The Ideal

This photo may be familiar to half of you, while the other half are seeing it for the first time. It’s floated around Tradsville for years, but I’m not sure we ever posted it here, and even if we did, it’s due for a curtain call.

Why today? Because it was recently posted to our Facebook page by J. Press alum David Wilder. I quickly remarked that the young man pictured, tennis player Vic Seixas, should be the poster boy, right now in 2017, for handsome young men who think they need to wear shrunken clothing. Seixas’ jacket is by J. Press and exhibits just the right balance of tailoring and relaxed attitude with its natural shoulders and undarted chest.

(Before you start wisecracking about shoulders, sources close to Squeeze headquarters say that fall jacket samples look fantastic, with much improved shoulders and more jackets made in the USA, as opposed to our neighbors to the north.)

DCG, who pens our annual column The Millennial Fogey, wrote on Facebook, “This photo, to my taste, is consistently the best image of natural shoulders from the heyday.”

The photo ran in Sports Illustrated in the fall of 1954, at the start of the Ivy heyday. Tomorrow we’ll take a look at the full article.

In the meantime, tell your friends, relatives and coworkers that this is what they should be aiming for. You, no doubt, already are. — CC

 

 

 

16 Comments on "The Ideal"

  1. Charlottesville | May 26, 2017 at 1:12 pm |

    It’s like looking in a mirror. Except for the part about being young, handsome and athletic. Seriously, I agree that it perfectly illustrates the ideal. I fear that I too often display the unfortunate Canadian shoulder of recent years (today for example), but I look forward to seeing the new stuff at Squeeze in NY sometime this week, and hopefully will meet Daniel if his hours and my visit overlap.

  2. Friend of a friend works for an independent men’s shop in the south that uses S. Cohen, apparently the company no longer manufactures in Canada and many retailers are dropping them since the main draw was that they weren’t made in China which they now are. would guess Press is in this group, they’ve used the same company that O’Connell’s uses for some sportcoats (empire? Victor?) in the past with much better shoulders, hope they’ll use them or just do southwick

  3. roger sack | May 26, 2017 at 1:26 pm |

    In addition to being one of the all time tennis greats,
    Seixas, now 93, was a pilot during world War 2.

  4. Speaking of our neighbors to the north, I find it incredibly ironic that Montreal is home to two suit factories that make sack suits. I can assure you that no one in Montreal would wear a sack suit, their style is more trendy/European.

  5. Gene, it is my understanding that O’Connells uses Samuelsohn, which manufactures its suits in MTL. I know Peerless, which manufactures suits for Clavin Klein and Lauren Ralph Lauren, maintains a factory in MTL but does most of their work overseas these days. As for S. Cohen, they do still operate a factory in Montreal:

    http://www.scoheninc.com/en/factory.php

  6. Anonymous | May 26, 2017 at 4:53 pm |

    Since you mentioned David Wilder, J Press would do well to bring him back to its new store later this year.

  7. Cashmere, eh? Huh. I would have guessed Shetland.

  8. Moins que Parfait | May 26, 2017 at 11:26 pm |

    1)The suppression, I suppose, is caused by his holding his arms behind him.
    2) Does he extraordinarily long arms or is the jacket too long?

  9. The jacket looks long to me, even by Ivy standards. Otherwise, perfection.

  10. We can’t know whether the jacket is long unless we see the rest of him. That’s the only way to get a sense of proportion.

  11. @Charlottesville Have Christian give you my email and we’ll see what we can work out!

  12. I think that the way Seixas’ hands are positioned behind his back is causing the jacket to flare out. The length, I’m sure, was perfect given the time period.

  13. Looks like a trench coat it’s so long. I particularly have not patronized squeeze due to the shortness of my torso. I look like I’m wearing a topcoat. However that picture is damn near Ivy porn!

  14. A Trad Confused | May 28, 2017 at 4:43 pm |

    I’ve picked up two suits and a blazer from J.Press this season, all made by Southwick. I am very very happy.

  15. Chewco L.P. (Offshore) | May 31, 2017 at 1:31 pm |

    Jacket is too long. This fact would have been clearer if we saw its sleeve length and overall proportions. Other than that, its perfect.

  16. Vern Trotter | June 1, 2017 at 2:33 pm |

    In 1954 and for several decades after, the hem of the coat was supposed to reach the first joint of your middle finger when your arm was hanging at your side. This coat is just right for that period.

    This print was either the second or third cover for SI. The first one was Eddie Mathews of the Braves. The last time I was in the Cambridge JPress it was still hanging on the wall.

Comments are closed.