During World War II, Yale professors still wore tweeds, but the boys they taught would soon graduate into khaki. Behind Woolsey Hall are the many rows of names of the boys who never came back. My father, Paul Press, was a riveter who made M-70 rifles at the Winchester factory on Dixwell Avenue in New …
There’s much news to catch up on, beginning with The Andover Shop. Almost right after the passing of founder Charlie Davidson, the shop’s legacy was given a huge burst of life with major revamp of its website. Head over here for goods and inspiration from a singular American institution. Speaking of revamped websites, Country Club …
Gentlemen, Newport is an absolute dream. I’ve been in a daze since I arrived. Stars, moonlight, ocean, sunsets, church bells, mansions, cottages, ancient trees, snow, crows, and rabbits running around. May I go deeper into dreamland and never wake up. Back in the real world, alas, things are changing and for the worse. But then …
Yesterday we revisited a vintage Esquire cartoon illustrating the snap judgments we make about others upon first seeing them, as well as the importance of wearing the right clothes for the right crowd. Today I realized I had the perfect follow-up sitting in my inbox. It’s a trivial little thing for us clothes-wearing men — …
Esquire, 1949.
The French blog Greensleeves to a Ground (run by Fracis Cazal, whom we wrote about here), recently discovered the Flickr album for the Fessenden prep school in West Newton, MA. The album includes the school’s class photos for the past 100 years and is a fascinating look at the rise and fall of the Ivy …
Although Brooks Brothers didn’t officially launch a full women’s department in its flagship store until 1976, young American women had been infiltrating the bastion of sartorial masculinity for quite some time. Since launching its pink shirt for women in 1949, Brooks had begrudgingly acknowledged the large number of females who wanted to wear the brand. …
When a celebrated person dies and a newspaper does a full-length feature, I’m not sure if it’s technically an obituary. So we’ll call The Boston Globe’s piece on Andover Shop founder Charlie Davidson a tribute. Here’s some background on the man that few of us knew: Born in Lawrence in 1926, Mr. Davidson was of …
Next up from the Ivy Style archives is this lively piece which originally ran in October of 2010. “Sussed” is one of those British slang terms that suggests maybe we really are divided by a common language. It is often used by fans of the Ivy League Look in England — finding its cognate in …
Yesterday I took in a service at Trinity Church here in Newport. It was founded in 1698 and I got to sit in the pew that was used by George Washington. More interesting for us here were the few old WASPy types who were dressed in coat and tie. Each wore a tweed sportcoat (I’d …
RRP has become one of the most entertaining personalities lately in Ivy Style’s Facebook group. Here’s a gallery of some of his outfits and shots around the Los Angeles area (!), with his trademark deadpan jowl-scowl. Reading into his precise state of mind is much of the fun. “Have noticed those who have written about …
It’s kind of funny to think that standards of dress for a football game half a century ago were higher than for much of corporate America today. Several shots of the crowd reveal all the requisite gear: natural shoulders, buttondown collars, rep ties, short haircuts, and crewneck sweaters worn high in the front. — CC
There are men all over the place reminiscing and telling stories about Charlie Davidson. Everyone either knew him or knew of him. Charlie ran The Andover Shop in Cambridge for more than a half century, and saw to the sartorial needs of professors and politicians, students, jazz musicians, and mere male mortals who wanted to …
A person close to Andover Shop founder Charlie Davidson has informed me that he passed away this morning. On a very personal note, I am also heartbroken to learn that he was recently told that I was moving Newport, where he has spent much of his life, and that he said he hoped to see …
It’s hard to believe, but for the first 14 months I ran Ivy Style from the state of California. I founded the site while living in a hilltop college on a street called Princeton in the LA suburb of Glendale, and then for six months — wiped out by the recession and trying to summon …
Alan Flusser recently gave a talk about his new Ralph Lauren bio at the National Arts Club in New York as part of its FashionSpeak Fridays lecture series. Beforehand, I spoke with Flusser about the book, which was 12 years in the making. Photos below are by Jane Kratochvil and courtesy of National Arts Club. …
If you don’t live on the East Coast and are under the age of 60, the term “Boston Cracked Shoe” will not likely have any resonance. But being 77, and having spent all of my business career in the East, it’s a part of the history of the Ivy League Look that is impossible to …
As one grows older and presumable wiser, one should come to the realization that everything in the world that evokes a strong reaction — whether positive or negative — is a reflection of something within oneself. One can only be sure that an object or person is not symbolic of something that arouses unconscious feelings …
Today we revisit this 2010 Japanese interview with Arthur Tarlow, then president of Alden. In it Tarlow talks about how immigrant craftsmen from various European countries brought their own styles and techniques to the US, the confluence of which became a distinct style of shoemaking he calls “American Traditional.” — CC