Rahar’s was a home away from home for me and my pals. The watering hole served as Northampton, Massachusetts headquarters for visiting collegians pursuing female companionship at Smith College. The dilapidated bar and restaurant occupied the ground floor of a post-Civil War Victorian mansion set on a spare hilltop a block off Main Street, just …
I was in the sixth grade when I watched “Animal House” for the first time, and while much of the humor was lost on me, the clothing left a lasting impression. The film’s poster, which I saw at a friend’s house, was powerful enough to make me want to see it. When I finally did, …
“Vassar College’s touch football team today issued a challenge to the Kennedy family in Washington: play us,” announced The Poughkeepsie Journal in November 1962. The reason for such sporting confidence? In the fall of that year, Vassar students had formed the first all-female college touch football teams. With names like the Joss Jocks, Noyes Nymphs …
Whether you’re watching football today in a freezing stadium or in your cozy living room, here’s a role model for how to dress. Pictured is Ivy Style’s Golden Years columnist Richard Press — former president of J. Press and grandson of founder Jacobi — at the Dartmouth-Penn game in 1958. Happy New Year from Ivy …
In 1993, five-odd years under new owners Marks & Spencer, now widely agreed to have veered the brand drastically off course, Brooks Brothers took out a six-page advertorial in The Atlantic Monthly celebrating its 175 years in business. Literary heavyweight George Plimpton was hired to write the text, which combines history with everyday goings-on at …
Yesterday we posted about a Harvard Gazette piece that included an interview with J. Press Cambridge store owner Denis Black. Black was the subject of one of Ivy Style’s early Q&As, which we’ll take the opportunity to revisit. * * * Depending on your point of view, J. Press isn’t what it used to be …
The Harvard Gazette recently published a piece on the Ivy League Look and J. Press. It includes quotes from Ivy Style’s Richard Press and myself, and also features a video clip consisting of an audio interview with J. Press Cambridge store manager Denis Black over a slideshow of images. Check it out here. — CC
The great thing about getting your clothing made-to-measure is that you can get things that don’t otherwise exist. Last week I visited Jay Walter, who heads up J. Press’ made-to-measure program, and he showed me a corduroy sportcoat he’d just finished for a client. The jacket was rendered in olive, that popular heyday hue, and …
Our last post featured JFK in velvet slippers on Christmas. Today we have his brother Bobby going slipshot on Halloween. Both seemed to like tossing them on around the house while dressed relatively casually, as opposed to taking the shoe super-serious and donning it with black tie, ascot, or smoking jacket. I still don’t have …
As you break out the tartan jacket and red socks to hit the holiday party circuit, take a tip from Tony Randall and watch out for these fellow guests. In 1957 Randall did a photo shoot in which he portrayed various pests typically encountered at cocktail parties. Pictured above is The Jokester, who amuses himself …
Presented here are some vintage illustrations — presumably from the Esquire archives — posted to Ivy Style’s Facebook group by image collector and comment-leaver “Carmelo.” Sportcoats with stripes — often running through a herringbone pattern — aren’t often seen today, but were popular during the Ivy heyday and, as these images show, back to the …
Previously I’ve written about the Boston Cracked Shoe look, a term applied to certain WASP patricians who would wear items that had far outlived their presentable lifespan. Members of the press discovered the concept during the presidential campaign of Adlai Stevenson when they observed Stevenson had holes in the soles of his shoes while working …
The San Francisco Chronicle recently chose a very intersting piece to run from its archives. The paper chose a 50-year-old piece brimming with anecdotes about the buttondown collar. It opens like this: The late Jack Kennedy looked up from his desk in the White House on a day in 1963. One of his aides had …
If you were a socialite who lived through the 20th century and married enough times — say, nine — eventually one of your spouses would have been in the right place at the right time and dressed fairly Ivy League. Actress and socialite Zsa Zsa Gabor died recently at the age of 99. Husband number …
Some are fond of asking whether Barbour jackets are Ivy or preppy. They are certainly not collegiate in the 1960s sense, although they would later be embraced by J. Press. They were not in “The Official Preppy Handbook.” The jacket that was sanctioned there was the LL Bean Field Coat. So what was the Barbour? …
A member of our Facebook group recently presented the opening page of the Owen Johnson’s 1911 novel “Stover At Yale,” a coming-of-age tale about a young freshman at New Haven. Dink Stover, freshman, chose his seat in the afternoon express that would soon be rushing him to New Haven and his first glimpse of Yale …
As a blizzard whips through our national’s capital today, one preppy policeman is taking duty into his own hands — and putting his feet inside classic LL Bean rubber boots. We’ve previously profiled the same Washington, DC police officer in a post entitled, “Fashion Police: Ivy Style Reader Is A Top Cop.” And today the …
You might remember reports over the past couple of holiday shopping seasons that LL Bean could barely meet demand for its famous rubber boots. Well the kids are still wearing them and the company is predicting sales of one million units by 2018, up from the current 600,000. Ten years ago it was a mere …
Since I like to doodle at the piano and believe this to be the most wonderful time of the year, I break out the Christmas sheet music the day after Thanksgiving so I can enjoy a whole month of playing yuletide hymns. Of course the retailers start earlier and earlier, but decorations and music are …