I have been spending some time with J. Crew lately, following the new Creative Director Brendon Babenzian, who is taking his turn at reviving a brand with updated Ivy. I note that the companies who never stepped off Ivy in the first place also never needed to revive anything with updated anything. Still, Babenzian seems …
James sent me this. It is Springsteen. It is not Woody Allen. You can kinda see his earring, that’ll be our differentiator. The Boss wears Ivy with an earring.
(While I marvel at some people’s need to avoid civility whilst expressing a different opinion, let’s try the paywall links, marked as such, and if it works then great – many thanks to those who were able to be civil during this process. One of the things that I wanted to do with this site …
Sorry, but everyone has been sending in such good stuff, and I don’t want it to get stale. First, a word about linking. I think the smartest policy is this, but as with Ad Men, I could be wrong. We don’t link to paywalls because if I were the reader and I followed a link …
If you want Ivy bona fides, this is all you need to know. I walked into the sales offices of St John Bay Rum Company in Ridgefield CT a few minutes early, and asked Rhys Moore for a picture. He swung around and grabbed a tie, and proceeded to tie it PERFECTLY while holding …
You can learn all about Mr. Hozumi’s extensive career illustrating the elements of Ivy Style here. In September Mr. Hozumi’s Illustrated Ivy will be released. From the publisher – Since the 1960s, Kazuo Hozumi has documented the minutiae of Ivy League-style clothing. His cheerful characters are shown wearing button down shirts, buckle-back chinos, natural shoulder …
Yes, there has been a slight downtick in August. Not of readership, oddly enough, but of verbiage. I was taking a minute. But one more week, then we go back to at least four posts a week. With actual words. More than 78 of them. Mitchell sent me a few good things to take a …
As per Marc Chevalier, the WOCBD was a close call. Speaking of Brooks, I went to the website just to see what is cooking for the fall. This young man was at least wearing a bow tie on the home page, and I wanted to celebrate the win. Things of note – the …
The Ivy League has been used to sell a lot of things, not just clothes. Old School was kind enough to send me this: Postum is interesting stuff. Or was, you don’t see it around anymore. It is roasted wheat bran and molasses, and was used as a coffee alternative. It may have …
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Editor’s Note: The Featured Image is from a 1910’s Brooks catalog. If you are not a member of the Facebook Group, and you participate in social media, you are really missing something. We settled the debate over double breasted blazers the other day, for example, with this image from our own Marc Chevalier, from the …
Editor’s Note: The featured image is James Lipton with Bradley Cooper, who is decidedly Ivy in Wedding Crashers and rowed for Georgetown. Which I know is not an Ivy school. But I still think West Point should be added to the Ivy League. I did not know that James Lipton worked for a …
Editor’s Note: Navy veteran Scott Rye is the author of two non-fiction books, Of Men and Ships: The Best Sea Tales, and Men & Ships of the Civil War. While doing some research for another project, I came across the fascinating story of Reginald Spear, a young member of the OSS in …
On a site featuring Ivy Style, the 1994 movie Quiz Show has received one line of mention. Yet it stands amongst the great Ivy movies of all time. There is a piece on here about Charles Van Doren, which is good. He had Ivy bona fides. Columbia. His father, Mark Van Doren, was even-more-Ivy, …
Ok, first I went to Take Ivy. Because it’s Take Ivy. But the problem is this, the argument for the t shirt in the Ivy Canon (I capitalized that) stops there. So the rest, we have to sort out ourselves. Yes, you can see Steve McQueen in a t shirt. But of course …
I have never seen an episode of Mad Men. A whole episode. I watched maybe the first half hour of the first one, and it was not my jam. When I took over the FB Group, there was this huge thread about how Mad Men was Ivy and about how we should all be dressing …
Editor’s Note: I don’t agree with everything in here. But I can disagree respectfully. I did, however, want to take any opportunity, including the one that Mr. Charles Bellinger kindly offered me, to trumpet the message of inclusion, gate-opening, and cultural relevance. The Classics Are For Everyone. – JB JB recently posed a question to …
J. Crew’s Fall Lookbook is out. Here are some photos. It is the premier collection for men’s creative director Brendon Babenzien there, and while it isn’t at all pure Ivy, there are enough influences to tell you which way young designers are leaning. That’s good news. They are …
I remember getting lit up one time by a reader in the Facebook Group about wearing a Harvard sweatshirt when I didn’t go to Harvard. And in his profile pic,the guy was wearing a Yankee cap. I used to think it was a measure of intelligence to be able to hold both sides of an …