This past week J. Press unveiled its Spring 2017 collection, the second in a row to feature the use of live models, which made their return last fall. It looks to be the same two models. the older not too old and the younger not too young. The looks feel current without being trendy, a great direction for the company. You can shop the new looks here.
And if you have any questions, leave them here and we’ll see if Ivy Style Millennial Fogey (occasional) columnist DCG, who works part-time at Press, can help get them answered. — CC
The suits shown are mostly made in the USA, good natural shoulders. The key is not, despite internet theories, solely an issue of how thick the shoulder pads are, but rather more dependent on how wide and at what angle to the body.
Going sans socks is a missed opportunity. So very much can be done with hosiery, as several bloggers can illuminate better than I (Will Boehlke, for one). Everyone is entitled to follow their star, of course; but, when one’s choice puts off others, then at least one should be aware of it. Then they can choose to cavalierly offend in an informed way rather than remaining ignorant and blithe.
Sacksuit, funny I was thinking the same about the first and fourth images. Very nice suits. However, at the risk of being harangued by purists, I do not think that it is appropriate to a button down wear with a suit. I know that it’s an Ivy-thing because it’s a blend of sportswear and formal wear but that is one look I just don’t like.
Very New England Trad, but not very original, I’m afraid. Thom Browne featured high water pants and lots of tipped sweaters in his Black Fleece collection for Brooks Brothers many years ago. Plus it was mostly made in the USA. I don’t mean to rain on your parade, but if J. Press is owned by the Japanese , and their iconic flap pocket shirts are made in Malaysia , then what makes them American?
Mitchell: the regular J Press shirts are made in usa, so there’s that…
Doobie: that might have been a funny observation oh I don’t know 5 years ago? looks like press is trying to balance new stuff with old, nice southwick suits with some younger looking stuff, almost like it’s a business that wants to make money
shoulder too wide on a couple of the jackets but others look great, looks like a living company trying things out instead of a dried husk dying with its old customers
I like the photos. I like the sockless look. The shoulders on the jackets have a nice slope.
A button-down collared shirt with a suit was, when I was coming of age in the early 1980s, part of the Brooks Brothers look. The Christmas 1985 Brooks Brothers catalogue says about their “button-down Polo collar shirt” that “we have perfected its making until it has become the definitive American business shirt.” It might not be part of your subculture, GS, and I certainly respect that, but it’s part of mine.
I like this campaign and think it’s a good range for 2017. Not that it matters either way but I do think they look like a couple as well in the last picture!
The golfer jacket (5th photo down from top) looks like a Grenfell. Only a few years ago J Press sold the Grenfell version of the Harrington jacket, and Ben Silver still does, calling it a G9 jacket. There is some discussion as to whether the new Grenfell still produces the old legendary Grenfell cloth (google Paul Winston’s observations on this), but the jackets are excellent nonetheless.
The difference is the price. Ben Silver sells the G9 jacket for $385, and up to a few days ago you could have purchased one on sale for considerably less. Grenfell’s UK website sells the golfer jacket, less VAT, for 291 pounds sterling, which is roughly $360. J Press is selling them for $495. So it’s expensive to begin with, but J Press is adding a considerable premium.
I don’t know why retailers do this. Last fall Sid Mashburn was selling Drake’s panama weave ties for $185, which were simultaneously available at The Armoury and at Ben Silver for $40-$50 less. I got mine through Ben Silver.
Guys, J Press is simply trying to show they have clothes for Trads and those who want an updated, more modern look. They’re honoring their past while trying to compete in today’s market.
I presume they’re doing this so they can sell more clothes and keep the doors open, which are not odd goals for a company. Regardless, they’re trying to attract younger people, who just might see the Ivy Look for the first time and fall for it. That’s a good thing for preserving Ivy, right?
Regarding the photo content, I think the business-oriented ones are good. The casual ones don’t work for me. Perhaps it’s because they’re in the same setting as the biz shots. Maybe they should have separated them, so they work together but not necessarily play together.
I also like the biz clothes more, especially the colors. However, those awful skinny, rolled-up, high-water pants are a current fashion, unfortunately. No socks is as well, though Southern men have gone sockless with sports coat combos for decades.
My biggest issue is the placelessness of the shoot. Someone mentioned they are in New Haven – but as one who loves Ivy Style and knows a few iconic New Haven spots, I had no idea. The shoot just looks like two peacocks who enjoy spending time on sidewalks.
