Looking to regain a foothold in the Spring Break market, The Bermuda Department of Tourism dedicated themselves last year to relaunching College Week in the form of Bermuda Spring Break 2012.
Taking a page from the old College Week, students were given a pass for all sponsored events, complimentary food, free public transportation and discounted moped rentals. Students were also treated to cheap hotel rates, just under $80 a night, and a whirlwind of parties. This new spring break was promoted with social media and a bounty was offered to college-age Bermudians who could persuade ten friends to come home with them over break. The Bermuda Board of Tourism Reports that island business were happy to receive the off season business and the two hundred students enjoyed themselves.
The original College Week crowd was not forgotten either. The Island reached out to the young at heart with a three-day College Weeks Reunion, inviting the original spring breakers from the decades of the ’60s-’80s to come back to Bermuda. The event ran from March 15-17 with attractive hotel packages starting at $597 per person, including the event pass. Graying College Week enthusiasts enjoyed events such as poolside cocktail parties, a nostalgic booze cruise, and French cuisine while contemplating a view of Hamilton Harbor. The musical highlight was British invasion singer Billy J. Kramer who performed on the 17th at the Fairmont Southampton Beach Club. Kramer, a Liverpool musician, was discovered by Beatles manager Brain Epstein. Kramer originally backed by the Dakotas had hits with “Bad to Me”, “Little Child,” “I’ll Keep You Satisfied,” and “Do You Want to Know a Secret?”
The film above (in two parts) was made in the mid-’60s and was a product of the Bermuda Trade and Development Board. It opens with the mating ritual of the North American WASP: voiced over a black screen you can hear a Wellesly girl chating up a Harvard man. Other highlights include a diving board serenade by the Yale Whiffenpoofs, and an appearance by Harvard’s Hasting Pudding Club. This film includes beach parties, co-eds, mopeds, beer, booze, cigarettes, madras jackets and knit ties — basically paradise.
The narrator seems to capture it all when he says, “You will depart in time from Bermuda and this oldest College Week in all the Western Hemisphere. So will you depart from college days themselves. There will come a time when you take attaché case in hand and go out and fight the dragon, as it were and soon you will probe for slogans or molecules, cavorting in dead earnest. Now, however you cavort with pleasure.”
The film ends in a climax of dancing the twist to a frenetic jazz soundtrack. The narrator says, ”And so they pass one into another these days of College Week. You have come to Bermuda and are better for it. So indeed is Bermuda, this tiny Eden that can use a nudge or two to make the year-round garden party jump just a little more.” — CHRISTOPHER SHARP
The March issue of French magazine Monsieur has a cover story on Pi (Preppyivy), tracing its origins back to the days of Fitzgerald and “This Side of Paradise” and opening with a Tommy Hilfiger advertising image.
If you don’t have an international newsstand near you, point your browser in this direction.
Below are some more visuals from the story.
To think I spent one semester doing a master’s in French literature before dropping out to become an editorial assistant at $7 per hour. Nothing like stumbling through French conjugations to make you feel 20 years younger. — CC (Continue)
If you can’t get enough of our “Golden Years” columnist Richard Press, former president of J. Press and grandson of Jacobi, then you’re in luck. A little coaxing was all it took for him to start tweeting and the septuagenarian says he’s already addicted.
Richard will be sharing terse anecdotes, words of wisdom, style tips, news updates (like on that book he’s working on), and where to get the best bagels and lox. It’s also a good place to reach out to him as in our recent reader Q&A with him.
If you don’t already use Twitter, consider opening an account. You don’t need to post anything: Plenty of people simply use Twitter as a news feed without posting. You’ll probably find plenty of people and organizations who post breaking news about the things you’re interested in.
Richard Press’ Twitter handle is @RVPress59, and Ivy Style’s is @IvyStylecom. How tweet it is. — CHRISTIAN CHENSVOLD
The above image may look like a mere typography symbol, but is actually a work of art.
This is Ivy Style’s 1,000th post x .50. In honor of the occasion, I bribed longtime friend and colleague Michael Mattis, who’s been at my side since I first started blogging on style in 2004, to write some moderately kind words. This was the best he could do. — CC
I must confess I have never been much of Ivy trend watcher. But since Christian Chensvold started Ivy-Style.com some 500 posts ago I have become a dedicated follower of Ivy fashion.
