It’s been a dismal year for American manufacturing, with the lights going off at the Brooks Brothers shirt factory in Garland, North Carolina; the culling of Southwick in Haverhill, Massachusetts; and the impending shutdown of the original Gitman factory in Ashland, Pennsylvania. Surely even the most cynical trads are hoping that at least one factory will …
They never taught me how to baste a suit at Dartmouth, but I had to learn how in a hurry when Ray Jacobs got sick on the road. “The road” was the term used to describe retail travel exhibits that fulfilled the clothing needs of Ivy grads after they left college and refused to partake …
For decades clotheshorses have signaled their custom suits to the cognoscenti by leaving one button on their sleeves undone. This subtle practice eventually served as fodder for budding literary dandy Tom Wolfe in his 1965 essay “The Secret Vice.” But today, thanks to the Internet, the style conscious are ceaselessly bombarded with photos of rakish …
If you’ve been neglecting your seersucker jacket, now’s the time to start wearing it all the time — even while riding the bike you stole from the new dork in school. After all, doesn’t this model from Ralph Lauren’s long-lost Rugby brand remind you of someone?
In 2011 I wrote a piece for Ralph Lauren Magazine on “cycle chic,” which was defined as the culture of riding a bicycle around a city while wearing fashionable clothing. When it came out, I ran a series of posts here under the heading Bicycle Week, and closed it out with the essay below. That …
Longtime friends and colleagues R. Hanauer are a second-generation family business that makes fine neckwear right here in the US — South Carolina, specifically. The team sends Father’s Day greetings, with second-gen Randall Jr. sporting a quarantine beard, and third-gen grandson already sporting a bow. May he spread necktie splendor throughout the 21st century. Show …
This week saw one of the strangest stories ever to hit Tradsville, something as could only befit the year of our lordless 2020. Alden, maker of ultra-conservative footwear crafted in New England, has filed a lawsuit against its former VP and CFO for allegedly embezzling $27 million from the company, $15 million of which was …
Greetings to all, and I hope that your corner of Tradsville has emerged from lockdown and you’ve been able to don some madras and get outside. My first summer here in Newport is already magical. I’ve been surfing at dusk, swimming out to rocks perched in the ocean, and even had my first sail in …
One of the advantages to collecting vintage madras is that it provides the opportunity to compare the idiosyncrasies of this unique fabric. Just as no two bolts of madras are completely alike, no two madras jackets are alike. As a counterpoint to the in-depth historical analysis of Christopher Sharp and the poignant madras-heyday memoirs of …
When it comes to certain things, you just don’t want to know how they’re made. Madras, however, isn’t one of them, as its creation is pretty interesting. The following is a 2011 interview with Cape Madras cofounder Brian Sisselman, who provided these wonderful photos of madras being made in Southeast India, and tells us how your favorite …
The history of the plaid cotton fabric dates back to the turn of the 20th century when it became an informal sporting costume of the Raj. It was British Colonial long before Holden Caulfield enrolled at Pencey. Brooks Brothers introduced the fabric to America in 1920. Not to be outdone by his competitor, my grandfather …
When I visited The Andover Shop in 2010, Charlie Davidson had a handy tip if you’re unsatisfied with the collar roll on your buttondown oxfords. It goes like this: 1) Unbutton the collar. 2) Push it upwards until it achieves an arched shape. 3) Stick the tip of a pencil through the buttonhole and make a …
Today we revisit the sequel to “Take Ivy,” which shows how fast things changed following the fall of the Ivy heyday. * * * The global Ivy Trendwatch continues as a Japanese publisher has re-released “Take 8 Ivy,” photographer Teruyoshi Hayashida’s follow-up to his 1965 tome “Take Ivy.” Sequels are rarely as good as first …
Some complain that slim-fit shirts are evidence of Brooks Brothers losing its way, yet the brethren have offered them for decades, as this late ’80s catalog shows. In faxt, the pleated pants are fuller cut than the shirt. Preppy types have typically preferred a generous cut to their clothing, and this may (or may not) …
Who’s this, pictured here in 1968, one year after the fall of the Ivy League Look? He’s in a state of transition, with mop top hairstyle and blue OCBD with flap pocket and rear collar button.
The name Edward Gorey (1925 – 2000) is almost as elusive as the man himself, conjuring either immediate recognition or hesitant diffidence. Even for the former, the breadth of his work is generational. From designing the Tony Award-winning set and costumes for a 1977 Broadway revival of Dracula, to the opening sequence of WGBH’s Mystery! …
How do prep-school students view clothes in a post-preppy world? Here’s an example published in 2012 in the school newspaper of Choate Rosemary Hall — the school that gave us the navy pinstripe/yellow socks/ribbon belt/bow tie look — sent to Ivy Style by Doria de La Chapelle, co-author of a book on preppy style. * …
In 2013 the Yale Alumni Magazine ran a short but interesting essay showing the importance of “the right clothes” and the ignorance of it for many public school kids admitted in the postwar years. Writes Marty Nichols, who went off to New Haven in the fall of 1948: As my classmates and I converge on …