I believe the shoot would have greatly benefited from taking a page out of RL’s book and putting these guys in “real life” scenarios. For all its sappiness and fluff, an over-exaggerated WASP lifestyle shoot would make for a much more entertaining look book than two dudes dressed up on a street corner.
That said – the suits look great and the casual pieces, taken individually, are pretty good too.
I just assumed it was New York since the parent company is headquartered here. Removed the New York reference in the headline pending investigation in this as well as Envelopegate.
If it’s a suit, then wear socks. If it’s a sport jacket and khakis or jeans, then you can skip the socks, but don’t wear brand spanking new shiny stiff shoes. As for the rolled up pants, geez god no, unless you’re on the boat perhaps. Just make it real, don’t be phony and cop a look that you don’t understand.
Not to split hairs (on this site we should) I wore OCBD’s with my suits predominantly on office/corporate days. From the moment you enter the office, off goes the jacket until you leave. To me, the OCBD is the workhorse of shirts.
Let’s be honest, is there really anything that J Press could release that would make us happy? Even if they were stitch-for-stitch copies of original pieces we would have something to complain about: the price, where the piece was made, who made it, the age/disposition of the model, etc.
Even if it was a pitch-perfect recreation at a reasonable price at least one of us would likely assert that the old stuff was “just somehow better.”
M Arthur, interesting I just find that an OCBD is a sport shirt and therefor not suitable to be a dress shirt. I do think that an OCBD should be worn with a sport coat and trousers as that is a more casual look.
Rojo, I am a follower of traditional American style but I do not like every aspect of it, such as pleated pants and sport shirts (like OCBDs) with suits. I do like a mixing of sporty and casual but I feel that a suit should be more formal.
Like some of the other commenters, I prefer the suits to the sports clothes in these pictures, but agree that the company needs do what it must to stay in business in “this present evil age.” I am thankful that a recognizable version of the traditional Press suit is available, even as one option among others. If Brooks were to offer some No. 1 sacks along with the contemporary skinny clothes and nondescript 2-button Madison suits, I would still be a customer for something besides socks, underwear and the occasional shirt or tie.
With a suit, yes. Generally not in bed, in the shower or when swimming. In other circumstances, it varies, but socked is the default position. Like the late Wm. F. Buckley, I cannot see the point of going sockless when wearing leather shoes, but I know that others disagree. Perhaps they are made of sterner stuff, but I find it uncomfortable.
It’s funny. I only wear socks with suits, to ski, and sometimes when the weather gets below 32 degrees and yet I noticed just this morning that I have a drawer full of socks. Like going commando, trad style.
GS — I can go either way with boat shoes. If I am on a boat (rare) or otherwise going to get wet, socks would not make sense. I know that crew socks with topsiders are frowned on, but I find them more comfortable that way for general walking around. I imagine that probably galls real sailors like you and Paul (from Annapolis), but then I am more a mountain and meadow kind of guy. In my defense, however, the pix of JFK below show that he was not always sockless with boat shoes, even when on a boat.
Charlottesville, I am no sailor and can count the times I have been on a boat on one hand but I wear boat shoes in the summer as my main shoe, without socks. To each his own, but I was always told never to wear them with socks. Crew socks go nicely with canvas deck shoes. As far as comfort, my boat shoes are well broken in and I don’t get blisters going sock-less but, again, to each his own!
I have two comments on the J. Press catalog, and then a few more comments on the other issues raised by previous commentators: 1. Rich people, apparently, wear clothes that look bad on them. 2. If one wants to wear the clown outfits depicted in the catalog pictures, why on earth would one pay so much money for the privilege of dressing so poorly? 3. OCBD with suits is an American thing and it is perfectly fine. There are photos of numerous Presidents of the United States wearing OCBD with suits. If you feel that you have to be a slave to the Europeans, then wear some other shirt with your suits. Maybe one with those idiotic “spread collars” that make one look like the flying nuns. Yeah, that would look much better with your suits. Not. 4. There is a big difference between the leather of boat shoes and the leather of most “dress shoes” even including loafers. The leather of boat shoes is almost always so soft and pliable that along with the construction of the shoe, it is very comfortable to wear them new out of the box without socks. Most dress shoes, even many loafers, are uncomfortable that way, at least in the case of loafers until they have been well-worn in. One of the foremost underlying principles upon which the whole Ivy Look is based is comfort. Don’t violate that principle in the name of fashion because there is nothing Ivy League about doing so. 5. The rolled up pants thing is fine for 14 year olds, but that is where it starts and where it ends. On anyone else it just looks stupid.
What “direction” are we talking about here? As far as I can tell these a pretty standard poses. What is the alternative? Recreating Take Ivy pictures? A Leyendecker tableau vivant?
