Yep, there’s another.
No sooner had I begun preparing the announcement of Tuckernuck than another new online preppy retailer contacted Ivy Style HQ.
Launched two months ago by two former lawyers schooled at the University of Virginia, Cornell and Washington & Lee, Country Club Prep is based in Atlanta and brings together small, preppy brands from the South and Northeast. Originally planned to be an online shop for men, the company quickly added women’s clothing when it noticed that two-thirds of its initial sign-ups were women.
Its goal is to become “the Zappos of preppy clothing,” according to the founders. Shipping is free and there’s also a rewards program.
Hey, if these guys would rather sell madras than sue pharmaceutical companies, perhaps there’s some good in the world after all. — CC
Based in Georgetown and founded by young women from Brown and Penn, Tuckernuck is a new online retailer that launched last week. The company is the preppier offshoot of Uscoop, a flash-sale site aimed at college students.
According to a press release, the company draws inspiration from such WASPy destinations as Nantucket, Vail, Newport and Sea Island, and events like Foxfield Races and Charleston Race Week.
College students are used to model Tuckernuck’s clothing and accessories, and are encouraged to style their outfits themselves.
Check it out at shoptuckernuck.com. — CC
Last year we reported on a $1,200 Ralph Lauren madras sportcoat; the price struck us as a little steep, not by the standards of RL, but of the fabric.
This year the headline stealer is this vintage patch madras jacket from Chipp, for which an eBay seller is asking $1,100.
The seller’s rationale for the steep tariff is that the jacket’s provenance. It comes from Chipp, who are credited with either inventing or at least popularizing the patching of madras. Coincidentally, Chipp also made clothing for JFK and other notable personae. Ergo to own this jacket is akin to owning a work of art or historic artifact a few degrees of separation removed from touch football at Hyannis Port.
It’s the kind of thing that’s only possible thanks to the Internet, which has created a small cognoscenti who actually might care about original patch madras from Chipp, as well as providing the appropriate buzz machine. “If Put This On features this,” wrote Zachary DeLuca, the vintage Ivy clothing dealer who alerted us to the listing, “it might actually go for asking price.” — CHRISTIAN CHENSVOLD
Following Richard Press’ recent column “A Tummler On York Street,” Ivy Style received an email from Peter Feen, great nephew of the man profiled in Richard’s column.
Feen went on to tell us about his other great uncle, John Norey (above left), who also worked at J. Press in New Haven. Norey was an Englishman who started out in London tailoring before emigrating to America and going Ivy League.
Feen also sent us the picture above, taken in the New Haven J. Press probably in the late ’60s. When Norey died a few years ago, Feen used part of his inheritance to enter the apparel business, and now operates Peter Becks in Salisbury, CT.
Here’s an excerpt from Norey’s obituary:
After apprenticing as a tailor in the Stoke-Newington section of London, Norey joined the British Army and was stationed in North Africa and Italy during World War II.
After his discharge, Norey resumed his career as a men’s tailor before emigrating to the United States in 1950. Settling in New Haven, he began a long career with the famous men’s clothier, J. Press. At various times, Norey had different company roles and was as responsible as anyone else in the clothing industry in preserving the well dressed Ivy League Look for men’s clothing, not only by J. Press, but by Brooks Brothers, Paul Stuart, Polo and their ilk. After a long and rewarding career, he retired from J. Press in 1993.
In his new film “Moonrise Kingdom,” which kicks off the Cannes film festival on May 16, writer-director Wes Anderson is stepping up the prep.
Anderson has consistently shown a keen eye for style in his films, at times incorporating prep elements, such as the uniform of blazers, blue oxfords and rep ties at the eponymous academy in “Rushmore” (filmed partly at the St. John’s School in Houston, which Anderson attended). In a recent article, the French newspaper Libération referred to Anderson as “le dandy texan.”
But more often than not, those prep elements were part of a more electic whole. In “Rushmore,” for example, the protagonist finishes off his uniform with Rod Lavers with red laces and a red beret. As one of his producers says, Anderson’s “previous movies always existed in a time that you couldn’t quite place, mixing past and present.”
By contrast, in “Moonrise Kingdom” we are very clearly in trad territory. The setting is “an island off the coast of New England in the summer of 1965,” according to the synopsis on the film’s website.
