This weekend the New York Times Magazine ran a feature story entitled “The Esquire Man Is Dead; Long Live The Esquire Man.” It centers around the magazine’s new editor and its search for relevance in 2017. There’s a lot of interesting history in the piece, though one thing’s for certain: the magazine won’t be going …
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the year 1967, the year we’ve come to refer to around here as the end of the heyday of the Ivy League Look. We plan to make it a theme throughout 2017 as we gather photographs and anecdotes about this pivotal transition year in American social history. It’s …
We haven’t had a story to classify under Ivy Trendwatch in quite a while, but here’s a positive sign that classic American style is still thriving at home and abroad. These great photos were posted to Ivy Style’s Facebook group by Anton Miranda, who does visual merchandising, PR and marketing for a men’s retailer in …
As a follow-up to yesterday’s post on vests, let’s take a look at a micro-fad that struck a group of Yale students in 1950. We’ve used some of these photos on Ivy Style before, but not the whole batch. The shots come from an April 1950 issue of LIFE Magazine, which reported on the …
Keeping the bottom button undone on a vest is the sort of information that fathers used to pass along to their sons, along with how to flush a public toilet with one’s foot rather than one’s hand. But as I am older than most readers of this website, allow me to offer a bit of …
It seems like only yesterday we hoisted our leather botas at the 1959 running of the bulls in Pamplona. It still goes on every July 6th, maiming an occasional drunk, catching a celebrity moment, and every couple of years there’s a fatality. My best friend and Loomis prep-school roommate Gene Mercy and I celebrated our …
Over the years I’ve thought about doing a post on Dick Van Dyke, as his television show was immensely popular during the heyday of the Ivy League Look. In many ways he is the pop culture personification of the Atomic Age man in gray suits, white shirts and black ties working in a field like …
Every once in a while — say, a few times a year — a commercial comes on the television that actually informs you of something worth knowing. Last night I saw the trailer for “Z,” a new series by Amazon starring Christina Ricci as Zelda Fitzgerald. But there could be no story of Zelda without …
The UK magazine Country Life has an article on corduroy pants, which it calls the perfect country trouser. Although the piece waxes on the varied colors available, it appears that most Brits are only comfortable in subdued hues. The ability to wear go-to-hell pants may be a privilege of being American. Here’s a snippet: A …
Ken C. Pollock wears fine shoes today, but there was a time when he held his Bass Weejuns together with duct tape. Of course, that was for style, not because he was impecunious. Born in Birmingham, Alabama and raised primarily in Roanoke, Virginia, the son of an immigrant from Belarus and a small-town Alabama girl …
It’s menswear market week here in New York, and yesterday I met with several brands at a small trade show held at the Park Lane Hotel. Among the regular attendees are two friends and colleagues of Ivy Style, Crittenden and R. Hanauer (otherwise known as bowties.com). Both are from the South — Hanauer hails from …
Unless you’re one of those blessed souls who can tune out the contemporary world and live for higher things like the contemplation of the universe and the late quartets of Beethoven, you probably noticed that our colorful new president has taken office amid a cacophony of cheers and jeers. It made for a lively weekend …
Here’s an idea on this historic glorious/infamous day when our country inaugurates its new president: how about creating a national fashion police to enforce standards of dress? There would be no more pajamas in the classroom or on the airplane, and hoodies would be banned from anyone over 18 or with a net worth over …
Here’s a gallery of images of the so-called aristocrat of topcoats. Perhaps because it’s called a polo coat, Polo Ralph Lauren has used them frequently in its advertising imagery, including the image above as well as the following: Here’s Ralph himself, looking casually bundled up rather than stiff and formal. This is the feeling …
For many years the 1981 BBC miniseries “Brideshead Revisited” has been my favorite film, if you can call a 10-hour book adaptation a film. It had been enough years since I’d last seen it, and so I decided to watch again between Christmas and the New Year. A great book or movie will constantly yield …
Comment-leaver “Old School “offers this appreciation of the bar stripe necktie, also known as Brooks Brothers’ #3 stripe. * * * It all started in my freshman year in college in 1961. My French professor was an Englishman who came to school every day in a black suit, white broadcloth shirt, and a bar stripe …
The subject of tie knots may seem sufficiently banal and #menswear to only occupy the concern of selfie-snapping enthusiasts, but a recent discussion I had on an Internet forum underscored the subtle —and not so subtle — messages such a thing can send. A tie knot can project fastidiousness, nonchalance, ignorance, and any numbers of …
Where can you find bow ties and bongos in the same place at the same time. Why in cinematic history, of course. In 1958’s “Bell, Book and Candle,” Jack Lemmon stars as a warlock who plays bongos with a suit-clad jazz combo in a Greenwich Village beatnik club. Kim Novak is the female lead in …