Back in the heyday there was only one white sock for the college man to wear with his Weejuns: wool ones by Adler. Though the ad above testifies to Adler’s pristine whiteness, it was actually much cooler to bleach them a sickly yellow color. I stumbled across the above image (which you can find on …
Rowing Blazers’ Fall/Winter 2019 lookbook features a campus setting and a vaguely “Take Ivy” feel. Check it out here.
The annual Harvard-Yale football game presents one of the best opportunities of the year to put together traditional preppy ensembles and turn out in force. My great-grandfather graduated from Yale in 1916, and I’m the proud owner of several sartorial artifacts from his time in New Haven, among them a pipe, a smoking jacket embroidered …
Most parents dream of their son getting accepted into an Ivy League school. On the other hand, the number of parents who hope their pride and joy goes on to become a cartoonist is probably close to zero. Whitney Darrow, Jr., the cartoonist we featured in yesterday’s post, had the ideal sensibilities to be a …
I’m sure you can think of a lot of things that make you just want to give up. Whitney Darrow, Jr. could certainly sympathize. He was a midcentury cartoonist whose work appeared in The New Yorker, among other places. These panels are from a 1966 collection, and many of them are strangely apropos to the …
The College Man By Albert J. Beveridge From ‘The Young Man And The World” Go to college. Go to the best possible college for you. Patiently hold on through the sternest discipline you can stand, until the course is completed. It will not be fatal to your success if you do not go; but you …
Another 180-minute Democratic debate has passed with few fireworks aside from ex-HUD secretary Julián Castro accusing Joe Biden of forgetfulness. Castro’s arrow may have missed its mark, but newly uncovered evidence suggests that the former vice president once left a glen check Ralph Lauren sportcoat at a Delaware dry cleaner, and it can now be …
While going through the archives, I found this post on Danish photographer Sergei Sviatchenko from January of 2010. Turns out he is still doing his “Close Up And Private” project, which consists of atmospheric, artistic shots of midcentury and preppy style. Below are a few shots from his spring/summer 2019 edition. Head over here to browse …
As a child in the suburbs of Los Angeles, I was about as far from the Ivy League schools of the Northeast as one could get. The San Fernando Valley, where I spent my childhood in the 1970s, was very blue collar at its core. Most of my friends’ parents and neighbors worked in the …
If you’re already planning on a new overcoat for this season, you might want to slim down. That is, with the cut of the coat. That’s according to this vintage advertisement from Hickey Freeman, which advocates “comfort and natural lines” with “lapels narrow to emphasize smartness.” Finally, “shoulders are normal,” because abnormal shoulders are so …
While clearing out Ivy Style headquarters I came across an amusing clipping in a box of ephemera. It’s a letter to the editor that ran in the San Francisco Chronicle in 1994, when I was 24 and was publishing anything I could, anywhere I could. It’s in response to a columnist who had written about …
Update: Well that wasn’t much of an absence. The camp moc is back already, and looks pretty much the same, which could be good or bad. It could have been reintroduced with great fanfare, made in the US, and triple the price. * * * After being alerted by an Ivy Style reader, …
It may be too soon to wear one, but in case this vintage ad inspires, you can start shopping now. The ad appeared in Cornell’s student newspaper in 1955, suggesting that even Ivy Leaguers wanted to make sure they got the authentic Ivy model.
Update: We have a winner, and it is Robert Staehling. Please email me, sir, at your convenience. * * * Back in April we ran an interview with Ken Yamamoto, the man behind Japan’s Boston Tailor. Yamamoto-san has kindly donated a superb piece of craftsmanship for one lucky winner who can wear a size 38 …
We interviewed Benton Nilson back in April. Now he takes on our regular series My Kinda Clothes, which is named for a delightful little phrase used by Charlie of The Andover Shop. If you’d like to write about your own personal style, use the email contact button above. * * * In my eyes, motif …
There’s still time to take advantage of the Labor Day sale at Oak Street Bootmakers, one of the sponsors that puts the wind in the Ivy Style sails. Oak Street makes its shoes in Chicago, and offers such trad classics as beefroll penny loafers, bit loafers, boat shoes, camp mocs, and chukka boots. Head over …
The following is a sponsored post from Haspel. * * * It may be the last semi-official day of summer, but as Haspel likes to say, it’s always seersucker season somewhere. It’s no surprise they’d say that, given that seersucker has been their business for over a century. So for those of you who have no …
This weekend marks the end of summer, and therefore the end of white-bucks season Unless you’re Pat Boone, who, like college men in the ’30s, wore his year-round. His above collection is from 1959. Go here for a CBS News slideshow on the clean cut idol, who in mid-life made a heavy metal album.
Looking back on this 2009 post by old friend Michael Mattis, which touches on the timeless themes of trad clothes and “no hard sell” because the stuff sells itself. * * * If some places never change, it’s because they never need to. They have reached a pitch, if not of perfection, then at least …