Helping to set the scene are the madras pants, navy cardigan and tortoise-shell P3 glasses worn by Bill Murray, who plays a lawyer and the father of a girl who runs away. In an article on the website about the costumes, Murray describes the madras pants as being “made out of separate squares of loud material sewn together.” He also laments that “they’re so short.”
Bruce Willis, playing the local sheriff, also sports P3s, of the clear-frame variety. And scoutmaster Ed Norton’s robe and tent are a riot of plaids (despite the fact that the name of the troop he leads is the “Khaki Scouts”). Even the narrator, played by Bob Balaban, gets in on the LL Bean act, wearing duck boots in the movie poster.
The film was shot in Rhode Island, and “there is definitely that certain New England feel to it,” the film’s art director says. The set decorator adds, “This movie has a bit of a different aesthetic than Wes’ other movies; it’s a little more rough around the edges, and a little more lived-in.”
Filmgoers and trad aficionados alike can judge for themselves when “Moonrise Kingdom” hits U.S. theaters on May 26. — MATTHEW BENZ
Matthew Benz is an American writer and lawyer living in Paris.
Gant and Assouline have teamed up to offer one hell of a contest. The winner gets a copy of my friend and colleague Daniel Cappello’s book “The Ivy League,” plus 12 Yale Co-op shirts from Gant.
Head over to Assouline’s Facebook page to enter. — CC
It’s always interesting to read interviews with the personalities of Tradsville, as it tends to reveal a surprisingly diverse lot — young and old, hip and square, slim fit and baggy, and of course liberal and conservative — all of whom share a common affinity for natural shoulders and oxford cloth.
This week an interesting one appeared on the web with Kevin Callahan, who runs a blog called Kyoto Maiko and who is an occasional commenter here at Ivy Style.
Callahan is a Texas native who lives in Japan where he flies the Americana flag, as you can see by this photo.
Head over to Curating Style for the interview. — CC
Nearly three years ago I wrote a story for The Rake on bay rum — they’ve been sitting on it ever since.
I was reminded of it this week when Valet posted a piece on the classic fragrance, and got the mag’s permission to post the text here. Enjoy. — CC
• • •
Between 1957 and 1963, fueled by growing sales, St. John’s Bay Rum was a regular advertiser in the pages of The New Yorker. Concurrently, in 1960 Brooks Brothers began carrying a line of fragrances — including bay rum — made by Royall Lyme Bermuda Limited.
If the Atomic Age Madison Avenue man had a scent — that is, besides the smoke of Lucky Strikes embedded in his grey-flannel suit and the three-martini lunch on his breath — bay rum was probably it. Of the countless concoctions man has created to mask his natural odor — from citrus to musk, lavender to leather — one in particular has thrived for 175 years. Bay rum, a combination of bay leaves, spices and caribbean rum, might just be what civilized man was destined to smell like. And the fact that it was invented by island natives is an irony almost as piquant as bay rum’s unmistakable scent.
Perhaps it’s the word rum (sometimes spelled “rhum”) in the name, with its connotations of maritime adventure, that accounts for bay rum’s longstanding popularity. Or perhaps women adore it. They must, or else bay rum would have been selected for extinction long ago. But compared to the luxury brands whose scents fill the pages of glossy magazines, bay rum seems made for the man who frankly doesn’t give a damn. He wears it because he knows he owes good hygiene both to his fellow man and himself, not for a direct payoff in the mating game. Bay rum is what men think a man should smell like. It’s not for the man who orders a bottled pheromone, discretely billed, that’s guaranteed to aid seduction.
The origins of bay rum begin in 1838, when Danish chemist Albert Heinrich Riise arrived on St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. He found that natives mixed rum with the leaves of the bay tree to create an emollient used to treat sunburn, sore muscles and joints, fever and headache. Riise began experimenting with distillation processes, eventually perfecting the technique, and sold his bay rum under the name A.H. Riise Apothecary.
The fragrance flourished throughout the 19th century. Later, during Prohibition, imports of bay rum were outlawed as Americans desperate for a drink took to imbibing the cologne. World War II brought a further blow to the various manufacturers as cargo space on ships was reserved for war efforts.
