My wonderful wife gave me a new blue oxford-cloth buttondown from Michael Spencer for Christmas, and I recently purchased my first “new-old” Brooks Brothers version in white. Sunday after church, I decided to compare and contrast those two along with a previously purchased Mercer & Sons version. All three shirts are sized 16 1/2 x …
I recently discovered the movie “White Squall,” directed by Ridley Scott and starring Jeff Bridges. Set in 1961, it’s a coming-of-age film crossed with maritime adventure. The story centers around a group of prep-school flunkies who get to redeem themselves in a kind of nautical reform school, doing their studies at sea while they learn sailing …
Gentlemen, thank you so much for your patience during the past two months. Throughout November was the storm and stress of wrapping up life in New York, and most of December involved being bewitched by the magic of Newport at Christmastime while living in a construction disaster zone and a nightmare landlord. I also had …
Times Square, New Year’s Eve, 1964.
Here’s an amusing year-end and rear-end piece of ass-tounding entertainment from Ivy Style’s salad days. * * * Harvard’s financial troubles have been well publicized. The university also made news several months ago when it was announced that it had licensed its name for a contemporary fashion collection called Harvard Yard, and was criticized for …
Once again, as we wind down 2019, we take a look at some of the more obscure posts from our early years. This one, from the fall of ’09, features a trouser alas no longer offered by LL Bean, though perhaps there are others out there. * * * Of all the background characters in …
We continue our 2019 year-end wrapup with a revisit of this 2009 post based on the five-year anniversary of “trad” on the Internet. * * * Five years ago today a man who goes under the username Harris posted these immortal words on the Ask Andy About Clothes forum: I live in the Northeastern US …
As we close out 2019, here’s a look back. Not at this year, but what was going on 10 long years ago, which in fashion is practically an eternity * * * If you keep an eye on our Ephemera column of news links, you’ve no doubt sensed there’s something zeitgeisty going on. The …
Traditional Man (trad-man.com) has debuted today — Christmas Day of 2019 — and was launched by Ivy Style founder Christian Chensvold. The site is devoted to the traditional in both the outer and inner senses. On the surface, a celebration of traditional masculine virtues, while below the surface is the guiding light of Traditionalism, …
Gentlemen, be still my soul. Never have I prayed so hard, nor grasped so much towards the heavens, before the raging sea in the darkness of night, to pull down the energy of the stars and believe that I can shape my destiny. At the moment and location when I was born, almost all the …
Gentlemen, I humbly beseach your patience at this time. Since mid-November I’ve been distracted with settling my affairs in New York, proofing and edits of my work of sartorial fiction about to come out, and working on Trad Man (which was going to launch on Christmas Day). And now, while the past three weeks in …
During World War II, Yale professors still wore tweeds, but the boys they taught would soon graduate into khaki. Behind Woolsey Hall are the many rows of names of the boys who never came back. My father, Paul Press, was a riveter who made M-70 rifles at the Winchester factory on Dixwell Avenue in New …
There’s much news to catch up on, beginning with The Andover Shop. Almost right after the passing of founder Charlie Davidson, the shop’s legacy was given a huge burst of life with major revamp of its website. Head over here for goods and inspiration from a singular American institution. Speaking of revamped websites, Country Club …
Gentlemen, Newport is an absolute dream. I’ve been in a daze since I arrived. Stars, moonlight, ocean, sunsets, church bells, mansions, cottages, ancient trees, snow, crows, and rabbits running around. May I go deeper into dreamland and never wake up. Back in the real world, alas, things are changing and for the worse. But then …
Yesterday we revisited a vintage Esquire cartoon illustrating the snap judgments we make about others upon first seeing them, as well as the importance of wearing the right clothes for the right crowd. Today I realized I had the perfect follow-up sitting in my inbox. It’s a trivial little thing for us clothes-wearing men — …
Esquire, 1949.
The French blog Greensleeves to a Ground (run by Fracis Cazal, whom we wrote about here), recently discovered the Flickr album for the Fessenden prep school in West Newton, MA. The album includes the school’s class photos for the past 100 years and is a fascinating look at the rise and fall of the Ivy …
Although Brooks Brothers didn’t officially launch a full women’s department in its flagship store until 1976, young American women had been infiltrating the bastion of sartorial masculinity for quite some time. Since launching its pink shirt for women in 1949, Brooks had begrudgingly acknowledged the large number of females who wanted to wear the brand. …
When a celebrated person dies and a newspaper does a full-length feature, I’m not sure if it’s technically an obituary. So we’ll call The Boston Globe’s piece on Andover Shop founder Charlie Davidson a tribute. Here’s some background on the man that few of us knew: Born in Lawrence in 1926, Mr. Davidson was of …