In fact, I’m still unsure precisely how the arithmetic is calculated among Ivy, Preppy and Trad. I take it that a Preppy probably pops his polo collar, while an Ivy stylist is less inclined to. Meanwhile, the Trad wears the classic American “sack suit,” whatever that is. Or something like that, anyway.
You can chalk up my general ignorance — and sometimes jaundiced lack of interest — to the irascible bores who dominate certain men’s style fora here on these Interwebs. My aim has always been to look good, and I don’t really care if coteries of small-minded bomb-throwers think what I’m wearing isn’t “pure” enough to meet their niggling standards.
That’s one reason why Ivy-Style.com has become one of my sartorial, sociological and philosophical lodestars since Chensvold launched it on October 1, 2008. It informs, but it doesn’t bother to niggle. I’ve learned so much from my daily dose of Ivy that it’s hard to know where to begin.
As the Managing Editor of Dandyism.net, a website Chensvold started back in 2004 (and recently ceded to your correspondent) devoted to the backstory of masculine elegance from Beau Brummell to the present, I’ve always maintained that at the heart of modern men’s style lies in simplicity, defenestrated of the effeminate gewgaws of the Ancien Régime.
And no contemporary — and uniquely American — style is more defenestrated of same than Ivy Style as it is expressed in these pages. What’s unique about Ivy-Style.com is that, unlike other style websites and fora, it does not provide either a set prescription for what to wear or proscriptions against what not to.
A flap in comments section of the recent post, “Slim Fit Shirts Ain’t Trad?” provides an illustration. One purist threatened to cancel his Ivy-Style.com “subscription,” saying, “I really don’t want to read a blog read by people who think that slim-cut shirts anything is Ivy, Trad, whatever. Gentlemen wear full-cut shirts, jackets, etc…”
Really? If the measure of a gentleman rests in the cut of his jacket rather than the cut of his jib, then the complainer above hasn’t taken much from the pages of Ivy-Style.com. That’s too bad. But maybe he wasn’t paying enough attention.
Rather, Ivy-Style.com provides assiduously researched historical context and, moreover, inspiration (rather than advice) on how we, its gentle readers, can carefully work classic, nuanced Ivy looks into your daily wear in this modern world of ours, in order to look sharp for all occasions.
Along the way I’ve been introduced to a remarkable cast of characters, people who helped make the Ivy style, well, into a timeless style. People like Richard Press, whose well-written columns provide a personal backdrop for the classically tailored stage on which he has lived. Then there’s G. Bruce Boyer, a crossover hit in both Tradsville and Dandyland, who imbues the site with a kind of sartorial gravitas.
With such a carefully curated slate of content combined with these and other fascinating personalities, it’s no wonder that Ivy-Style.com has become such a success for its followers — and anathema to its few detractors. It is a never-ending source of amazement to me just how easy Chensvold has made this complex thing look.
Well done, sir. We will see you again at posts 1,000, 5,000 and 10,000. — MICHAEL MATTIS
We’ve previously featured pop tunes from the Ivy heyday (and from the good old days when guys would sing about their clothes), and here’s another one: Ronnie Haig & Jerry Siefert singing the praises of dirty white bucks and “an Ivy League coat to burn out your eye.”
March Madras continues with this updated post with two more sartorial jump balls.
In the first, J. Press squares off against Gant.
Wearing an almost blinding uniform, J. Press offers a traditional madras sportcoat priced at $495. But shouldn’t this guy have graduated by now?
In contrast to Press’ perennial classic, Gant offers classic-with-a-twist. Its madras jacket comes with elbow patches, a slim fit and short length (according to the description), and a price tag of $675.
In the next bracket, it’s O’Connells versus Ben Silver:
O’Connell’s sends out this US-made $495 offering, but is its patchwork design and bright colors a buzzer-beating Hail Mary that will make you the king of the lawn party, or a flagrant foul against good taste?
In contrast, Ben Silver presents a muted olive jacket that would pair great with charcoal gabardines and a navy knit tie; it’s also also last year’s model and is half off its original $645 price. Good deal, but late to the game with 2012’s lineup.
