemen, all white. Today, the company regularly features black models in clothing and settings once considered exclusive to white America:

And just a few weeks ago Brooks Brothers ran a BrooksCool marketing campaign featuring Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra:

President Obama, like so many presidents before him, wore Brooks Brothers to his inauguration:

One of those other presidents was Lincoln, and during the Civil War Brooks Brothers made uniforms for the Union.

The Civil War brings us to America’s original sin, racism, and what happened to Medgar Evers and his widow 50 years ago is cruel and tragic. But in matters of race, many of us have moved forward.

However, Jason Marshall, an African-American friend of mine and previous Ivy-Style.com contributor, tells me that moving forward is the challenge for the oppressor more than the oppressed, and this helps us understand the point of view behind Evers-Williams’ remark. It’s important to understand, he says, that no one could be closer to the source of intitutionalized racism than Myrlie Evers-Williams. “If it were a contemporary black celebrity under 50,” he says, “I can understand how it could be considered an unfair remark. But you can’t get any closer to the source of discrimination than Myrlie Evers-Williams. Not only is she black, she’s a woman. And for her generation, ‘the man in the Brooks Brothers suit’ was a genuine symbol of establishment oppression. In her experience, the brand was linked to institutionalized racism. Also, to analayze the comments of a widow on the anniversary of her husband’s death is already tricky.”

I asked Jason to share his thoughts on the remark in writing, and here’s his take:

Brooks Brothers is first and foremost an ideal, like any other successful fashion brand. This is especially true for those outside of the the menswear trade. Those of us within menswear would likely contest that J. Press is the stodgiest of brands.

We would also be missing the point.

When someone uses the term “Brooks Brothers” as an adjective (as in “the man in the Brooks Brothers suit”), it has nothing to do with the billion-dollar megabrand run by an Italian and strangely partial to overly large armholes. It has to do with the behavior of a demographic which companies like Brooks Brothers have been eager to dress and identify with. Said demographic at one time in America consisted of many devout racists who sole purpose in life seemed to be the obliteration of the African-American race.

Myrlie Evers-Williams was born into a time when this demographic was at something of froth over how to rid themselves of a people whom they saw as social lepers. Her late husband, Medgar Evers, sought to overturn the status quo, and in doing found himself at the center of hatred for him and his kind. Myrlie Evers was made a widow by said demographic.

A lesson to be learned by from all widows is that grief takes on many guises, and tend to last as long as the widow. A lesson learned from any one who has experienced racism on an institutional level is that those wounds run deep and scar badly. To suggest that a woman who epitomizes both circumstances should “move past it” is to fail to be sympathetic. Brooks Brothers can dress anyone in America today, but the behavior of those whom it dressed most frequently in the past will never be forgotten.

Throughout the 20th century, the Brooks Brothers brand was a double-edged sword of prestige and stigma, and the heyday of the Ivy League Look coincides with the civil rights movement. In other words, the style for which Brooks Brothers was the chief developer was at its zenith at precisely a time when black Americans were dying in the fight for social change. Moreover, in her interview, Evers-Williams points out that many young blacks today are unaware of what their elders went through during the civil rights movement.

The shadow and the light that shines on the Brooks Brothers brand — unique in American retail — mirrors the duality of America’s oppressive past and the desire of many of us to overcome it. — CC

Obama inauguration photo via New York Daily News.

In the shadow of a hulking cruise ship, Warehouse No. 1 sits nondescriptly on the West Indian Company dock on the island of St. Thomas. Ignored by most vacationers in search of duty-free bargains, it’s nevertheless a magnet for those accidental tourists lured by the mysterious scent that wafts from the building, or who misunderstand the signs and think it’s a liquor store. But whatever inspires the cruisers to pass through the old wooden doors, they can be sure to receive a warm island welcome from Jerry Woodhouse, president of the West Indies Bay Company, makers of bay rum since 1946.

Ivy Style readers will remember Woodhouse from his essay about selling Ivy in the boom years; we’ve also written about the classic fragrance — the so-called “scent of Madison Avenue” — here.

I recently made the pilgrimage to Charlotte Amalie, territorial capital of the United States Virgin Islands, to visit with Woodhouse. I found him at his desk in the front room of No.1, his office, showroom, warehouse and manufacturing space since 1997, two years after Hurricane Marilyn destroyed the old bay rum factory located in the Vitelco building in Havensight.

