In honor of St. Patrick’s Day we pay tribute to the Irish — specifically the Fighting Irish of the University Of Notre Dame. After a long and fruitless search for vintage images, I finally found a few in the campus magazine called The Scholastic, where there were some ads for Arrow buttondowns, “natural” tuxedo rentals (with …
After all these years, has anyone in Tradsville pointed out that March 2 is 3/2? That makes it the perfect day to celebrate the history of the Ivy League Look with National Ivy Style Day. If it’s been noted, please excuse the lapse as I’m fast approaching the point where I’ve forgotten more than I …
Try to be less grumpy!
As a follow-up to our last post on Taylor-Made shyoes, here’s another Main Street retailer that used the term “Ivy League” in its ad copy once the look became popular. These two Stetson ads are from 1953 and 1955 (coincidentally the same years as the Taylor-Made ads). Thanks to frequent comment-leaver “Old School” for alerting us …
Once the Ivy League Look gained popularity during the silver age of the ’50s, Main Street clothiers used the term as an advertising buzzword. Needless to say, Brooks Brothers and J. Press never had to resort to the term, and in fact dismissed the term “Ivy League” with mild scorn, as they’ve always done with …
A couple of weeks ago we posted a collection of vintage Dexter advertisements, and now here’s an interesting follow up. In 1968, as the Ivy League Look was plummeting in popularity, the shoe that would cement itself as a preppy staple in the 1970s was gradually garnering greater attention. The above ad is from The …
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 …
If you hold a mirror up to your computer screen, you’ll see that the gent being measured for a jacket is at the venerable clothier Chipp, as seen in this illustration from the company’s 1965 catalog. Ivy Style asked Paul Winston, son of the Chipp founders, for any insight on the drawing, and he replied, “The …
Nine years ago Jeffrey Banks and Doria de La Chapelle presented me with a copy of their book, “Preppy: Cultivating Ivy Style.” It was an honor as a couple of my Q&As for Ivy Style are cited in the credits, as is W. David Marx’s article on the Miyuki-zoku, plus work from early Ivy Style …
Today Ivy Style extends warmest wishes for a happy International Men’s Day, with a little help from Harvard’s theatrical troupe The Hasty Pudding Club. The above image dates from the 1880s, when men were men.
This Norman Hilton advertisement dates from 1958. The copy includes the phrase “comfortably distinctive,” which is a good description of the Ivy League Look in general. Being distinctive while still comfortable is much more challenging, alas, when not wearing a flannel suit and soft-roll collar. But let the principle guide us nevertheless.
Back in 2011 I wrote a little piece on the navy blazer for Gilt MANual, calling it the Swiss Army Knife of tailored jackets. And yes, I’ve actually worn it as a warm-up jacket to the tennis court. That’s probably a bit affected, but it was rather enjoyable, and probably for that reason. One thinks of …
For Election Day 2020, here’s trivial troika of retro diversions. First up is the Kennedy clan in 1960, looking concerned when the outcome was still undecided. Perhaps JFK was humming our second vintage distraction, the Kingston Trio’s signature song “Worried Man”: And thirdly, from the previous election cycle of 1956, we have the debut cover of …
This advertisement depicts the classic fall combo of gray flannels and penny loafers, with the added details of cordovan leather and buckle on the back. The ad ran in Gentry magazine in 1954.
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 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 …
This interview originally ran in 2011, but the historic information on Gant, one of the most celebrated brands of the Ivy heyday, has evergreen value, and so today we pay it a revisit. * * * With fashion in a constant state of flux, it’s no wonder apparel brands are less than assiduous when it …
Today we feature a random assortment of vintage images that have been lying around in an old shoe box, metaphorically speaking. And yes that’s a pun on “shoe;” after all, some of these images are from Yale. This one, however, is from an altogether different kind of campus shop: College men were once …
A clean-cut appearance has always been part of the Ivy League Look. With a soft-shouldered jacket and Princeton haircut, a young man could conveniently mask his salacious intentions. After all, what father could fear for his teenage daughter’s honor while on a date with a boy wearing a cardigan? In the 1950s, this kind of …