Does menswear move inexorably and unstoppably towards a sartorially dystopian future, or is it possible for things to actually move backward, kind of like the way the stock market “corrects” itself? These three images from Wofford College (which is based in Spartanburg, SC) show how fashion does move in cycles — even as it cycles …
Last summer, when Ivy Style upgraded to a new magazine-style layout that is device-responsive, there were all sorts of glitches to work through. The subsequent jump in traffic also demanded a more frequent posting schedule. We have some 1,300 posts in our archives, and while I was vaguely aware that some of them had layout …
Recently I wrote about the evolving J. Press York Street store in the West Village, but there’s one more way to get a J. Press experience in New York despite the closing of the Madison Avenue store. Jay Walter, a menswear industry veteran of the highest order who celebrates his 87th birthday today, reconnected with …
This is the second installment in our new Tales From The Twilight series, about the final days of the Ivy heyday in the late ’60s. If you were a firsthand witness and would like to share your personal observations, please use the contact button above. * * * Your article about “sartorial anarchy” reminded me …
This morning I received the following email: I lurk on your site and remember seeing an article with some great photos of young coeds sitting on the grass watching some khaki-clad boys walk by. I recall how the comments about the young ladies were all filled with longing for the days when females acted like …
A couple of months ago, while browsing at the Alden shop in New York, I made a casual inquiry about a shoe in shell cordovan. I must have asked for an unusual color and style combo, because I was told it would take six months to get it, and that there was a waiting list …
This is the W. David Marx’s last installment in his series on the original magazine illustrators who depicted the Ivy League Look when it first reached Japan. * * * Yasuhiko Kobayashi (b. 1935) is the missing link between Ivy League style in Japan and the post-hippie West Coast style that followed in the 1970s. …
William Hamilton, a popular cartoonist for the New Yorker since 1965, has died in an auto accident at the age of 76. His work has been featured on Ivy Style before via an ’80s-era panel with the caption “We decided to just stay preppy as if nothing had happened.” From the New York Times: Mr. …
Need some fresh inspiration for your wardrobe? Look no further than Princeton in the 1930s. This passage is from the spring 1934 issue of Apparel Arts, and was alerted to us by Dan Flores of the blog An Uptown Dandy, a fine fellow I’ve met on occasion around town. Assuming the report is accurate (and …
A couple of weeks ago we put out a call for anecdotes about the transition years of the late 1960s, when the Ivy League Look rapidly went from smart and current to formal and outmoded. Here are the first few reader responses, and if you have one of your own, please email it to christian@ivy-style.com. …
Today is opening day of baseball season, and on Ivy’s Facebook page a member alerted us to a wonderful video by George Will, the author of two best-sellers on baseball, complete with fun animation. Clad in a buttondown and what looks like a bar rep tie from Brooks (and, alas, a nondescript American Boardroom suit), …
Ayumi Ōhashi (b. 1940) — née Kumiko Ōhashi — grew up in Mie Prefecture and moved to Tokyo to attend prestigious Tama Art University. A pupil of the cartoon illustrator Jun Kawahara, Ōhashi started to experiment with crayon pastels to draw young men in stylish clothing. After showing her work to Shōsuke Ishizu at VAN …
A coalition of student activist groups has called for radical new dress reform at the Ancient Eight. Under the proposed new rule, items of clothing that developed under the legacy of the Ivy League’s formerly all-white-male student body would be banned, and students caught wearing items such as penny loafers and oxford-cloth buttondowns would face …
I am haunted by the photograph of a haberdasher in the twilight of his life. He is wearing a pin-collar gingham shirt and an Italian silk sportcoat of green and heather with the perfect patina. As I peer into the face of Maurice Julian, I ponder what might have been behind the quixotic expression. Is …
They sure don’t make ’em like they used to. What’s that, preppy clothes? No, preppy films. Last week saw the opening of “The Preppie Connection,” based on a true story of a student in 1984 who smuggled cocaine into the prestigious prep school Choate Rosemary Hall. The New York Times writes that not only is …
As a follow-up to yesterday’s post on Ethan Hawke’s new Chet Baker biopic, we’re revisiting Ivy Style’s one and only fashion photo shoot, originally posted on October 23, 2012. Today we begin planning a new one. * * * He was a prep-school dropout From the Donegal Mist Academy, Fortune’s fool who dared to love …
Ivy Style has been reporting for years on Don Cheadle’s Miles Davis biopic (which is finally going to be released), but who knew there was a Chet Baker film in development? Apparently we knew, and I’d forgotten all about it. And this weekend it opened. “Born To Be Blue” stars Ethan Hawke as the jazz …
This is the first in a three-part series on Japan’s original Ivy artists. * * * When Ivy League fashion first appeared in Japan at the beginning of the 1960s, it was a wholly alien culture with no local roots. Apparel maker VAN Jacket and its media partner, fashion magazine Men’s Club, needed to win …
The past couple of days discussion in the comments section has turned to the decline of the Ivy heyday. The stance here at Ivy Style HQ is that 1967 was either the beginning of the end, or the end of the end. The top photo is from the heyday, when college men sported jackets and …