I can lay some claim to being a third-generation San Franciscan. My grandparents on both sides settled there, and my parents were raised, met and married there. I grew up an hour north, but that’s close enough for the city to have played an integral part in every stage of my life. After being away …
As lockdowns lift and men begin making their way back to the office, the press is scrambling to figure out how they’re likely to dress. Will they stay in slob mode forever, or would a dash of formality feel rejuvenating? The compromise, obviously, is to pick up where the Dad Style trend left off. The pandemic …
For those of you new to Tradsville, this website was born from a summer 2008 story I did for Ralph Lauren Magazine about Miles Davis getting outfitted by Charlie Davidson of The Andover Shop in 1954 . I was so fascinated by the multifacted stories behind the Ivy League Look that I decided to launch …
Yesterday at Ivy Style headquarters the phone did not stop not ringing, a sign that the cool people, who of course were too cool to bother complaining, were not pleased with the prospect of an entire month (save for Gatsby coverage) devoted to squares. So in the interest of never pleasing all the people all of …
This is Henry, the new mascot unveiled by Brooks Brothers, and who already adorns $50 t-shirts. Henry is named for Henry Sands Brooks, who founded the company in 1818. That was a long time ago, so it’s a futile exercise to imagine how old Henry would regard new Henry. He’d probably be more concerned with …
For reason us Yanks find puzzling, Perkins is revered as a kind of Ivy demi-god in England. We’ve only featured him once here, so it’s time for another nod. You guys can decided whether the “Psycho” star fits our Squareville Appreciation Month, or if he’s the square’s cool antithesis.
Recently I learned of someone who purchased four identical shirts from Mercer & Sons. His belief, in ordering the beautiful stack of shirts in the James Bond tattersall pattern, which arrived crisply-wrapped and topped with the customary personal note from David and Serena Mercer, was that when one finds something you really like, it makes …
Part way through Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” the title character has ostentatiously orchestrated his reunion with lost love Daisy at neighbor Nick’s cottage. Gatsby brings over gardening and catering crews to ready the place, then fills the tiny cottage floor to ceiling with flowers. “Do you think it’s too much?” …
First published April 10, 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” gripped the American imagination and, almost a century later, has yet to relinquish its hold. Its personal, poignant narrative, fatally flawed but perfectly drawn characters, and ability to capture a particular place and time set it apart in 20th century American literature. The story …
The following is an excerpt from Alison Lurie‘s 1981 book “The Language of Clothes,” a fascinating study of the semiotics of clothing. Lurie taught English for many years at Cornell. The book includes a section called “Social Conformity: The Preppie Look.” In it Lurie calls the prep look the descendent of ’50s Ivy League leisure …
After a run of posts devoted to IBM and its ultra-stern dress policy — in which a faux pas in tassel loafers could ruin your chance of becoming a middle manager — we are bringing back a celebration we did many years ago by officially declaring it Squaresville Appreciation Month. Throughout the rest of June …
Although Fortune magazine proclaimed him the most successful capitalist in history, Thomas Watson, Jr. was no pinstriped Chipp-wearing egomaniac. In fact, the IBM president was quite the opposite: a consummate gentleman who once said, “Really big people are, above everything else, courteous, considerate and generous — not just to some people in some circumstances — …
The corporate conformists take a curtain call. Let us peer once again into the offices of International Business Machines, circa 1962. The shots almost have a sci-fi vibe to them. I love the contrast between the vintage computers and simple, formal dress. Today’s web start-ups and flip-flops just aren’t the same. Just because you have …
In keeping with the theme of our last post, Ivy-Style presents the following photo spread. In “IBM Story,” Life Magazine chronicled the company’s new headquarters in Dayton, NJ, which IBM moved into in the fall of 1962. Time changes perspective, and perspective changes everything. IBM at midcentury was the epitome of corporate-drone conformity, a punchline for …
Over the weekend this tweet achieved moderate virality on Twitter. It’s a beau geste by a young man who donned a suit to wear to the hospital where his sister was giving birth, amusing his family and defying social norms with a daring act of counter-subversion. The young man seems to be channeling a combination …
On our recent post on jazz albums from the Ivy heyday, someone commented saying he was at college in the ’50s and that jazz was only for beatniks. Sure beatniks dug jazz, but so did the guys above, and they’re goatee and sandal-free. The photo is from the 1960 yearbook of Lehigh University, and the album …
In 1952, LIFE Magazine ran a profile on the Taft family, one of America’s great political dynasties, having produced President William Howard Taft. The family also produced a prep school — The Taft School in Watertown, CT — which was founded by William’s brother Horace Dutton Taft, an early Skull & Bones member, and attended by …
As a curtain call to our series of ’70s posts from last week — not to mention yesterday’s post on Yale from Richard Press — Barnaby Conrad III shares these memories of Yale in the decade between the fall of the Ivy League Look and the rise of prepdom. Conrad is a writer and artist and …
The role of Yale in American popular culture and the sartorial legacy of New Haven together comprise the metaphor of my life. Ivy Style jogged my memory a few weeks ago when we posted an ad for Macy’s showroom on York Street from a 1941 edition of the Yale Daily News. “Macy’s Knows Its Yale,” …