My Kinda Clothes: Motif Ties

We interviewed Benton Nilson back in April. Now he takes on our regular series My Kinda Clothes, which is named for a delightful little phrase used by Charlie of The Andover Shop. If you’d like to write about your own personal style, use the email contact button above.  * * * In my eyes, motif


Oak Street Bootmakers Made In USA Sale

There’s still time to take advantage of the Labor Day sale at Oak Street Bootmakers, one of the sponsors that puts the wind in the Ivy Style sails. Oak Street makes its shoes in Chicago, and offers such trad classics as beefroll penny loafers, bit loafers, boat shoes, camp mocs, and chukka boots. Head over


Endless Summer: Haspel’s 110 Archival Seersucker Collection

The following is a sponsored post from Haspel. * * * It may be the last semi-official day of summer, but as Haspel likes to say, it’s always seersucker season somewhere. It’s no surprise they’d say that, given that seersucker has been their business for over a century. So for those of you who have no


The Bucks Stop Here

This weekend marks the end of summer, and therefore the end of white-bucks season Unless  you’re Pat Boone, who, like college men in the ’30s, wore his year-round. His above collection is from 1959. Go here for a CBS News slideshow on the clean cut idol, who in mid-life made a heavy metal album.


The Cable Guys

Looking back on this 2009 post by old friend Michael Mattis, which touches on the timeless themes of trad clothes and “no hard sell” because the stuff sells itself. * * * If some places never change, it’s because they never need to. They have reached a pitch, if not of perfection, then at least


Student Body: First Coeds at Princeton

In 1969 the old-boy network at America’s most stylish university was broken with the admission of female students. The fellow above is clearly pleased with the change. Not only in the student body (and what a body it is), but with campus fashion. Sartorially speaking, the pivotal year of change — 1967 — was two years


Kamakura Shirts Video + Vintage Ivy Collection

Like things buried in your closet that you didn’t know you had, I keep finding drafts of old posts that apparently never published or became deactivated for some reason. This one goes all the way back to 2012 and includes the following video clip from Japanese TV. And while you’re in a Kamakura mood, head


Standards Maintained At Henley Royal Regatta

Unless you are reading Ivy Style under the impression that you will learn something about the various species of the evergreen climbing plants that include Hedera helix and Parthenocissus quinquefolia, you probably do not need telling that, sartorially, the world is in a race to the bottom. Ivy Style readers and their fellow travelers are


Bass From The Past

This selection of vintage Bass Weejun ads comprised one of Ivy-Style’s earliest posts. Check out this next one from the pivotal year of 1967: Weejuns and wingtips juxtaposed to sandals and flower-power graphics. Post updated with a few new images, including a couple of snazzy loafer-clad guys. — CC  



Preppy Hippie From Mississippi: An Interview With Sid Mashburn

Earlier this year I had a buttondown shirt made for me at a Sid Mashburn trunk show in Boston. Pleased with its quality, I reached out to the Mashburn team for details about their shirt offerings, both MTO and ready-to-wear. I received the answers I was looking for (it’s an unfused collar with 3¼” points), but


Don’t Call It Collegiate: Apparel Arts, 1933

I found this post sitting on Ivy Style’s server, never published. The only note is that it dates from a 1933 issue of Apparel Arts. * * * The word “collegiate,” now seldom used in speaking of college men, is altogether foreign to its famous meaning of some eight years ago, when the raccoon coat,



Still Fresh: Yale Freshmen from the LIFE Archives

From LIFE Magazine‘s 1964 story on Yale freshman Tim Thompson, which Ivy-Style covered here. Thompson, clad in black Chuck Taylors, reading Camus’ “The Stranger” — in French (this is Yale). Note neckties draped over lamp behind him: Thompson with back to camera, showing third collar button: Bow tie with club collar: Pinned club collar with


Old School Ties And Flap-Pocket Oxfords

Immediately following our 2,000th post, Ivy Style reached another milestone: reader comment number 50,000. It was made by a regular — “Old School Tie” — and as a thank-you for his longtime participation, J. Press has kindly offered to present him with a flap-pocket OCBD. There’s an enormous number of options when it comes to


No Socks In Sight: The Heyday Of Southern Collegiate Style

This is part one of a two-part piece on collegiate style in the South during the heyday. It is recounted to us by contributor James H. Grant. * * * The distinction between the mode of dress known as Ivy League and the Southern Collegiate Style – if one actually exists – is somewhat murky.


MMilestone: Ivy Style Reaches Post #2,000

Eleven years ago, in the middle of August 2008, I had just published the “Miles Davis goes to The Andover Shop” piece for Ralph Lauren Magazine, and was so fascinated by this little-known anecdote of Americana that I was working hard at launching a daunting new web project called Ivy-Style.com. From Los Angeles, of all


Wythe Not? Another Perfect Oxford

Ivy style has had something of a moment lately, and no Ivy moment could be complete without yet another online brand vying to recreate the OCBDs of old. On July 28th a new venture calling itself Wythe New York launched a Kickstarter campaign titled “The ‘Perfect’ Oxford Shirt,” hoping to raise $10,000 by August 25th. By