In 1946, American John Webb settled on St Thomas and saw the opportunity to reintroduce the fragrance. Webb founded The West Indies Bay Company and began producing St Johns Bay Rum, which he distinctively packaged in bottles hand-wrapped by natives with tyre palm fronds. Fueled by the postwar fascination with island exotica (Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “South Pacific” hit Broadway in 1949, Hollywood in 1958), St. John’s Bay Rum was soon distributed to every major US city and most college towns.
While St. John’s and Royall Lyme Limited (which, nearly 50 years later, is still sold at Brooks Brothers) have storied connections to midcentury America, the English fragrance houses Taylor of Old Bond Street and Geo. F. Trumper have both offered bay rum for over a hundred years. Yet the most intriguing maker of bay rum today is Bonny Doon Farm, a small California upstart in Santa Cruz, 75 miles south of San Francisco, that makes, according to owner G. Edward Meehan, “the gold standard of the bay rum cologne world.”
Ingredients, Meehan says, are key. Bonny Doon Farm starts with pure, costly Virgin Islands Bay Oil directly from the source, adding fine aromatic cane spirits and Bulgarian Rose Water, “a major part of the compound dictated by the original Danish formula two centuries ago and exclusive to us,” says Meehan. The formula is then blended in small batches and cellar stored. No artificial colors are added, giving Bonny Doon’s bay rum a golden as opposed to amber hue.
Bay rums come in varying degrees of sweetness and potency. Most are considered after-shave grade and can quickly fade (Ogallala offers a “special reserve double strength” to help stay rummy all day). Experiment until you find the right rum suited to your taste, by which we mean your nose, not your palate. — CHRISTIAN CHENSVOLD
E-commerce site Mr. Porter has unveiled a new collection by Paul Smith in which the British designer draws inspiration from “Take Ivy.”
According to the website’s announcement,
Sir Paul, who has been at the forefront of British fashion for five decades, is well placed to explain how Ivy style first came to the UK from the US. “In London the Ivy look was brought in by a lot of the GIs who were stationed out in places such as Cambridgeshire. They came into London at the weekends and went to clubs such as The Scene, in Soho. There was quite an interest in the way these guys dressed, because they looked so cool and slick.” In Sir Paul’s opinion, “The clothes are quite timeless, and there’s always been a hard core of fans.” That classic appeal brings a practical advantage: “It’s a look you can easily wear with your existing wardrobe,” he says.
And as those who’ve followed this website know, Ivy in the UK is associated not with the WASP establishment (save for popular icons such as the Kennedys), but with the world of jazz:
For the designer, the Kennedy clan - “all of them” - are the icons of the Ivy look. “There are lovely pictures of Jack wearing Converse All-Stars, regular trousers and a pale-coloured sweater with patch elbows. It’s the whole Hamptons look.” However, Sir Paul’s other source of Ivy inspiration comes from the music scene. “For me it was very much about the jazz era; Blue Note [a US jazz label] album covers always had these very cool-looking guys, with a very sharp look,” he remembers. “Herbie Hancock and John Coltrane were the guys who stood out as being very well dressed.”
As for the clothes, when the best item in your collection is a gray sweatshirt, perhaps you need to be more inspired.
And in other quasi-Ivy UK news….
The battle for young fashion preps is heating up. Rugby staked its claim several years ago, and Brooks Brothers has been amping up its youthful sportswear and opened its Flatiron store this past year complete with video games.
The latest entry, at least according to the May issue of GQ, is Jack Wills, a UK-based company that combines “British boarding school and American frat house” looks and operates 11 stores strategically located near college campuses. — CC
Don Cheadle’s Miles Davis film project is apparently climbing slowly but surely through the rings of development hell, though the light of day may be miles away.
According to reports, the music rights have been secured and there’s a script that focuses on one 36-hour period of the jazz great’s life. Perhaps befitting a small budget (which it has yet to secure), the project is not a conventional biopic with an A to B narrative arc.
You can find the latest updates on the state of the project on this Miles Davis website.
Davis and Charlie Davidson of The Andover Shop, who dressed Miles briefly around 1954, were my inspiration for starting Ivy-Style.com. — CC