There isn’t a brand alive that is going to put out a lookbook of all jackets and ties.
Not all my cup of tea but apart from #4 I like the way it looks on them. Particularly the cotton sweaters over what appear to be short sleeve shirts–a spring classic IMO. The only really off putting thing is those pants rolled up above the ankle. Looks stupid outside of a dinghy, where I have done it myself truth be told.
Sad to see that at least 5 comments suggest that the models look coupled as though it were a bad/negative thing. Hey guys, your ignorance is showing and bigotry is out of style.
If by coupled you mean homosexual then yes, yes they do. The suit shots and some of the others look alright from a straight traditionalist’s point of view. Just noticing something does not necessarily equate to bigotry or ignorance.
A.) If it were a man and woman featured in the ad, nobody would question the nature of their “relationship,” so yes, noticing and commenting on it as though it were a critique does say something about the critic and
B.) When someone literally says: “Bert and Ernie! Sad to see the direction the legendary ivy clothiers are taking in this modern age,” there isn’t much reading between the lines there.
If it were a man and woman featured in the ad, nobody would question the nature of their relationship. You are exactly right. Homosexuals are an exceedingly small segment of the population. They are being made out to be a larger segment than they actually are and I am not so politically correct that I will accept it as the norm.
J. Press isn’t Brooks Brothers. New York isn’t Omaha. And Yale was the “Gay Ivy” even when ev’rybody pretended to be straight. “Norm” isn’t target market.
Those damn square shoulders that they can’t seem to get rid of.
The suits shown are mostly made in the USA, good natural shoulders. The key is not, despite internet theories, solely an issue of how thick the shoulder pads are, but rather more dependent on how wide and at what angle to the body.
Come see in person!
The sockless look is just wrong.
Going sans socks is a missed opportunity. So very much can be done with hosiery, as several bloggers can illuminate better than I (Will Boehlke, for one). Everyone is entitled to follow their star, of course; but, when one’s choice puts off others, then at least one should be aware of it. Then they can choose to cavalierly offend in an informed way rather than remaining ignorant and blithe.
Looks like all if not most of the photos were taken walking around New Haven…
Don’t understand rolling up the bottom of the pants. Not a good look
A thoroughly modern couple…
Some of the suits are nice. Some of the casual shots look a bit Fire Island to me.
Will
Sacksuit, funny I was thinking the same about the first and fourth images. Very nice suits. However, at the risk of being harangued by purists, I do not think that it is appropriate to a button down wear with a suit. I know that it’s an Ivy-thing because it’s a blend of sportswear and formal wear but that is one look I just don’t like.
Very New England Trad, but not very original, I’m afraid. Thom Browne featured high water pants and lots of tipped sweaters in his Black Fleece collection for Brooks Brothers many years ago. Plus it was mostly made in the USA. I don’t mean to rain on your parade, but if J. Press is owned by the Japanese , and their iconic flap pocket shirts are made in Malaysia , then what makes them American?
J. Press? Or J. Crew? Egads.
I agree with Roger Sack. Not my view of soft shoulder jackets.
Mitchell: the regular J Press shirts are made in usa, so there’s that…
Doobie: that might have been a funny observation oh I don’t know 5 years ago? looks like press is trying to balance new stuff with old, nice southwick suits with some younger looking stuff, almost like it’s a business that wants to make money
shoulder too wide on a couple of the jackets but others look great, looks like a living company trying things out instead of a dried husk dying with its old customers
There’s something about these photos that REALLY throw it off for me.
I like the photos. I like the sockless look. The shoulders on the jackets have a nice slope.
A button-down collared shirt with a suit was, when I was coming of age in the early 1980s, part of the Brooks Brothers look. The Christmas 1985 Brooks Brothers catalogue says about their “button-down Polo collar shirt” that “we have perfected its making until it has become the definitive American business shirt.” It might not be part of your subculture, GS, and I certainly respect that, but it’s part of mine.
I like this campaign and think it’s a good range for 2017. Not that it matters either way but I do think they look like a couple as well in the last picture!
Batman and Robin
The golfer jacket (5th photo down from top) looks like a Grenfell. Only a few years ago J Press sold the Grenfell version of the Harrington jacket, and Ben Silver still does, calling it a G9 jacket. There is some discussion as to whether the new Grenfell still produces the old legendary Grenfell cloth (google Paul Winston’s observations on this), but the jackets are excellent nonetheless.
