Get All Your Ducks In A Row

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It’s been Duck Head week here at Ivy Style, and this third post will mark our last until the collection is unveiled.

In our first post we noted that the small Southern brand made it to outposts as far-flung as London. As this photo shows, an ad for Duck Head can be seen above the shoulder of English Ivy patron saint John Simons.

Mr. Simons told us via email:

We did indeed stock Duck Head chinos and shorts all through the ’80s and ’90s. In those days they were an excellent made in USA pile-’em-high, sell-’em-cheap brand of basics. Cost price on the pants was  about 15 bucks; I would imagine that’s moved on good and proper since those days. In any event I have very fond memories of this iconic brand.

Speaking of the famous retail store, a documentary about John Simons is soon to be released. Ivy Style is on the story and will be reporting to you soon. — CC

23 Comments on "Get All Your Ducks In A Row"

  1. Harry Palmer | May 9, 2014 at 11:12 am |

    To the uninitiated, please don’t let the ginger bloke with glasses put you off.

  2. Interesting insight about the price: $15. Indexed for inflation (using 1990 as a starting point), pants should sell today for $27.72. I’m fascinated to see where the actual offering price will come in once the collection is unveiled.

  3. RWK

    Cost is not retail.

  4. Battersea Boy | May 9, 2014 at 1:55 pm |

    Wow! It appears Ivy relations across the great pond have been restored to their rightly place.
    Good luck to Tom Nolan, who seems a decent guy and all at Duckhead (lets hope they get the pant rise right).

  5. Battersea Boy | May 9, 2014 at 1:57 pm |

    Sorry typo-should be rightful.

  6. I’m no journalist and I feel sure this doesn’t qualify as a scoop. Still, I hear Ralph Lauren is moving tie and clothing (the preppy Polo Blue label) back to the USA. I think Hickey Freeman is involved. Maybe PRL can do for Hickey what Brooks did for Southwick.

  7. Trad Hunter | May 10, 2014 at 3:41 am |

    Very nice to see Mr Simons being given the respect he deserves. Looking forward to news on the documentary. It looks as if Ivy Style can be relied to actually talk Ivy rather than about hot buns and big knockers and comedy for the clueless, as is sadly the case elsewhere these days.

  8. Roy R. Platt | May 10, 2014 at 10:02 am |

    Is that a Monty Python video? It’s almost like watching “Upper Class Twits” except that it’s “Lower Class Chavs”.

  9. Christian | May 10, 2014 at 10:17 am |

    SE, we’re already on that story!

  10. Battersea Boy | May 10, 2014 at 10:57 am |

    HaHa this must be the last outlet for the trolls to desperately spew their bile.

    Alas they are all currently banned from TI,its not a trolls kindergarten anymore Boys.
    Obviously nothing to do with Mr Platt or Hunter respectively you understand…..Not!.

  11. Easy Going Fellow | May 10, 2014 at 1:01 pm |

    @ Battersea Boy

    I’m sure Mr. Hunter is entitled to applaud the excellent Mr. Simons as Mr. Platt is to display mirth. Your puzzling outburst, however, suggests you should probably continue with whatever medication you have currently been prescribed. A baffling outburst and one most definitely not in Ivy stye.

  12. Battersea Boy | May 10, 2014 at 1:36 pm |

    @ Easy Going Fellow

    The trolls that have been banned from FNB have a long history of plaguing Ivy style too.
    Platt is clearly British with his use of “Lower Class Chavs”not to mention an internet troll i suspect.
    The observations from Mr Hunter are from a separate forum on FNB not Talk Ivy.

    Christian has won his war of endurance with these suckers, Talk Ivy and FNB forums
    have only just declared victory and what we are seeing here is a defeated enemy in denial.

  13. Jonathon Goddard Jr. | May 10, 2014 at 1:54 pm |

    @ Battersea Boy

    I was enjoying this thread until you intruded, very weirdly as EGF points out. I am sure sure I am not alone in requesting you to take whatever quarrel you have elsewhere!

  14. Battersea Boy | May 10, 2014 at 2:11 pm |

    Christian please accept my apologies for bringing FNB issues to your site.
    Its over now, i shouldn’t have fed the monkeys,i am sure you know who they really are.

  15. Jonathon Goddard Jr. | May 10, 2014 at 2:22 pm |

    @ Battersea Boy

    Perhaps you ought to have the manners to extend your apology to the rest of the readers for disturbing us with your probably paranoid and virtually incomprehensible drivel!

  16. Alistair Arnold | May 10, 2014 at 9:33 pm |

    @ Roy R Platt

    Just scooted over to the sites mentioned by the irate Battersea Boy. My oh my! Chavs have websites now. Chavs talk about clothes to each other. Chavs share their pictures lol,lol, lol! Of course if the ‘chap’ could actually read he’d know he’d got the wrong end of the stick entirely..

  17. Battersea Boy | May 11, 2014 at 1:24 am |

    Oh i see, its ” Trad for Chavs” now where have i heard that phrase before?

    Back to the OP, i have actually met John Simons and he seems a nice guy (unlike a few of his disciples).
    I wouldn’t expect an update on the Neat offensive anytime soon though,as i believe they have hit the buffers with financing and the whole project has been shelved.

  18. Trad/Ivy strikes me as the apparel equivalent of the Mid-Atlantic accent, to Americans it hints at the British upper class, to the English it has a whiff of the American middle class. Same clothes, different aspirations?

  19. Alistair Arnold | May 11, 2014 at 12:11 pm |

    @DCG

    Very succinct. An honest and perhaps an accurate summation.

  20. Alistair Arnold | May 11, 2014 at 12:14 pm |

    ^ However, for some English Ivy fans ( and some Americans) it seems to be just a wish to ape American movie stars of old! I know we’ve been down this road many times before, but isn’t it true, nonetheless?

  21. Baffled by most of the above; I have bought stuff from Mr Simons since 1982 – shoes, trousers, belts, shirts, blazers, J Keydge and a seersucker suit (the jacket still fits…), or rather he has sold them to me and never once a duff buy. I have always thought he was a really acute bloke who had a shop that was full of great stock (not brands or pieces); now, courtesy of the internet, I learn that he is a legend. God bless you, John; you sold me the best blazer I’ve ever owned.

  22. Trad Hunter | May 11, 2014 at 11:50 pm |

    @Redcoat

    John Simons is most certainly deserved of your praise. He is a true Ivy pioneer. It is fitting too that it is Ivy Style which is bringing him to the attention of the world by offering perhaps the only serious forum for those who like to talk Ivy.

  23. Trad Hunter | May 12, 2014 at 11:48 am |

    Just in case anyone missed this:

    http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/news/and-so-farewell-the-ivy-shop-1568875.html

    “..The Ivy Shop, which was opened in the summer of 1965, is closing down on Saturday. It was named in awe of the clothes it has stocked from the beginning, Ivy League college boy looks from New England, imported and later copied by British companies, including Ben Sherman, to sell to those of us who knew that Carnaby Street would come and go in a surfeit of dandyism. We made the pilgrimage to Richmond to buy our Shermans long before they were kidnapped by the skins.”

    Worth a read?

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