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 …
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 …
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 …
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. …
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 …
On this Good Friday we look at shots taken for LIFE Magazine in 1955 by renowned photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt. — CC
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 …
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 …
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
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Comment-leaver “Chewco” spotted the news today that Ralph Lauren is closing the Fifth Avenue Polo store here in New York. While it was never anywhere close to the majestic Rhinelander Mansion uptown (it wasn’t trying to be), it was a nice place to stop by (my church is across the street). I got to know …
Ivy Style contributing writer James Kraus has organized a meetup for fellows trads in the Los Angeles area for next Wednesday, April 12, at 7 PM. The plan is to pick a nightspot in Beverly Hills with some midcentury heritage, to be decided based on the number of RSVPs. Working behind the scenes and with …
Axelrod’s, a menswear shop founded in 1954 and serving Aldrich College, the small liberal-arts school located in coastal Connecticut, has taken a bold step in attracting new customers by launching a collection aimed at anti-fascist student protestors. “We’ve always been resistant to change and have sold the same buttondowns and tweeds since ’54,” says owner …
Thanks to regular comment-leaver “SE” for the recent head’s up on the 1969 Davidson College yearbook, from which I took these screenshots. Yearbooks always provide a fascinating look at college life from the past, and you’ll find several things noteworthy here from a dress and deportment angle. Davidson is located in North Carolina, and the …
This week I received an email from a young guy just discovering traditional American style. He was in need of a blazer and wanted to know all the proper Ivy details and then where to get one. I offered up the usual suspects, but told him there are many variables, price being the first one. …