The Ivy League has been used to sell a lot of things, not just clothes. Old School was kind enough to send me this: Postum is interesting stuff. Or was, you don’t see it around anymore. It is roasted wheat bran and molasses, and was used as a coffee alternative. It may have …
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Editor’s Note: The Featured Image is from a 1910’s Brooks catalog. If you are not a member of the Facebook Group, and you participate in social media, you are really missing something. We settled the debate over double breasted blazers the other day, for example, with this image from our own Marc Chevalier, from the …
Editor’s Note: The featured image is James Lipton with Bradley Cooper, who is decidedly Ivy in Wedding Crashers and rowed for Georgetown. Which I know is not an Ivy school. But I still think West Point should be added to the Ivy League. I did not know that James Lipton worked for a …
Editor’s Note: Navy veteran Scott Rye is the author of two non-fiction books, Of Men and Ships: The Best Sea Tales, and Men & Ships of the Civil War. While doing some research for another project, I came across the fascinating story of Reginald Spear, a young member of the OSS in …
On a site featuring Ivy Style, the 1994 movie Quiz Show has received one line of mention. Yet it stands amongst the great Ivy movies of all time. There is a piece on here about Charles Van Doren, which is good. He had Ivy bona fides. Columbia. His father, Mark Van Doren, was even-more-Ivy, …
Ok, first I went to Take Ivy. Because it’s Take Ivy. But the problem is this, the argument for the t shirt in the Ivy Canon (I capitalized that) stops there. So the rest, we have to sort out ourselves. Yes, you can see Steve McQueen in a t shirt. But of course …
I have never seen an episode of Mad Men. A whole episode. I watched maybe the first half hour of the first one, and it was not my jam. When I took over the FB Group, there was this huge thread about how Mad Men was Ivy and about how we should all be dressing …
Editor’s Note: I don’t agree with everything in here. But I can disagree respectfully. I did, however, want to take any opportunity, including the one that Mr. Charles Bellinger kindly offered me, to trumpet the message of inclusion, gate-opening, and cultural relevance. The Classics Are For Everyone. – JB JB recently posed a question to …
J. Crew’s Fall Lookbook is out. Here are some photos. It is the premier collection for men’s creative director Brendon Babenzien there, and while it isn’t at all pure Ivy, there are enough influences to tell you which way young designers are leaning. That’s good news. They are …
I remember getting lit up one time by a reader in the Facebook Group about wearing a Harvard sweatshirt when I didn’t go to Harvard. And in his profile pic,the guy was wearing a Yankee cap. I used to think it was a measure of intelligence to be able to hold both sides of an …
I spend a lot of time looking at vintage images of things. They are not in as bountiful a supply as one would imagine. Except for barbecue images. There are a ton, and I would guess that the reason is that barbecuing was a family deal you could do outside back when there were more …
I saw sweaters for sale on Greenwich Avenue yesterday. It is back to school time. Which is weird because that used to be the third week of August. Yet, here we are. First, check out J. Press’s Pennant Label. They USE the word “Ivy.” I have been toying with the idea of starting …
This story has a lot of names you are going to recognize, and one I am proud to introduce you to. Brooks Brothers. You know them, right? They had an executive named May Tan. Finance. Southwick Apparel? They had a CFO, May Tan. May has a big time resume in corporate, as do I, …
Editor’s Note: S.E. wrote this comment, which I am reprinting without permission because, well, it was already printed here. It is a great response to the Ties-Are-Dying crowd. The wearing of a necktie is an act of rebellion. Hell, the same can be said for opting for Classic Ivy. But more about that in a …
It’s a Friday in July, but I have three things. First, The Amazing Tom sent me another article from WSJ on how the Tie Association is disbanding, and it started with a sentence so stupid I had to meditate again after I read it this morning. I am not even going to link this stupidity, …
Let’s unpack this because it is starting to hurt my feelings. My central thesis about Brooks Brothers back when Mr. Bastian took the wheel was this: What happens when a company is bought or sold is that it goes into debt. If you don’t do this kind of thing regularly, that sounds counterintuitive. If Nevada …
Richard Press has agreed to be our first guest. Eric Twardzik has agreed to be a guest. I am pitching G. Bruce Boyer a whole other thing, but worst case scenario I will beg him to be a guest. Who would you like to hear? The format is going to be an hour interview, …
Editor’s Note: Eric Twardzik is one of the most skilled men’s fashion writers working today, so when we had a chance to publish his behind-the-scenes take on The Andover Shop, we leaped at it. We were right. On the day that I was asked to work at The Andover Shop, I was not looking particularly …