A sign attached to the left door of the warehouse promises tours. Woodhouse says that previously the tours were more formal, but he still shows a few curious tourists the bay rum manufacturing facility. In the back room the familiar scents are prepared with natural ingredients in steel tanks, then filtered and bottled. Woodhouse’s personal tour is an intimate experience that makes one realizes how artisinal is the process that produces some of our favorite fragrances.

The West Indies Bay Company produces three mens fragrance lines and one for women. Whether you are a devotee of Bay Rum or any of the other St. Johns products, it will come packaged in a bottle as unique as its contents. All bottles are covered in the trademarked hand-woven palm fronds. The distinct pattern, called fish pot, has been associated with the product since 1952. Here’s how it’s done:

A marketing guru told Woodhouse that the average consumer only has a 15-second attention span. The video runs 36 seconds, and visitors who see it at Warehouse No. 1 always want to see more. The palm is woven like a glove, slipped over the bottle, and then attached. It a process that takes the weaver 30 minutes per bottle. There’s another interesting point about the bottles that is often overlooked. The familiar export bottle we all know has a sticker that says “Imported From The West Indies,” while local market bottles carry the Virgin Islands label.

As one can imagine, it is quite the mixed crowd that finds its way to the West Indies Bay Company headquarters. Among the most confused are those who, Woodhouse says, “think we are in the rum business.” Undaunted, Woodhouse views these encounters as an opportunity to educate potential customers. Visitors who fall under the spell of bay rum and want to purchase are directed to the downtown retail shop.

While some retailers bemoan the Internet as a brick-and-mortar slayer, Woodhouse credits the Internet for creating a niche that allowed him to open his retail shop. “Perfume and China were once big duty-free draws for the island,” he says, “but with tax-free Internet sales this is no longer the case.”  This change in the local business climate, along with shops that never reopened after Hurricane Marilyn, cut Woodhouse’s Main Street island accounts from 13 to three. Opening a downtown retail store was the result of these market conditions. The retail shop is located waterside inside the AH Riise Mall — a fitting home considering the mall takes its name from the 19th-century Danish chemist who pioneered the double distillation of bay rum.

The atelier pays homage to St. John’s Bay Rum’s history and includes vintage advertising and packaging. The space allows for the fragrance products to be promoted in an attractive environment and the trained staff is available to assist in selection. The shop, which was opened in March of 2011, also offers tailored clothing and sportswear. It serves the island business community by providing Southwick suits and Alden shoes.  The store also features the new West Indies clothing line; Woodhouse was unable to use the name St. John’s Bay, a trademark owned by JC Penney. The West Indies collection includes fragrance, sunscreen, and men’s and women’s sportswear. As an island outfitter, the shop devotes most of its space to resort wear. It is a wonderful sight to see so much madras and seersucker in one place. In a color scheme as comforting as a nursery, women’s clothing is located along a pink wall and men’s along a blue.

Those looking for souvenirs of the sartorial kind will find it at the West Indies Bay flagship store. Among the exclusive items include a fish-pot weave tunic for ladies, and St. Thomas embroidered shorts for men. Since both the retail space and the West Indies collection are newly launched, there is an excitement in discovering something fresh yet still rooted in the traditional wheelhouse.

Now that I am home and summer has begun, I catch myself looking at the bright sportswear people are wearing and wonder how long it will be before I see something from the island of St. Thomas. — CHRISTOPHER SHARP

Recently James Kraus, who authored a piece for Ivy Style on bachelor cuisine, shared with us a post from his vintage automotive blog, Auto Universum.

The piece centers around Art Fitzpatrick and Van Kaufman, the Matisse and Picasso of automotive illustration. Writes Kraus:

These lush images depicted scenes of glamour and sophistication populated by suave, cosmopolitan and well attired individuals, always accompanied by a larger-than-life Pontiac with shimmering chrome and glistening paintwork.

Indeed, compared to the generic images used to sell luxury car today, Fitzpatrick and Kaufman’s images are grounded in specific and rarefied real-world contexts: political election nights, hotels in Beverly Hills, exclusive enclaves of Manhattan, horse races, country clubs, lakeside cabins, yacht harbors, and fashionable ports of call from Rio and Barbados to Portofino and Monaco for the Grand Prix.

