Some years ago The Rake asked me to meditate on the concept of poolside elegance. My starting point was the work of Slim Aarons, while my ending note was James Bond. In between are stops in Palm Beach with a few notes on WASPdom. If anything, this piece should get you thinking about a summer …
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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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In a 1973 issue of the Princeton Alumni Weekly, Richard K. Rein wrote about P-Town’s legendary clothing shop Langrock. “Princeton’s oldest and most successful men’s clothing store,” he wrote, “is a curious mix of effete snobbery, highbrow intellectualism, and small town warmth and personal service that remained singularly unruffled by the sweeping sartorial changes occurring …
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There are several big media pieces worth our looking at. As they came across my desk one by one, a certain theme emerged. The three pieces in question concern WASPs, men’s magazines, and finally a men’s magazine’s view of WASPs, among other things. First up is City Journal, which reports on the end of men’s …
Today we revisit this post from 2010 on the rise and fall of WASPdom. * * * Very belatedly I’m finally getting around to a post on Tad Friend’s “Cheerful Money: Me, My Family, and the Last Days of WASP Splendor,” which was released last year. Like the tribe of WASPs itself, Friend and his …
Nomenclature in Tradsville is a tricky thing, and depends largely on your point of view. Those who like hair-splitting will tell you that a short-sleeved gingham shirt is Trad but not Preppy. Likewise, bit loafers are WASPy but not Ivy. Fair points to an extent, though it gets tedious pretty fast, and bloggers and forum posters …
In his memoir Cheerful Money: Me, My Family, and the Last Days of WASP Splendor, Tad Friend writes, “My generation was the last to receive silver christening cups and to be taken shopping for the chain mail of adulthood: camel hair coats and Brooks Brothers suits and Lloyd & Haig shoes.” The provider of the …
Traditional Ivy style is rarely exhibited by the most visible Ivy League graduates: politicians. For instance, George W. Bush (Yale, Harvard) and Barack Obama (Columbia, Harvard) are never seen wearing sack suits, button down collars, or regimental striped ties. So when and why did establishment Ivy Leaguers abandon the Ivy look? “Goodbye to Wing Tips,” …
Today a conservative New York Times columnist waxed poetic about the virtues of the former WASP establishment. You can imagine how well that went over. Looks like their most lasting contribution to American culture will be their clothing. — CC
A friend forwarded the following from Greenwich County Day School, regarding President Bush: Honoring President George H.W. Bush GCDS Class of 1937 From Adam Rohdie, Headmaster On November 30, America and the global community lost a leader and statesman whose life is a testament to the power of service and an enduring commitment to …
Over the course of nearly ten years, Ivy Style has received some 45,000 comments. According to a reader yesterday, the following is the best — what’s more, it’s the best comment on the entire Internet. I suppose it depends where your interests lie. Nevertheless, this lengthy comment in response to Charlottesville’s essay on the 500th …
At some point in the 1980s, I was working in Manhattan and overheard a conversation between two fellows from another borough discussing one of my business associates, whose unlikely given name was Win, possibly short for Winston. “Win? Who knows anybody named Win?” asked the first. The other guy noted that he had discovered this …
There’s a guy you probably encounter on a regular basis. Sometimes it seems like he’s right over your shoulder, following you. He kind of looks like you. He has a neat haircut. He wears khakis and boat shoes. On festive summer occasions he’ll wear patch-madras shorts and polo shirts in bright, go-to-hell colors. When he …