Midcentury modern fans, as well as guys who are single (or sometimes wish they were), will likely enjoy heading over to our fraternal site Masculine Interiors for a fine article posted yesterday. It’s about Playboy’s architectural and interior design articles of the ’50s and ’60s, and was written by contributor James Kraus. Kraus’ previous articles …
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 …
Our confrere Matthew Jacobsen of OldMagazineArticles.com recently supplied us with a vintage article from the pages of Gentry Magazine (see “The Gentrified Campus.”) Now he follows up with another one, this time from Gentry’s Autumn 1952 issue, that provides an eye-opening glimpse into how collegiate attire was presented to young men at the time. As …
My grandfather Ted Twardzik passed away last Thursday at the age of 89. As so often happens, his passing unearthed many previously unseen photos of him as a much younger man. Among these, one stuck out in particular: a slightly out-of-focus snapshot of him as a student at the University of Notre Dame circa 1950, …
Our last post was on Warren Beatty’s being named one of GQ’s men of the year for 2016. A perfect excuse to revisit this 2012 post on the book “Hollywood And The Ivy Look,” which includes Beatty, along with many other leading men and character actors who launched their careers during the heyday of the …
Continuing on the collar-pin theme, back in February I came across an image that I’m guessing was posted to Ivy’s Facebook group by Marc Chevalier, menswear omnivore and collector of vintage images. It showed Fred Astaire simultaneously wearing a collar pin and buttondown, not with the collar hanging straight and the buttons unused, as in …
This post from 2009 came up in conversation yesterday and is worth revisiting. What an incredible mix of people. I had great fun writing this and imagining the scene. * * * One of the saddest phrases in the English language is “You missed a great party.” Well here’s one we all missed. In 1957 …
This story originally published in November, 2009 and is being reposted in honor of National Coffee Day. * * * For the Beat Generation, there were only two places to live: New York’s Greenwich Village and San Francisco’s North Beach. North Beach has been an old stomping ground of mine since my early twenties. I …
Not me, though. We’re in the middle of a heat wave and I’m miserable without golf and tennis. I’ll take a polar vortex any day. OK I can’t play golf or tennis then either, but at least I don’t sweat just sitting at my desk. Playwright Arthur Miller liked ’em hot — women, that is. …
Last month saw the DVD release of the rescue film “The Finest Hours.” Upon its theatrical release earlier this year, The New York Times movie reviewer Stephan Holden wrote, “The waterlogged disaster ‘The Finest Hours’ is a moderately gripping whoosh of nostalgia that shamelessly recycles the ’50s cliché of the squeaky-clean all-American hero.” That tepid …
Our last post was on the fondness of rich WASPs for junk food, which leaves crumbs on their frayed pink buttondowns. This post is on how rich WASPs dressed in Southampton in 1959. Pictured are Vincent Banker and C. Henry Buhl III going Ivy chic in blazer with sockless bit loafers and madras jacket with …
Today is National Golf Day, for which I offer three documents for your enjoyment. The purely sartorial among you can pore over the details in this photo of the 1959 Yale golf team. * * * Update: Richard Press just sent me an email saying this photo blew his mind, whereupon he proceeded to …
Our recent post “In Praise Of Style And Grace” brought about some brisk discussion on Facebook, mostly on matters of proportion when it came to lapel and tie widths back in the day. For the first half of the ’50s they were fairly neutral, and by the late ’60s they had already swept back to …
OK, maybe not ten thousand (as in the school’s fight song), but here are a few. The handsome gent above and below is Aga Khan (no date for photo; Khan graduated in ’59), whose step-mother was Rita Hayworth: Students and professor, 1952: Book fair, 1957: Commencement, 1961: Alumni Day, 1968: This one is captioned “Harvard …
Thanks to a sharp eye, Ivy Style reader Jim Barge came across an eerie parchment discovery from the antiquity of the Ivy heyday. “I am working on a project renovating the Chelsea District Health Center,” he wrote on Ivy Style’s Facebook page, “and noticed some newspaper sticking out of the wall. I carefully removed it …
You probably remember a few years ago, back when Ralph Lauren Rugby was still alive, and neo-preps were wearing collar pins with buttondown collars. The buttons were not fastened, and had sometimes been removed, but those of the old guard found the look an incorrigible affectation. I recall going into the New York J. Press …
Here’s another great find by comment-leaver and Facebook group member “Carmelo,” from the Esquire archives. In this case, the March, 1950, issue, in the pre-dawn of the heyday. The copy reads: Let the acrobats have hourglass waistlines. And leave the bulking shoulder pads on the football field. For city and campus alike, naturalness is the …
This week the Brown Daily Herald reported that students on campus are practically suffering nervous breakdowns. Why? Because social justice activism is interfering with their schoolwork. Or rather, getting an Ivy League education is interfering with their social justice work. While it’s right and proper that colleges today are open to everyone, perhaps there’s something …