Something Wicked This Way Comes
Presented in honor of National Orgasm Day.
A Preppy Walks Into A Bar…
Our last post centered around how the ’80s preppy trend was covered in regional newspapers. Now we look at how it was viewed by professional gag-writers. The runaway success of “The Official Preppy Handbook” gave birth to a cottage industry of parodies and knock-offs, including “The Original Preppy Joke Book.” Most of the jokes are …
Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Prep
Like this post and want more content like it, more often? Help Ivy Style reach its goal of 1,000 true fans * * * Everything you always wanted to know about prep but were too stuck-up to ask By Mike Steere The Toledo Blade August 27, 1980 For lack of a better word, we’ll …
Tokyo, By Way Of Bermuda
This posted yesterday to Instagram (click here to play). Perhaps the guy had just come from the airport. Then again, that’s a lot of hashtags.
Professional And Low-Key: Memories Of Langrock Circa 1956
It has been a long time since I worked at Langrock, and, at 79, my memory isn’t as strong as, say, 10 years ago, but here goes. I worked at Langrock’s after school in 1956 or ’57 as cleanup person and gofer. I enjoyed the experience, but as a teenager I personally thought Mr. Decker …
Trade Show Roundup: Ties, Ducks, And Wool “Madras”
This weekend is menswear market week here in New York, and so my biannual check-in with the friends and colleagues who help keep the Ivy Style ship sailing as we head into our second decade (if you’d like fresh content on a daily basis, please consider supporting the site). Randall Hanauer, Sr. of R. Hanauer/BowTies.com …
From Shoe To Douche: The Fall Of The House Of Biff
Like this post and want more content like it, more often? Help Ivy Style reach its goal of 1,000 true fans. * * * In 1960 Biff wore J. Press and played tennis. That same year he sired Biff Jr., who in 1986 wore Lacoste and Brooks and played squash. That same year Biff Jr. …
Mark Fore & Strike, The Tropical Abercrombie & Fitch
Like this post and want more content like it, more often? Help Ivy Style reach its goal of 1,000 true fans. * * * There was a time when the name Mark Fore & Strike was known from Cape Cod to South Florida, notes Thomas Cary of The Cary Collection. Back then, a gentleman wearing …
Chip Vs. Charles: Preppies And Yuppies During The Reagan Years
Recently we’ve examined the “bro,” who represents a kind of shadow figure of the contemporary young trad, sharing some of the trad’s qualities, but in a negative way. So what was the shadow figure of the ’80s preppy? Why, the gone-but-not-entirely-forgotten yuppie. Contributing writer Matthew Benz delves in. Like this post and want more content …
Death Of The Necktie? Make That Death BY Necktie
Over the years of working the trade shows and covering menswear, I can’t tell you how many lawyers I’ve run into who started an accessories collection, often neckties. Arguing the case for the anti-tie side of things, however, is a California litigator-cum-mayor who made news last week for a proposal that his town of Lancaster …
Dashing Overachiever
When I was 18, I decided I wanted to be a renaissance man. It was the late ’80s, and I must have learned the term from the magazines GQ or M, The Civilized Man. It wasn’t exactly a concept knocked about in my particular California suburb, nor passed down from my father. I was already …
Summer Lovin’
Like this post and want more content like it, more often? Help Ivy Style reach its goal of 1,000 true fans. * * * I already had this post in mind, and so when, in our previous dispatch on Tab Hunter, Italian comment-leaver and expert in midcentury Americana, Carmelo, invoked the name Troy Donahue, it …
Dreamboat Departed: Tab Hunter, 1931-2018
Actor Tab Hunter died yesterday at the age of 86, prompting a revisit of this 2016 post, updated with new images. Like this post and want more content, more often? Help Ivy Style reach its goal of 1,000 true fans. * * * Tab Hunter was a clean-cut, all-American ’50s dreamboat heartthrob. But when …
I Miss Rugby
This post from last spring snagged a mention in the comments section on yesterday’s post about the launch of the new RL collection Boathouse, and so we pay it a revisit. Enjoy this and want more content more often? Help Ivy Style reach its goal of 1,000 true fans. * * * After a mild …
Rugby Resurrected? Ralph Lauren Launches Boathouse
While fruitlessly searching for no-show socks at the downtown Boston Macy’s Monday, I stepped into a time portal. Or at least I felt that I had. There, hanging from a rack in the store’s little Polo Ralph Lauren section, was a genuine article from Rugby Ralph Lauren. And another beside it, and another beside that… Could …
True Fans, Support The Future Of Ivy-Style.com
A decade ago, in 2008, I founded Ivy-Style.com. A couple of years later, I announced the 2.0 version, live from New York. And now on this Independence Day 2018 — 1,800 posts and 50,000 comments later — I’d like to announce the next stage of the site, Ivy Style 3.0. We have reached a crossroads, and …
Corpore Sano: Ivy Style Readers On Diet & Exercise
Last week an interesting discussion broke out on Ivy Style’s Facebook group. What do your fellow trads eat, and how do they stay fit? It’s not all squash and gin-and-tonics. Here’s what they do. Chime in and let us know what works for you. * * * Play football/soccer 3-4 times a week and watch …
Collective Wisdom: An American In Paris
Collective Wisdom is our new series in which I cleverly redirect questions that land in my inbox to you, the illustrious commentariat, because someone seeking advice should have access to more opinions than just mine. TJ writes: I’m taking the family to Paris in a week. I really wanted to pack clothes that were neutral …
Return Of The Shadow
A few weeks ago I received an email from a Bermuda-based clothing brand, and, in light of our current island-based miniseries, now is the perfect opportunity to address it. It’s also a follow-up to my essay on the “bro,” which I thought was posted not so many months ago, but in fact dates from last …