I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with color. You could say there are two archetypal 19th century dandies dueling in my closet: George “Beau” Brummell, the so-called father of modern costume, advocates in favor of a simple palette and elegant restraint, while on the other side is Count Alfred d’Orsay, the “butterfly dandy,” who was …
England is just kicking off its first game in the World Cup, and so here’s a bit of belated Blighty Ivy news. In the wake of the new documentary about UK Ivy pioneer John Simons, last month The Guardian ran a lengthy profile, in which the soon-to-be 79-year-old talks about the “magical and distant” place …
You don’t have to be a staunch supporter of our president to be capable of diagnosing Trump Derangement Syndrome. In fact, a couple of tolerant, level-headed guys were talking about it just the other day. And so today a story caught my eye that immediately made it roll. “I didn’t buy my dad a tie …
Last night was the opening party for Rowing Blazers‘ summer pop-up shop. Located in Downtown NYC, founder Jack Carlson secured a much larger space than last summer, and pulled everything together in about a week. As befitting the Downtown location, the party was packed with the young and hip. I spent most of the evening catching …
Hippy Ivy is back, and may be a recurring theme this summer so long as I can keep my tongue planted in cheek without getting a muscle cramp. So last weekend there was fine weather here in NYC, so I went into Central Park for some sunbathing, meditation/contemplation/reading, and of course bikini-watching. Then I made …
Recently this photo came on my radar. Taken by Jean Pierre Leloir, it was attributed to the year 1946, making it quite surprising indeed. That’s a full eight years before Miles Davis got decked out in Ivy threads at The Andover Shop, yet here he is in a buttondown. I shared it on Twitter, saying …
Do you have a clothing conundrum and can think of nothing better (and braver) than calling upon the collective wisdom of the Ivy Style commentariat? Use the contact button above to email your query to the editor. * * * Gentlemen, your sage advice is needed for hapless reader Mr. J, who can’t figure out …
It’s becoming a Saturday tradition around here for me to share my self-improvement articles and essays. It’s the slowest day of the week, and I realize not everyone feels they need improving. For example, some people have been Internet trolls since the earliest days of the web and still haven’t snapped out of it. Let …
Today is National Seersucker Day, aka Seersucker Thursday, but we’re going to flashback to another day of the week, namely Monday, when J. Press hosted a shindig for David Coggins, who has a new book out called “Men And Manners.” For the event, Squeeze’s own DCG was clad in a mint-green seersucker jacket made by …
My farewell at J.Press half a decade after the sale of the family business in 1986 was orchestrated by Norbert Ford. Norbert was a charismatic entrepreneur who began his career dressing windows at the original Abercrombie and Fitch safari, rifle and menswear emporium on 45th and Madison. He was a scrappy senior executive, and when …
We bring the run of khaki-themed posts to a close with info on a US-made brand doing khakis the old-fashioned way. Some of you may have received an email blast last week from O’Connell’s plugging pants that looked strangely familiar. Similar to another brand, except that the monosyllabic name behind them is Frank. I reached …
Contributing writer Christopher Sharp has buckled-down, hit the books, and put his nose to the grindstone in an effort to suss out once and for all the origins of the mid-’50s buckle-back chino trend. * * * During my formative years back in the Fifties, I was the kind of kid who was secure in …
We continue our khaki theme with some positive news about a young entrepreneur carrying the torch of classic clothes made in America. Gregg Donnelly, founder of trouser company Jack Donnelly, developed a solid following for several years before a random medical emergency put him in the hospital for three months, followed by even more recovery …
Yesterday we honored GIs and their great contribution to the Ivy League Look: khakis. One man who exemplified the era (even though he went to college before serving in the war), was John F. Kennedy, who was born 101 years ago today. Here’s a gallery of him wearing khakis, always plain-front, naturally, but never with …
On this Memorial Day, here’s to all the men who never got the chance to attend college on the GI Bill — or live out the rest of their lives. We are grateful for their supreme sacrifice. As for those who did go from storming the beach in Normandy to storming college classrooms, here’s a …
In the interest of maintaining balance in the universe, posts about Kennedy and posts about Bush, posts about jazz and posts not about jazz, we follow-up the last post on teetotaling with a review of a new book about whisky. Comment-leaver “Canadian Trad” takes it on. * * * Taste in clothes and taste in …
In “The Origins And History Of Consciousness” (which I’ve read twice over the past year and will need to read another dozen times to fully grasp), author Erich Neumann argues that each individual’s development mirrors the development of humanity itself. Likewise, I sometimes think that for a style omnivore like me, it was necessary to …
Philip Roth, author of prep-lit novel “Goodbye Columbus,” has died at the age of 85. You can find an NPR tribute here. — CC
When last we left off, we’d looked at the Duke of Windsor and how he may have influenced the team that supported photographer Bruce Weber in his legendary photo shoots for Polo Ralph Lauren. One of the recurring models was actually a regular guy: an architect named Tom Moore who played a benevolent and elegant …