Battle Of The Wits Contest: Trad Means Never Having To Say… ?

The 1970 film “Love Story” is noteworthy for introducing the term “preppy” to a wider American audience. It also introduced the popular catch phrase, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” Yesterday on Ivy Style’s Facebook group I mused, “And trad means never having to say…?” Some clever comebacks followed, and so here we …


Grin And Barrett: Love Story Stars Reunite At Harvard

Ryan O’Neal, who plays rich kid Oliver Barrett IV in the 1970 film “Love Story,” recently reunited with his co-star Ali McGraw on the Harvard campus, where the film was shot and set. Wikipedia offers this bit of trivia: Filming Love Story on site caused damage to the Harvard campus; this, and a similar experience …


Billaxy Blues: Troll Takes Down Septuagenarian Blogger

The web persona known as “Billax” may have been “wearing the Ivy League Look since 1958” — the name of his website — but it only took a couple of years of blogging to get creeped out by a troll and decide to quit. On Sunday Billax announced that he is shuttering the site after …


Japanese Magazine Free & Easy To Shutter

The Japanese trad magazine Free & Easy, which has been publishing since 1998, will cease operations with its March issue. — CC 1998年9月の創刊以来、皆様にご支援いただいておりました月刊誌『Free&Easy』ですが、 3月号(1月30日発売)をもちまして休刊させていただきますことを、お知らせいたします。 発行から17年以上もの間、絶大なご支援をいただきましたことを、この場を借りて厚く御礼申し上げます。 大変ありがとうございました。今後のお問い合わせにつきましては、以下の通りです。 問い合わせ先:info-fe@east-com.co.jp


Squashed! Being A WASP Is Just Bad Politics

Tomorrow is the Iowa caucases and one thing’s for sure: Jeb Bush is going to get squashed. That means his father, pictured above in uber-WASPy squash-themed necktie (albeit not during his presidency) may be destined to be the last WASP president. In a Friday editorial for USA Today, Windsor Mann entitled his column “Trump, Jeb …


Esquire’s Academic Clothes Curriculum, 1947

Yesterday Esquire announced that David Granger is out as editor after helming the magazine for nearly 20 years. His replacement is Jay Fielden, who had been overseeing Town & Country. Will Esquire return to the way it was from the ’30s to the ’60s? Not likely. All the more reason to put your subscription money …


The Longwing And Short Of It: Menswear Market Week Finale

Here’s the remainder of what I saw this week. Apologies for the poor photo quality; everyone was complaining about the harsh lighting. Above, the super-premium longwing from Nettleton, price $795, made in Belgium. Below, tassel loafer. Note French cord stitch on vamp: Tweed slippers from Res Ipsa, founded by two lawyers in Atlanta: The sprawling …


Duck Dynasty: Crittenden & DH At Menswear Market Week

Once again the most elaborate booth inside New York’s Javits Center, where menswear market week is held, belonged to Duck Head and the two other brands in its dynasty, the high-tech outwear brand Gyde and Crittenden. Kentucky-based Critt Rawlings is a menswear veteran with deep Ivy roots, having worked at Norman Hilton and Polo in …


George Will To Sell Bow Ties At Episcopal Church Auction

OK, that an Onion headline. In other words, a joke. It’s the punchline; now for the setup. It used to be that Brooks Brothers was popular shorthand for the establishment, showing  up in lyrics for “Harvard Blues” and the libretto for “Guys And Dolls.” Even in the year 2000 “the Brooks Brothers riot” was coined …


Has Japan Run Out Of American Ideas?

Earlier this week, Derek at Put This On posted a lengthy Q&A with W. David Marx, Ivy Style contributor and author of the new book “Ametora” about Ivy, trad and Americana in Japan. It’s a smart conversation that Ivy omnivores will want to check out. Here’s a teaser: It feels like Americana, prep, and denim …


Comfort And Neatness, 1949

From the September, 1949 issue of Esquire. Subscribe to the digital archives here. From the University of Maine to UCLA, college men spend most of their time pounding the books in class, in the dorm, or in the library with Miss Distraction of 1949. Their keynote is comfort and neatness. The fellow in the window …


Allen Edmonds’ Gorgeous New Acheson Tassel Loafer

Pictured above is a gorgeous new tassel loafer that just landed on Allen Edmonds’ website and hits stores next week. Dubbed the Acheson, I think it’s the tassel loafer of my dreams and here’s why. Tassels are my go-to shoe; I’ve several pairs and wear them 90% of the time. But even though the ones …


Popcorn And A Movie

Ivy Style’s associate editor Chris Sharp has an uncanny photographic memory for trad images. He seems to remember every photo he’s ever seen, and, even more amazing, can actually go find them. But I’d like to lay claim to a similar skill: namely, that of letting the gears of the subconscious connect two dots in …


The Preppiest Man On Instagram

I’ve been vaguely aware that Kiel James Patrick had developed a huge social media following. Sometime last year when Town & Country listed him and now-wife Sarah Vickers as one of the preppiest couples in history, I immediately tweeted my disbelief at Kiel. There he was, right alongside JFK and Jackie! It seems like just …


The White Buttondown: William Holden, 1954

Our recent post on William Ivey Long led some presumably blue-shirted commenters to say they were reconsidering white. Above is another compelling case for white by another show-biz gentleman named William. Actor Holden is pictured in a LIFE Magazine photo shoot from 1954. Sometimes a white buttondown is all you need. Except for the times …



Rolled Back And Forth: The Strange Trajectory Of The Brooks Brothers Oxford

Throughout the 20th century the Brooks Brothers oxford-cloth buttondown was a classic of American menswear, so iconic it was immortalized in a piece of literature, namely Mary McCarthy’s short story “The Man In The Brooks Brothers Shirt.” Like all of Brooks’ clothing throughout those decades, the shirt offered superb taste and good quality at a …


Better Late Than Never: Bruce Boyer On Brooks’ New-Old Oxford Buttondown

That Brooks Brothers has now seen fit to “re-introduce” its original buttondown shirt – complete with unfused collar, cuffs and placket – should be Big News. Unfortunately it’s all rather anti-climactic, isn’t it? But better late than never, you might say. I can only suppose that it finally got through the thickheads at Brooks that there …


Brooks Reintroduces Unlined, Rolled-Collar Oxford, Price $140

Yesterday a reader notified Ivy Style of a new buttondown oxford he spied on Brooks Brothers’ website. The description bears words that loyal but frustrated Brooks men have wanted to see for decades: “We’ve restored the signature rolled collar.” You read that right, Brooks has finally admitted that something went wrong with the collar on …