Each plate also has a beautiful woman who’s either admiring the car, or sitting safe and serene inside the enormous Yank tank.

For more on the artists, check out Kraus’ post. And if you can spare a few minutes for daydreaming, scroll through the images at the official site for Art Fitzpatrick and surrender to reveries of Hitchcockian glamor and intrigue. Below is a sampling to get your imagination piqued. — c C m

]]> http://www.ivy-style.com/great-escape-the-automotive-illustration-of-fitzpatrick-kaufman.html/feed 25 http://www.ivy-style.com/vertical-integration-an-ode-to-the-striped-sportcoat.html http://www.ivy-style.com/vertical-integration-an-ode-to-the-striped-sportcoat.html#comments Fri, 07 Jun 2013 17:25:21 +0000 Christian http://www.ivy-style.com/?p=4171

Some months ago we ran a photo of a striped sportcoat. Either that or I mentioned finding them cool. Whichever it was, I remember several readers chiming in to say that this was a faux pas, that stripes only belong on suits, and that a striped sportcoat was destined to look like an orphaned suit.

Well probably because I’m a sportcoat guy rather than suit guy, I think the gent on the left below is a lot more stylish than the one on the right:

Yes, striped odd jackets were once as Ivy as, well, the color olive. Though rarely seen today save for the occasional model from J. Press…

… striped sportcoats (often a herringbone with a beaded stripe running through the pattern) were once ubiquitous, as evidenced by the vintage specimens regularly dug up by Newton Street Vintage, which provided the image at top as well as this one:

A couple more fabrics in close-up:

But striped odd jackets aren’t just for winter tweeds. It’s tough to guess exactly what kind of jacket provided the inspriation for the drawing below..

… but it made me think of cricket or regatta blazers, such as this one, which I thought the finest piece in Brooks Brothers’ new Gatsby collection:

And although the stripes are very fine, I suppose seersucker, when worn as jacket only, fits the theme of this post, as in this pink model from O’Connell’s:

Striped motifs are a staple of menswear, used for suits, shirts, ties, socks and belts. But like everything else, striped sportcoats are a matter of taste. So what do you think? Are they due for a comeback, or are they an endangered species for good reason? — c C m

What? Headline makes perfect sense to me. What did you think it was referring to? Honi soit qui mal y pense.

The shagging in question is of the dancing kind, to that delightful mishmash musical genre known as “Beach Music,” the subject of a lengthy article in the latest issue of O. Henry, a magazine that bills itself “the art and soul of Greensboro.”

The story centers on a legendary nightspot in ’60s called the Castaways. Writes author Stephen E. Smith:

When I asked a commuter student about the Castaways, he explained that it catered to college kids, all of them white, and featured local bands, also white, and the occasional Motown, Atlantic, Stax or other R&B acts, most of them black, performing popular music for dancing the shag, or as it was called in those days and in that place, the basic. “If you’re going to the Castaways,” my informant cautioned, “you better know how to dance the basic.”

But knowing how to shag wasn’t all; you also had to look the part. Explains Smith:

A male who danced at the Castaways wore a sports jacket and tie… over a starched white Oxford-cloth button-down shirt cursively monogrammed at the collar and cuff. Trousers were usually high-waisted, with a shiny alligator belt transvexing the dancer like a sack of meal. It was obvious that footwear was of the utmost importance… and highly-buffed alligator wingtipped tasseled loafers were the shoe of choice. I possessed none of the appropriate accouterments, but hoped to skate by with my khaki trousers, a blue dress shirt sans monogram, my new Harris Tweed sport coat, and Weejuns.

The article is viewable online by heading over to the O’Henry home page. Enter 59 in the page window located above the current issue, and print or zoom to read.

Also check out our previous Ivy Style story on “Shag The Movie.” — c C m

]]> http://www.ivy-style.com/shagging-in-north-carolina.html/feed 7 http://www.ivy-style.com/for-peets-sake-a-rogers-peet-advertising-gallery.html http://www.ivy-style.com/for-peets-sake-a-rogers-peet-advertising-gallery.html#comments Tue, 04 Jun 2013 17:15:37 +0000 Christian http://www.ivy-style.com/?p=4150

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post by Stephen Mason on Rogers Peet, here’s a selection of the now-defunct menswear company’s vintage advertisements.