Last month, when we shared G. Bruce Boyer’s piece on cardigan vests for Drake’s, someone remarked that cardigans are fine under sportcoats, but never under blazers. Naturally we followed it up with a series of images from Ralph Lauren that included — what else? — cardigans and blazers. And then the new issue of the …
When I was an undergraduate at Moravian College in Bethlehem, PA, there was a wonderful campus shop on Main Street called Tom Bass. It served three colleges and a university (Moravian, Muhlenberg, Lafayette and Lehigh University), and it stocked many of the iconic Ivy League labels: suits by Southwick, buttondowns by Gant and Sero, Pringle …
Funny how everything’s turned upside-down, as I argued in the “50th Anniversary Of Slob Nation” essay. Back during the Heyday, Brooks Brothers never had to invoke the terms “Ivy League” or “preppy” — in fact company executives often abhorred the terms — for a very simple reason: Brooks had crafted its signature style long before …
We’ve still got a lot of counting down to do until overcoat season arrives. In the meantime you can start counting up, as in saving your pennies for a chesterfield coat. Check it out on this young man of yore. — CC
In honor of Ralph Lauren‘s 50th anniversary in business, here are 67 vintage marketing images to celebrate the year 1967.
The last post, as always, brought out debate — this time on the little matter of cardigans under sportcoats. One reader pointed out that cardigan (whether sleeveless or not) under a tweed jacket was fine, but never under a blazer. Well such rules have never stopped the folks at Ralph Lauren, as this image shows. …
G. Bruce Boyer has a new piece for the Drake’s website on one of his signature items, the sleeveless cardigan. Writes Bruce Almighty: Of the two classic sleeveless knits to wear under a suit coat or sports jacket – the V-neck pullover and the cardigan – the cardigan is surely the most elegant and versatile. …
This fall Gant has given an eco spin on the patchwork preppy classic. Just as old school items, according to Paul Winston of Chipp, were often made from scraps of old cloth, Gant’s new limited-edition, one-of-a-kind shirts are “upcycled” from fabric shirtings in the company’s archives. To purchase a shirt — which manages to be …
Whenever I make my annual pilgrimage to the Bluegrass state I play “My Old Kentucky Home” as I cross the bridge over the Ohio River from Indiana. The racialized original version, not the sanitized one played for the world to hear at Derby (locals never refer to it as “The Derby,” or even “The Kentucky …
Update 8/18: Orders have been sent out from the third production run of the Ivy Style Club Tie. There are about 20 leftovers, so grab yours fast (click the Buy It Now button at the bottom of this post). Other products are being developed, so there are no plans to do another club tie run. …
Keeping the Virginia theme going, a sharp-eyed reader sent a link to this photo of House Of Delegates Clerk G. Paul Nardo, who gave the press a tour of the new Pocahontas Building in Richmond wearing a patch-madras sportcoat. Now that’s Southern Business Casual. — CC
In Charlottesville, VA, resides the legendary menswear shop Eljo’s, whose wares are succintly described on the store’s front sign: “traditional clothes.” Founded by brothers Elliot and Joseph Hyman in 1950, the shop has changed locations twice and is currently located just off the bustling Barracks Road shopping district. Eljo’s features an assortment of Ivy and …
Here’s a sneak peek at what J. Press has cooked up for this fall, as recently unveiled on its Instagram account.
Well that’s a coincidence. No sooner had I posted on the completely made-up concept of “beatnik prep” than a reader informs me that that is the very theme of an upcoming collection. Beams Plus, the Japanese brand known for its Ivy and vintage Americana, has developed a collection entitled “The Subterraneans” for this fall/winter. The …
In Thursday’s post about Brooks Brothers, some readers expressed horror at the pairing of tailored clothing with sweatpants. While I certainly made fun of the forced nonchalance of adding a pocket square to the mix, combining athletic wear with jackets and trousers gets to the very heart of how college men revolutionized the way the …
Yesterday the trade publication WWD ran a slideshow of the Brooks Brothers Spring/Summer 2018 collection, giving us the first glimpse of what the company has up its sleeve in celebration of its 200th anniversary. Alas it was more of the same, and we will have to wait and see if Brooks has any kind of …
Perhaps, in some dystopian future, strange people (such as Ivy Style readers) who do not want to wear shirts that ’T’, pants that ‘sweat’ and shoes that ‘sneak’, will be placed in confined areas so as not to shock the majority of the population, that is those whose clothing style resembles homeless teenage skateboarders on …
Yesterday we looked at young JFK in 1941 and wondered if his knit tie was black or navy. Today we have a knit tie whose hue is not in doubt. This is Ivy Style contributor Pani M., who’s channelling George Plimpton with his hair and severely underplaying his madras jacket with a severe black knit …
Who doesn’t love more JFK? On July Fourth we celebrated President Kennedy and the stars and stripes. Today we celebrate solids and stripes — plus a plaid. This pattern-mixing scheme of plaid jacket, striped shirt and solid tie is a timeless winner. I don’t recall having seen this photo before, which was just brought to my …