The difference is the price. Ben Silver sells the G9 jacket for $385, and up to a few days ago you could have purchased one on sale for considerably less. Grenfell’s UK website sells the golfer jacket, less VAT, for 291 pounds sterling, which is roughly $360. J Press is selling them for $495. So it’s expensive to begin with, but J Press is adding a considerable premium.
I don’t know why retailers do this. Last fall Sid Mashburn was selling Drake’s panama weave ties for $185, which were simultaneously available at The Armoury and at Ben Silver for $40-$50 less. I got mine through Ben Silver.
Guys, J Press is simply trying to show they have clothes for Trads and those who want an updated, more modern look. They’re honoring their past while trying to compete in today’s market.
I presume they’re doing this so they can sell more clothes and keep the doors open, which are not odd goals for a company. Regardless, they’re trying to attract younger people, who just might see the Ivy Look for the first time and fall for it. That’s a good thing for preserving Ivy, right?
Regarding the photo content, I think the business-oriented ones are good. The casual ones don’t work for me. Perhaps it’s because they’re in the same setting as the biz shots. Maybe they should have separated them, so they work together but not necessarily play together.
I also like the biz clothes more, especially the colors. However, those awful skinny, rolled-up, high-water pants are a current fashion, unfortunately. No socks is as well, though Southern men have gone sockless with sports coat combos for decades.
So, like, lighten up, dudes.
My biggest issue is the placelessness of the shoot. Someone mentioned they are in New Haven – but as one who loves Ivy Style and knows a few iconic New Haven spots, I had no idea. The shoot just looks like two peacocks who enjoy spending time on sidewalks.
I believe the shoot would have greatly benefited from taking a page out of RL’s book and putting these guys in “real life” scenarios. For all its sappiness and fluff, an over-exaggerated WASP lifestyle shoot would make for a much more entertaining look book than two dudes dressed up on a street corner.
That said – the suits look great and the casual pieces, taken individually, are pretty good too.
I just assumed it was New York since the parent company is headquartered here. Removed the New York reference in the headline pending investigation in this as well as Envelopegate.
The sidewalk vault lights in picture #4 make me think New York.
If it’s a suit, then wear socks. If it’s a sport jacket and khakis or jeans, then you can skip the socks, but don’t wear brand spanking new shiny stiff shoes. As for the rolled up pants, geez god no, unless you’re on the boat perhaps. Just make it real, don’t be phony and cop a look that you don’t understand.
Not to split hairs (on this site we should) I wore OCBD’s with my suits predominantly on office/corporate days. From the moment you enter the office, off goes the jacket until you leave. To me, the OCBD is the workhorse of shirts.
That J Press t shirt is 69$…….ridiculous
Bermuda | February 26, 2017 at 5:01 pm |
Don’t understand rolling up the bottom of the pants. Not a good look
Just a guess, their pants are going back on the rack, they are unfinished , rolled up and pinned.
The clothing looks like a cross between RL and Banks.
Let’s be honest, is there really anything that J Press could release that would make us happy? Even if they were stitch-for-stitch copies of original pieces we would have something to complain about: the price, where the piece was made, who made it, the age/disposition of the model, etc.
Even if it was a pitch-perfect recreation at a reasonable price at least one of us would likely assert that the old stuff was “just somehow better.”
M Arthur, interesting I just find that an OCBD is a sport shirt and therefor not suitable to be a dress shirt. I do think that an OCBD should be worn with a sport coat and trousers as that is a more casual look.
Rojo, I am a follower of traditional American style but I do not like every aspect of it, such as pleated pants and sport shirts (like OCBDs) with suits. I do like a mixing of sporty and casual but I feel that a suit should be more formal.
However, I’d sooner wear an OCBD with a suit than sneakers.
I sometimes think the Duke brothers from “Trading Places” are positing here.
@FLW
I believe you are mistaken sir.
Will
Like some of the other commenters, I prefer the suits to the sports clothes in these pictures, but agree that the company needs do what it must to stay in business in “this present evil age.” I am thankful that a recognizable version of the traditional Press suit is available, even as one option among others. If Brooks were to offer some No. 1 sacks along with the contemporary skinny clothes and nondescript 2-button Madison suits, I would still be a customer for something besides socks, underwear and the occasional shirt or tie.
@Charlottesville
You wear socks?!?
@Sacksuit
With a suit, yes. Generally not in bed, in the shower or when swimming. In other circumstances, it varies, but socked is the default position. Like the late Wm. F. Buckley, I cannot see the point of going sockless when wearing leather shoes, but I know that others disagree. Perhaps they are made of sterner stuff, but I find it uncomfortable.
