1960s

Tradified

From The Editor

Matthew Longcore, J. Press Icons Campaign 2024-25 Ivy Style (Ivy-Style.com) is the leading authority on the Ivy League Look. We feature traditional, classic, timeless style. Editor and publisher Matthew Longcore is the founder of the Preppy Handbook Fan Club. He has been featured in The Wall Street Journal and in the J. Press Icons Campaign.

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From The Archives

Penny For Your Thoughts

Ivy Style’s Facebook group hit a milestone last weekend, surpassing 5,000 members, half of which want to strangle the other half by their necktie. And I don’t mean for not having a dimple. Or rather for having one. You get my point. Anyway, the imperturbable souls able to brave social media in 2018 (too strong

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Varsity Town’s Madisonaire, 1966

The “Main Street” Ivy brands that flickered briefly during the heyday often touted their wares as “authentic natural shoulder fashions,” as if one were buying an ethos along with a jacket cut. Of course, among the original arbiters of the Ivy League Look, the natural shoulder was an expression of values and culture. But because they


Dig It: Dexter Shoe Ads, ’65-’68

The 1965 Dexter ad above looks rather like a penny loafer graveyard, which is really where the  Venetian loafers below belong. Such a ghastly shoe, like a face with the eyes, nose and mouth missing. Of course, others likely feel that way about the bit loafers in the final image.



Season Of Brotherly Love

Each year I try to listen to a new Christmas album from the postwar years, and this year I happened upon The Brothers Four. The pop-folk group often wore matching buttondowns, apparently even with ascots or turtlenecks underneath.  You can find them on YouTube, while below is a sampling. God rest ye merry, gentlemen. If


Think For Yourself And Question Authority

Pictured above on right, as captured in the twilight of the Ivy heyday, is Timothy Leary. That’s probably just a name to Xers and Millennials, but Leary — who was a Harvard professor and advocate for the use of LSD — coined a number of cachphrases that came to symbolize the late 1960s, when the


Do-It-Yourself Ivy, 1965

Back in the heyday, if you couldn’t afford to shop at the right stores and mom was handy with a needle and thread, you could get your very own homemade Ivy League jacket for a fraction of the cost, as these images from a 1965 McCall’s pattern book show. It’s possible the in-crowd might not even


Oh What a Knight: Hardwick Ads Of The ’60s

“Oh what a night,” goes the Four Seasons tune, “late December back in ’63….” Well about that time, Tennessee-based Hardwick was selling its natural-shouldered clothing to the masses in a series of chivalrous print ads. According to this one, your “natural shouldered presence” will earn approval from a “damsel”: Hardwick was in the clothing business, but they


My Fair Ad-Man

I was just down at the popular Cliff Walk here in Newport and lamenting the change of seasons that’s in the air. That line from “The Great Gatsby” popped into my head, the one about wishing you could reach out and grab onto summer and keep it just a bit longer. But the seasons come


Jazz, Surfing And Poetry On A Summer’s Day

 Going through our archives, I found this post I originally wrote in 2012 and am pleased to update it for summer 2020, which I think we can all agree is the strangest summer in any of our lifetimes. One year ago I’d decided that 10 years in New York were enough and was planning to