This Friday marks Ivy-Style’s two-year anniversary. With our sophomore year behind us, we’re upperclassmen at last.
The year was full of highlights.
For starters, I coined the acronym PITA (for Preppy-Ivy-Trad-Americana), which has been picked up by at least two people, and, less significantly, moved to New York.
Ivy-Style added a new category called Ivy Trendwatch to address the growing buzz about collegiate style, and companies like LL Bean, J. Crew, Bills Khakis and Sperry donated products for our new reader giveaways.
Louis Auchincloss, author of the prep-school classic “The Rector of Justin,” died, and as I’d never attended the funeral of a cultural figure before, I went.
I got to help a young man get an early start in life by discovering 16-year-old style blogger Robert I. Brown, who was promptly recruited by Details, and, even more flattering, my ass was used to sell Harvard Yard clothing.
This year Ivy-Style welcomed many new and outstanding contributors, including friend and comrade Bruce Boyer.
Two female contributors cracked the Ivy-Style boys’ club: Deirdre Clemente, rejected by Princeton three times, wrote about the school’s sartorial legacy here, and English lass Rebecca C. Tuite brought us the Vassar Girl and is currently at work on a new post with more insight into college life at mid-century. We also ran several posts by Christopher Sharp, and recently named Bill Stephenson Ivy-Style’s Elder Statesman.
Ivy-Style now has over 250 posts, all of which can be found by clicking on the links in the Categories section of the right column.
But with new readers finding us every day, here are some highlights from the early part of the year that new readers may not have seen, and that longtime readers may enjoy revisiting.
• Year two started off with the LIFE profile on Yale freshman Timothy Thompson. After Googling him, I found Thompson’s obituary and noticed that his sister lived near my home town. I contacted her, and the resulting interview is here.
• On assignment for The Rake, I profiled Miles Davis and JFK.
• Hart, Schaffner & Marx gave us exclusive access to its archives, which produced fodder for several posts, of which this was the first.
• Here we exposed the strong influence “Take Ivy” had on certain design teams.
• Yale student Riley Ford wrote about his great-grandfather’s raccoon coat.
• And finally, Ivy-Style readers created “The College Man’s Guide to Life” full of wisdom earned by experience.
Thanks to all you readers for making this another great year. See you at the junior prom. — CHRISTIAN CHENSVOLD
I hope readers will not think me log rolling when I say “Ivy Style” is one of the most literate, creative, and informative sites for people interested in clothing on the web. My great good congrats, Christian,and may the road rise up to meet you.
Congratulations Christian. We enjoy each and every post, be they yours or from your guest editors. This is one top-notch site and we enjoy the rarefied air, hoping to achieve a scintilla of your accomplishments.
Sending wishes that you enjoy the occasion,
tp
Congratulations, Christian! You have created a civilized refuge for ladies and gentlemen of similar interests, to learn and to exchange ideas.
Seldom does a day go by without something interesting emerging. Even with many years of interest in Ivy, it seems to be a constantly evolving subject.
Obviously, our tastes and interests are far from universal. That is why it is so refreshing to be able to click in, and get an “Ivy fix” for the day.
A thousand thanks for a great two years and I look forward to many more.
Thanks guys!
Congrats on two years! I truly enjoy reading Ivy Style and your posts are incredible!
Congrats again,
Royar
At the risk of pandering to our host, take a look at the advertisers on Ivy Style.
People like us may enjoy our experience here, but the advertisers here are all of superb Ivy quality, and wouldn’t be here unless they saw real value in the media. My guess is that there are very few other media sources, where it is possible for advertisers like Bills’, OCLS, JP, et al to get in front of a target market, as economically as they can here.
My guess is that it helps those of us who are readers, and IS for us to continue to stick with these advertisers.
IE, when the article on “Vitalis” was up, there was an image of the bottle next to the copy. Click on the icon, and it lead directly to an Amazon.com site selling “Vitalis”. Neat!
Christian, I very much echo all of the high praise for both you and Ivy-Style. It is well placed.
Thank you for your dedication and quality.
Always, Bumby
Congrats!
Jen
http://www.monogrammedeverything.com
Young fogies everywhere offer their congrats. Well done, you magnificent bastard.
To be fair, some of your blogs are fun and even informative. That said, I still think you are probably a bit of a twat.
Congratulations Christian.
Ivy Style is the most class-act Prep site there is, and I’m a loyal afficianado of the correct format found within. That being said, is there any chance for a rousing piece on yachting or yacht -club-members hairstyles and dapper sailing clothes? What a lovely bunch of cherubs.