By Matthew Longcore
For those of us who are Ivy and Preppy aficionados, this just may be the biggest news story of the year.
Jack Carlson of Rowing Blazers fame has joined heritage brand J. Press as Creative Director and President.
The news comes right after a weekend in which J. Press was the Title Sponsor of the 41st Annual Harriman Cup, an alumni polo match between Yale University and the University of Virginia.
The synergy is all there. UVa and Dartmouth (alma mater of Richard Press) are schools whose alumni are affiliated with the Yale Club of New York City, another Harriman Cup sponsor. J. Press has its NYC store on Vanderbilt Avenue on the ground level of the Yale Club.
All the stars were in alignment for Jack Carlson to lead J. Press, the individual who is unquestionably most ideally suited to the role. Jack is, according to the Financial Times, “the king of preppy” who “led an Ivy League revival with Rowing Blazers.”
Although I have only had the pleasure of meeting Jack in person once – at the 2024 Harriman Cup – we have overlapping interests in Oxford University, archaeology, and of course Ivy League and Preppy style.
Jack went to Georgetown University, earned a doctorate in archaeology at Oxford University, and was a coxswain of the US National Rowing Team.
As an undergraduate, I belonged to a fraternity popular with rowers and always admired the grace and elegance of the sport. I have been a fan of the Rowing Blazers brand for many years and love the coffee table books that Jack has authored. The Yale Club of New York City has a copy of the Rowing Blazers book in the Main Lounge, and I find myself paging through when I am there.
As evidenced by his work at Rowing Blazers, Jack understands the aesthetic of Ivy and Preppy style better than anyone. He is often compared to Ralph Lauren, and rightfully so. Robert Armstrong of the Financial Times writes:
Jack Carlson, 38, who has just been announced as J Press’s creative director and president, intends the brand to take up its rightful, bigger place in the American imagination. “My plan is to make J Press a standard bearer for American menswear and Ivy style, and a much more well-known brand nationally,” says the Massachusetts native, who has the modest stature of the rowing coxswain he was, but the energy and enthusiasm of a whole boatful of athletes. “Why should Ralph Lauren have all the fun? J Press is the OG of this stuff.”
Jack Carlson will debut his first collection for the brand on Thursday, the first day of New York Fashion Week.
I look forward to attending this event and to getting a glimpse into the future of J. Press under his leadership.
This is exciting news. Too bad the RB NYC store closed. I’m glad I bought a few items from them.
RB has a very particular look and I suppose it’s ok if some of its elements will be introduced to J Press, but at the same time I also hope J Press will remain the conservative brand that it is. After all, that’s precisely what makes it unique on the market. Some of RB ads look very weird and it would probably be out of place in the J Press world. Btw, the J Press website now looks much better than it used to. Gone are the models in very poor fitting clothes. It also seems the button stance on the jackets has been lowered a little, which produces a much better fit. Brooks Brothers have done the same. High button stance was never a good idea.
No “streetwear collabs” or limited-edition product “drops”, please.
I’ll admit that I’m an old, aging dinosaur. While I was never J. Press loyalist, and, because of terrible (and sufficiently chronicled) decisions made throughout the 90s and early 2000s (both manufacturers and fabrics), became skeptical of Onward’s vision for the brand, I’ll concede this is an opportunity: to work with makers to create models and fabrics that are unique to J. Press (don’t just go with the same Fox and Lovat Mill cloth books that every other retailer/tailor has); to revive and refresh old, time-tested patterns and cloth circa 1950s and 60s (why not ask Harris Tweed Hebrides ** to weave a resurrected “Reefer Twill”?); to do away with the cheap, kitschy (and overpriced) logo-saturated stuff and focus on high quality inventory. The charm of this style is how the traditionalist old-fashionedness merges effortlessly-and-organically with collegiate sportiness. I’ll urge and implore the new leadership to look back at the moment (era) when ‘Squeeze’ was at its best: roughly 1955-1968. Those brochures affirm the superb taste of the Press brothers — and confirm what we’ve known for a while: both the inventory and the branding have been less than what they could be — for a good, long while now.
It’s world-wide news.
https://www.ft.com/content/ff9b5278-c46d-4991-bbc1-bad12ffb00b3
A few suggestions:
(1.) Work with Rancourt on an American penny loafer that calls to mind the Barrie (Ltd.) penny loafer (moccasin) circa bygone days,
(2.) Invite Lovat Mill or Moon to weave a bold steep-ribbed twill of midnight navy (and maybe Dartmouth Green) that calls to mind the legendary J. Press “Reefer Twill” circa the mid/late 1960s,
(3.) Broaden the scope of manufacturing to include at least three high quality tailoring (CMT) operations, all of which are situated in New York (state),
(4.) Encourage Atkinsons to create a club, school, and regimental neckwear selection (Irish Poplin) that’s unique to J. Press — not (merely) the same stock being sold to/by The Andover Shop, O’ Connell’s, Mashburn, etc. ,
(5.) Invite Lovat Mill to weave light (“zephyr”) weight worsted flannel and cheviot suitings that honor the J. Press inventories circa 50s and 60s,
(6.) Invite Crombie to weave/tailor topcoats exclusive to J. Press.
