Dartmouth, 1964
Three more years until shaggy hair, sideburns, and possibly new clothes. Or would that be old clothes? — CC
Secrets of Sprezzatura: How to Wear a Crewneck
This post, originally from 2010, is being reposted again (it returned to the front page last October) as a follow-up to the recent shot of Bernie Sanders as a college student. While the bottom photo appears to be a boatneck sweater, the others all appear to be crewnecks worn high in the front on purpose. …
Who’s This?
Who’s this public persona during his college days, wearing his crewneck sweater high in the front, as we’ve analyzed before. Shield your eyes from the comments below while you formulate your guess. I’m sure someone’s seen this image before. — CC
April In Paris
For your Friday we offer this shot of one of your fellow Ivy enthusiasts from around the globe. Pictured here is Rene at the Eiffel Tower in the city he calls home. Along with his Ivy Style Club Tie, he’s wearing what I assume is a slack jacket from Paris-based J. Keydge. Writes Rene: I …
Dateline ’67: Things Are Getting Hairy
A reader submitted the fascinating graphic above that supports the assertion around here that the 1967/68 academic school year marks the rapid fall of the Ivy League Look. The chart shows not the wearing of buttondowns and penny loafers, but the beginning of a sudden spike in facial hair, even mere sideburns. The spike trends …
The Court Demands To See Vintage Ivy Ads As Evidence
Recently we posted about a company called Worsted-Tex and how it used the term “Ivy League” to sell mass-market clothing as soon as the heyday of the Ivy League Look took off. In 1960 the company began filing lawsuits against other brands that were using variations of the term “Ivy” in their products. In a …
Sikh And Ye Shall Find: The Indo-Prep Style of Gagan Singh
Lisa Birnbach’s “True Prep” raised plenty of Old-Guard eyebrows with its inclusiveness. Whereas 1980’s “The Official Preppy Handbook” was WASPy to the core, the sequel opens the club to black, Asian, gay and Muslim preps as Birnbach declares “It’s a whole new old world.” As an example that those flying the preppy flag in 21st …
Prince Among Preps: Aga Khan At Harvard
For yesterday’s Easter post I shared the collection of top hat images that fills my apartment, one of which is a rakish photo of Aly Khan, an international playboy who married actress Rita Hayworth. His son, known as Prince Karim, the fourth Aga Khan, was featured in one of Ivy Style’s earliest posts, which we …
View From The Top
In the late ’90s I discovered the surprisingly large vintage costume-ball scene in the San Francisco Bay Area, where about three separate groups put on 19th-century-themed events with live music for waltzes, polkas, and English country dances. There was a smaller scene in LA (in Pasadena, naturally), but nothing like it here in New York. …
National Library Week: A Bookworm In Bit Loafers And Ball Cap
This week was National Library Week. Yep, there’s a day — or in this case a week — for just about everything. I asked the college men in our Facebook group to submit a photo of them hitting the books, and one man rose to the challenge. Pictured is Ben Schmidt either studying for class …
Harvard Divinity School by Alfred Eisenstaedt, 1955
On this Good Friday we look at shots taken for LIFE Magazine in 1955 by renowned photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt. — CC
The Ivy Style Community Guide To Keeping Your White Shirts Clean
Recently on the Ivy Style Facebook page, an important question was posed to the members: how do you keep your white shirts looking white, especially around the collar? The post was quickly inundated with various pieces of advice, which ranged from home remedies to professional laundering. The great, and varying, advice from that post has …
Well Groomed Conformity
In 1947, a letter from the Student Tailor Shop gave official notice to Princeton’s incoming class of ’51 that the university required its own wardrobe. “The style of clothing worn around the campus,” it read, “is different from that sold in metropolitan centers and home town stores.” From four-button suits and detachable-collar shirts in the …
Ivy League By Worsted-Tex, 1955
Another great find by Carmelo Pugliatti showing mass-market Ivy at the dawn of the heyday. And the worst-dressed award goes to the young man in the middle, who’s wearing a coat that looks like an orphaned suit jacket, along with a hat for over which his classmates will give him infinite grief. — CC
News You Can Trust
From now on, get all your news from the Washington Post. Or at least from the gentleman of the press pictured above wearing his Ivy Style Club Tie. Matt Schudel has been writing obituaries for the paper for many years. So next time a prominent persona dies (last week it was Don Rickles), be sure …
Tastefully Different
Golf fans out there are no doubt tuned into The Masters, where weather conditions for the first two days made the iconic tournament quite a challenge for the players. Those more inclined to sartorial matters and looking for an eloquent Saturday afternoon read should head over to the website of Nick Hilton, son of the …
As Great As Any War Can Be
This week marks the centenary of America’s entry into World War I, also known as The Great War. (Whether this week marks our entry into a new war is another matter.) Above is an image of what Brooks Brothers did that fateful year of 1917. Its Christmas advertisement took special note of soldiers, and seems …
The Story Of The Cape Cod Tartan
Today, in honor of International Tartan Day, associate editor Chris Sharp shares another tale of sartorial esoterica. * * * Three thousand thirty-three miles separates Cape Cod from Scotland, yet this dune-covered land has its own tartan. You will not find it in any official tartan registry, but it was once one of the items …
I Like Jazz, Ivy League Clothes, Gin And Tonic And Pretty Girls
This Friday Amazon will premier a new docuseries on Hugh Hefner entitled “American Playboy.” An actor will portray Hefner, but there will also be unseen footage provided by the iconic libertine. Hefner founded Playboy right when the Ivy League Look was taking off, and adopted the look along with many other urban professional men. The …