A reader submitted the fascinating graphic above that supports the assertion around here that the 1967/68 academic school year marks the rapid fall of the Ivy League Look.
The chart shows not the wearing of buttondowns and penny loafers, but the beginning of a sudden spike in facial hair, even mere sideburns.
The spike trends for some five years, peaking around 1973.
You’ll also note a rapid decrease in facial hair among college grads during across the decade of the ’80s, when the clean-cut preppy and yuppie trends were exerting their influence.
Below, a shot of Princeton in 1970 with sideburns, mustaches, beards, and — even more anti-establishment — women. — CC
I grew mutton chop sideburns and a mustache about 1970, at age 18. Wore them both up to 1976 or so, then just a nice modest mustache until the mid 1980’s. I’ve been clean shaven since then.
The guy on the front left (with the turtleneck, glasses, and open coat) pretty much approximated my look, including the glasses. He even parted his hair left to right, like me.
I’d like to see what the guy in the houndstooth sport jacket looked like. Wouldn’t want to mess with the feminist flashing the peace sign. (victory sign.)
In 1967 some of us were here and still are:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/97/74/13/977413c99139f22e56990475fd2be8b2.jpg
No regrets whatsoever.
Like many, I have experimentally grown and shaved a couple of beards, but have been clean shaven for almost my whole life. Generally, classic Ivy and beards did not have a lot of overlap. However, although I don’t see any category on the chart expressly for Viking Trad, Christian is keeping the full beard contingent alive in the 21st century.
What exactly is Viking trad?
Dirt bags of the day look alot like the dirt bags of today.
GS — Should have been ” Viking Prep.” CC coined the term to describe his wearing of a blonde beard with Ivy clothing. Here is one reference. http://www.ivy-style.com/the-editorial-meeting.html
Interesting uptick in sideburn sportage in the early 90s as the Beverly Hills 90210 phenomena took hold.
Surely the “Full Beard” percentage has spiked sharply upward since 2006…
I had a Karl Marx full white beard ten years ago. I saved it leaving a handlebar mustache which I still have. While I was going for the Lord Kitchener look. What I ended up with is a Tyrone Powers version of The Razor’s Edge mining scene extra look. 😉
Thank you, Charlottesville, I had not come across that article.
Grew my beard post-college, when a bald spot finally filled in. I was making a statement: “I can fake a strong jawline.”
As for hair, does it mean anything that the four men (of any notoriety) who have stuck with sack coats and repp ties are all mop heads? No facial hair (well, except one), but plenty of hair on top. Tucker Carlson, John Bolton, P.J. O’ Rourke, and George Will.
and conservatives, each and every. Trad as philosophical statement. Burkeans unite.
According to a great little essay by C. Northcote Parkinson “the clean-shaven face is associated with…periods of dominance” while the “beard has characterised periods of uncertainty”. Worse, the beard has been associated with bad architecture (1858-1908 with a slight recovery in 1890) while clean chins with great architecture (1650-1850). Worse again, beards gave us “furniture and interior decoration [that] reached a climax of inconvenience, ugliness and bulk.” Chapter 9, ‘Barbarity’ from The Law of Delay, John Murray, 1970 (with illustrations by Osbert Lancaster)
Lincoln Chafee is more or less center-left at this point, but he also has that same stupid haircut.
It’s both sad and revolting, the look of some slobs today, especially the supposed “role models” among the ranks of professional athletes. I point especially to baseball, where so many players look like something dragged up from a clogged sewer drain – that, or, at best, a deranged Moldavian drug lord.
I’ve nothing against neat facial hair. But what is the appeal in looking like someone who crawled out of a cave?
funny, I think of the uber short haircuts a lot of men prefer as stupid looking.
Like Will Richardson’s crew cut?
don’t know who that is.
but as a matter of principle–yes, a crew cut can look stupid. Especially on a guy with a larger head.
At school (in the ’70s), if a kid had a crew cut, he was called “Cue Ball”.
Counter-culture ‘Ivy’. I like the sound of that immensely. That Princeton photo is spot-on. That roll-necked fellow on the left, especially.
This ’67 “hairy” epiphenomenon also correlates strongly with the rise of crypto-communism (hippy movement) in that era too. Coincidentally, we now see a rise in “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings” on campuses today (crypto-communism once again)
By “crypto-communism” I mean the push for a procrustean ideology and “sameness.” Everyone who is seen as “privileged” is described with words that end in -ist.
That being said, I’d like to see the source/data for that chart. Any explanations for the sharp decline in cleanshavenness? Even if being cleanshaven were illegal, I don’t think it would drop that fast.
Beards were a REAL mimeme (“meme”).
And the clean cut 1950’s were not a time of procrustean ideology? I seem to recall someone named McCarthy calling a lot of people a word that ended in “ist.”
James,
Touché. At least McCarthy only had one -ist in his vocabulary… and not 6 or 7. That being said, I think we all seem to be opposed to the -ist suffix being used liberally (no pun intended).
Just noticed that not a single person in this photo can manage a smile. It was an unhappy time for these types.
You must understand that the composition of liberalism is sixty percent, self-righteousness, thirty percent brainwashing, and the rest a mixture of anger, indignation, lack of patriotism, loathing and pettiness for a hundred percent of obnoxiousness stupidity.