So much potential. So many possibilities.
I love each and all of these, to which I would: partner with Alden to resurrect the unlined LHS and the tassel loafer with the stitched design on the heel, fka Alden for Brooks.
I like this idea. Brooks’ failure to maintain Alden and Southwick is the stuff of trad tragedy. Right up there with relinquishing their NJ shirt maker.
There is a very long list of iconic items Brooks has ditched and replaced with inferior riffs or knockoffs, basically the entire pre-1980s inventory. Partners in USA, the Makers items, were just the tip of the iceberg. Shoes and leather goods, sweaters, outerwear, umbrellas, and on and on. Press has certainly taken some similar turns, but by and large it has kept its standards.
It SOUNDS promising.
Kind Regards,
H-U
I skimmed through Winter collection and immediately noticed the lower button stance on the jackets as mentioned above. There also appeared to be a slight narrowing through the hips. However, the shoulders remain natural and the vents are still single. I also noticed there are new suit fits such as Cambridge and 1902, but I didn’t stop to figure them out.
I expected Carlson to splash colors and bold plaids, but he was surprisingly restrained. There IS more color, but it’s far more subtle than Rowing Blazers was.
Finally, I was surprised to see a lot of dress shirts with medium spread collars in colors other than solid white or blue. Perhaps this is a tactic to draw in younger customers who have been wearing today’s middle-of-road style in tailored menswear. I guess old can be new.
It’s a much larger collection than in the past and I probably breezed by other important changes. Y’all will need to discover them on your own.
I hope the new fellow takes a tasteful approach to J. Press and concentrates more on advertising and exposure than on “growing the brand”(surely the death knell of a good company).
I for one am very happy with some of the F/W 2025 offerings I saw at the NYC shop as well as online.
One major hope for me is that Press will return to Cambridge or thereabouts.
Apprehension and optimism here.
Press has a made-to-measure (MTM) program as well as a made-to-order (MTO) program. At least it appears to be so, for now. I do not know which programs apply to which product lines. Tailoring is dead, MTM is dying. MTO won’t work for me. I do, however, understand why MTO is good for retailers. I recall having been a proponent of MTO right here at Ivy-Style. It reduces overhead. This should be good for customers as well. It just won’t work for me as I’m in between sizes. Why not both? Let’s hope Jack can figure it out.
MTM is FAR from dying from where I sit. Why do you think MTM is dying, and based upon what?
Given the Clement Pascal credited photo, it needn’t be. We’ll see.
Based on the photos of the new Fall/Winter 2025 line, I see full fit pants (some baggy) with no tapers. That’s a great start. I was wondering who would be the first to challenge the juvenile tight and tapered fit fad.
I look forward to Jack’s work at Press. He created RB from whole cloth and I think we’ll see more unique ideas with Press from him; he also had success collaborating with some traditional makers at RB including Press.
I am very excited by this. You can feel the momentum that J.Press has from their new line of Made in USA products to the site…
I agree with S. E. go back to the standards that made J Press what it was. Don’t pave the cowpath. This logo stuff has got to stop. If one looks at the old b/w catalogs you will find belted DB polo coats, grey with black velvet collar Chesterfield overcoats and light green covert with brown velvet collar topcoats plus the wonderful donegal-mist sport coats. You didn’t need a logo to tell they where J Press.” Dance with the girl that brought you there” Big mistake closing the Cambridge store in which now most of those customers are at the Andovershop.
Regarding the comment that MTM is out. 85% of the Andovershop is MTM. Also one should note of a great retailer passing Bob Prenner at 83,who with his wife Sue took over Ben Silver when Sue’s father Ben Silverman died. Turned it from blazer buttons to a very up scale trad store. Not bad for 2 attorney’s
* addendum: it’s easy to find a thin canvas for jackets, and 1/2 is plenty. The bespoke “full canvas” cult is a sad joke.
Some forums were very unkind to Mark McNairy (a very good guy) a few years back. Hope this fellow is given a chance, provided he adheres to traditional ideals whilst “growing the brand.”
Because I don’t sit where you sit, and I don’t work at a menswear shop that does MTM on the “house cut”.
You don’t need to sit where I sit or work at a menswear shop – lord knows I don’t. There’s MTM available everywhere, house and other cuts, at a wide variety of price points. If anything, MTM is more the future of tailored clothing than it is the past.
Buy the ticket, take the ride.
It strikes me as sad that many traditional menswear sources try to grow their brands through strategies like special collaborations, logos, and various strategies targeting fast fashion devotees. If they would instead do a better job at conveying that their wares are free of plastics (putting on and taking off one’s synthetic clothing being a leading source of microplastic ingestion), comfortable due to sensible designs, durable, repairable, and compostable, perhaps people not already devoted to Ivy would take note and give it a try. It would be laudable to try.