So who takes home the trophy?
* * *
It may only be March, but summer’s favorite fabric is already available from the usual suspects. And given that choosing the right madras sportcoat isn’t easy, with the countless possibilities, you might as well start pondering now what you’ll want to wear come June.
In this madras toss-up, Brooks Brothers squares off against Ralph Lauren. Ralph’s team has the bigger payroll but lacks the height advantage (the coach is a size 37 short). Brooks is old school, while Polo is new. And then there’s the possibility that white men can’t jump.
On the blue team is a classic easy-to-match offering from Brooks; not yet online, according to the spring catalog the jacket is priced at $398. The buttons are white instead of RL’s gray, and the jacket is also three-button and undarted. But are the working buttonholes a slam dunk or technical foul?
Sound off and let us know who wins this sartorial jump ball. — CHRISTIAN CHENSVOLD
With “Damsels In Distress” set to debut next month, Whit Stillman is the subject of Town & Country’s April cover story. Hearst’s publicity department was kind enough to send over a preview (which I’m not allowed to post, alas), and the story has some interesting revalations about this unique filmmaker devoted to deadpan humor and the preppy class.
Turns out Stillman’s godfather is none other than E. Digby Baltzell, the very man who coined the term “WASP” in his book “The Protestant Establishment.”
Hudson Morgan, the story’s author, writes:
… his parents… were richer in name than fortune, and when they divorced, in Stillman’s early teens, what money tey had was spent on things like boarding school. As a result, Stillman is polite but not pretentious (he drinks Dunkin’ Donuts coffee), well spoken but not pedantic (he aske me as many questions as I ask him), and well loved but not a household name (his three films have grossed just $13 million collectively).
How unique is he in American filmmaking?
“If you said a bad word on the open mike he’d look at you and shake his head,” says [leading lady Greta] Gerwig, shaking hers sternly in imitation. “And at the end of each day it felt perfectly natural to express myself in a many-claused sentence that had lots of commas and caveats.”
Finally, regarding Stillman’s possible move to Ireland for his next film:
It makes you wonder — along with the fact that the dudes in “Damsels” don’t so much wear loafers as just loaf — if this is Stillman’s way of signaling the demise of the Alpha Prep. “Never!” he replies with mock solemnity. “It will come again. It’s just being surreptitious. It’s a strategic retreat to later advance.”
In 1958 Larry Elliot, fellow Chi Phi at Dartmouth and trombonist leader of the Dartmouth Indian Chiefs Dixieland Band, wrote the music and co-authored the book and lyrics with me for “The Chuck Sturdley Story,” a one-act musical.
The theatrical event won a college award for best presentation at the inter-fraternity theatrical contest sponsored by the college, and was subsequently awarded a spot at a college Variety Show in Webster Hall adjacent to Baker Library across from Dartmouth Row. The musical reflected events Chris Miller, Dartmouth ’62, dramatized in the movie “Animal House” years later. Here is our hit song:
We Are College Guys
We are college guys, with bloody blood shot eyes,
Everybody loves us, so do we.
Colorful til death, with whiskey on our breath,
Fraternity, virility, sexuality.
Inhibitions we hate
When seducing a date,
A clever remark,
A hand in the dark
Everything else can just wait.
Rah, rah, rah.
Singing and dancing and studiously romancing,
But to academic epidemics we’re immune.
As student we admit
We’re slightly out of fit
But you can get an “A”
In any way
If you remember to write in pen,
That’s the reason
We are college men!
If the producers of the new “Animal House” Broadway musical want to co-op the song, it’s available. — RICHARD PRESS
Above is a 1956 promotional video recently uploaded by Dartmouth to YouTube.
Perhaps this post should be called “Coming Repulsions,” either because you believe that tampering with the 1978 classic — which is set at a college fraternity house in 1962 — is sacrilege, or, like me, you were eight years old when it came out and when you saw it later you didn’t think it was funny.
Today news agencies are reporting that “Animal House” is being developed for Broadway with music supplied by something called Barenaked Ladies.
The film was voted number one on Bravo’s list of 100 funniest movies. — CC