A loft of sockless guys are actually wearing unseen socklets. Otherwise, their sweaty feet might damage their fancy shoes.
It’s funny. I only wear socks with suits, to ski, and sometimes when the weather gets below 32 degrees and yet I noticed just this morning that I have a drawer full of socks. Like going commando, trad style.
Cheers,
Will
Charlottesville, if you own boat shoes do you wear socks with them?
Whiskeydent you say that as if it’s a bad thing, “dude!”
GS — I can go either way with boat shoes. If I am on a boat (rare) or otherwise going to get wet, socks would not make sense. I know that crew socks with topsiders are frowned on, but I find them more comfortable that way for general walking around. I imagine that probably galls real sailors like you and Paul (from Annapolis), but then I am more a mountain and meadow kind of guy. In my defense, however, the pix of JFK below show that he was not always sockless with boat shoes, even when on a boat.
https://www.pinterest.com/shorelinesail/jfk-sailing/
Well, Randy and Morty, you’re right.
Charlottesville, I am no sailor and can count the times I have been on a boat on one hand but I wear boat shoes in the summer as my main shoe, without socks. To each his own, but I was always told never to wear them with socks. Crew socks go nicely with canvas deck shoes. As far as comfort, my boat shoes are well broken in and I don’t get blisters going sock-less but, again, to each his own!
I have two comments on the J. Press catalog, and then a few more comments on the other issues raised by previous commentators: 1. Rich people, apparently, wear clothes that look bad on them. 2. If one wants to wear the clown outfits depicted in the catalog pictures, why on earth would one pay so much money for the privilege of dressing so poorly? 3. OCBD with suits is an American thing and it is perfectly fine. There are photos of numerous Presidents of the United States wearing OCBD with suits. If you feel that you have to be a slave to the Europeans, then wear some other shirt with your suits. Maybe one with those idiotic “spread collars” that make one look like the flying nuns. Yeah, that would look much better with your suits. Not. 4. There is a big difference between the leather of boat shoes and the leather of most “dress shoes” even including loafers. The leather of boat shoes is almost always so soft and pliable that along with the construction of the shoe, it is very comfortable to wear them new out of the box without socks. Most dress shoes, even many loafers, are uncomfortable that way, at least in the case of loafers until they have been well-worn in. One of the foremost underlying principles upon which the whole Ivy Look is based is comfort. Don’t violate that principle in the name of fashion because there is nothing Ivy League about doing so. 5. The rolled up pants thing is fine for 14 year olds, but that is where it starts and where it ends. On anyone else it just looks stupid.
Bert and Ernie! Sad to see the direction the legendary ivy clothiers are taking in this modern age.
What “direction” are we talking about here? As far as I can tell these a pretty standard poses. What is the alternative? Recreating Take Ivy pictures? A Leyendecker tableau vivant?
There isn’t a brand alive that is going to put out a lookbook of all jackets and ties.
Not all my cup of tea but apart from #4 I like the way it looks on them. Particularly the cotton sweaters over what appear to be short sleeve shirts–a spring classic IMO. The only really off putting thing is those pants rolled up above the ankle. Looks stupid outside of a dinghy, where I have done it myself truth be told.
I don’t think the gray-haired guy is that old. He is (was?) a longtime model for Lands End who seems to have gone prematurely gray.
Sad to see that at least 5 comments suggest that the models look coupled as though it were a bad/negative thing. Hey guys, your ignorance is showing and bigotry is out of style.
@APS
If by coupled you mean homosexual then yes, yes they do. The suit shots and some of the others look alright from a straight traditionalist’s point of view. Just noticing something does not necessarily equate to bigotry or ignorance.
Cheers,
Will
@sacksuit
A.) If it were a man and woman featured in the ad, nobody would question the nature of their “relationship,” so yes, noticing and commenting on it as though it were a critique does say something about the critic and
B.) When someone literally says: “Bert and Ernie! Sad to see the direction the legendary ivy clothiers are taking in this modern age,” there isn’t much reading between the lines there.
If it were a man and woman featured in the ad, nobody would question the nature of their relationship. You are exactly right. Homosexuals are an exceedingly small segment of the population. They are being made out to be a larger segment than they actually are and I am not so politically correct that I will accept it as the norm.
That being said, God love them.
Will
J. Press isn’t Brooks Brothers. New York isn’t Omaha. And Yale was the “Gay Ivy” even when ev’rybody pretended to be straight. “Norm” isn’t target market.
Also: NOT shot in New Haven. Sure looks like NYC to me.