The Other Brooks

Our last post on the Brooks exhibit at Grand Central inspired this submission from a reader.  Like this post and want more like it, more often? Help keep Ivy Style going for another decade. * * * If one looks closely at the crest on the historic blazer in the recent Brooks Brothers exhibit, it


Now Departing: Brooks Anniversary Exhibit At Grand Central

  Last week Brooks Brothers unveiled its exhibit inside Grand Central Terminal, just a couple blocks from its Madison Avenue flagship. I checked it out on opening day, and found commuters of all stripes — some even rep — who stopped by to have a look. It certainly shows the breadth of the brand over



The Traditionalist’s Hit Parade

In light of the recent J. Press news, let’s “squeeze” in this New York Times piece from 2000. * * * The Traditionalist’s Hit Parade By Ginia Bellafante 12/19/2000 Not too long ago, in an attempt to compete with the world’s Gaps and Banana Republics, Brooks Brothers transformed itself from the kind of store that


After 86 Years, J. Press To Close Cambridge Store

The PR firm representing J. Press has just announced it will be closing the store in Cambridge, which served Harvard men since the heyday of the Ivy League Look. Note: J. Press send out a correction. The store was actually opened 86 years ago, not 68 as previously reported, and as indicated in the press


Cardinal Virtue: A Guide To Nantucket Red Pants

There’s still plenty of summer left, and so new contributor Mawuli Grant Agbefe has rounded up a sampling of the red trousers currently on the market. Agbefe hails from Chicago and graduated from Baylor in 2014. He is currently working as a debate coach. Follow him on Instagram @The_winterwhitehouse. Like this post and want more content like



A Preppy Walks Into A Bar…

Our last post centered around how the ’80s preppy trend was covered in regional newspapers. Now we look at how it was viewed by professional gag-writers. The runaway success of “The Official Preppy Handbook” gave birth to a cottage industry of parodies and knock-offs, including “The Original Preppy Joke Book.” Most of the jokes are


Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Prep

  Like this post and want more content like it, more often? Help Ivy Style reach its goal of 1,000 true fans * * * Everything you always wanted to know about prep but were too stuck-up to ask By Mike Steere The Toledo Blade August 27, 1980 For lack of a better word, we’ll


Tokyo, By Way Of Bermuda

This posted yesterday to Instagram (click here to play). Perhaps the guy had just come from the airport. Then again, that’s a lot of hashtags. 


Professional And Low-Key: Memories Of Langrock Circa 1956

It has been a long time since I worked at Langrock, and, at 79, my memory isn’t as strong as, say, 10 years ago, but here goes. I worked at Langrock’s after school in 1956 or ’57 as cleanup person and gofer. I enjoyed the experience, but as a teenager I personally thought Mr. Decker


Trade Show Roundup: Ties, Ducks, And Wool “Madras”

This weekend is menswear market week here in New York, and so my biannual check-in with the friends and colleagues who help keep the Ivy Style ship sailing as we head into our second decade (if you’d like fresh content on a daily basis, please consider supporting the site). Randall Hanauer, Sr. of R. Hanauer/BowTies.com


From Shoe To Douche: The Fall Of The House Of Biff

Like this post and want more content like it, more often? Help Ivy Style reach its goal of 1,000 true fans. * * * In 1960 Biff wore J. Press and played tennis. That same year he sired Biff Jr., who in 1986 wore Lacoste and Brooks and played squash. That same year Biff Jr.


Mark Fore & Strike, The Tropical Abercrombie & Fitch

Like this post and want more content like it, more often? Help Ivy Style reach its goal of 1,000 true fans. * * * There was a time when the name Mark Fore & Strike was known from Cape Cod to South Florida, notes Thomas Cary of The Cary Collection. Back then, a gentleman wearing


Chip Vs. Charles: Preppies And Yuppies During The Reagan Years

Recently we’ve examined the “bro,” who represents a kind of shadow figure of the contemporary young trad, sharing some of the trad’s qualities, but in a negative way. So what was the shadow figure of the ’80s preppy? Why, the gone-but-not-entirely-forgotten yuppie. Contributing writer Matthew Benz delves in. Like this post and want more content


Death Of The Necktie? Make That Death BY Necktie

Over the years of working the trade shows and covering menswear, I can’t tell you how many lawyers I’ve run into who started an accessories collection, often neckties. Arguing the case for the anti-tie side of things, however, is a California litigator-cum-mayor who made news last week for a proposal that his town of Lancaster


Dashing Overachiever

When I was 18, I decided I wanted to be a renaissance man. It was the late ’80s, and I must have learned the term from the magazines GQ or M, The Civilized Man. It wasn’t exactly a concept knocked about in my particular California suburb, nor passed down from my father. I was already


Summer Lovin’

Like this post and want more content like it, more often? Help Ivy Style reach its goal of 1,000 true fans. * * * I already had this post in mind, and so when, in our previous dispatch on Tab Hunter, Italian comment-leaver and expert in midcentury Americana, Carmelo, invoked the name Troy Donahue, it


Dreamboat Departed: Tab Hunter, 1931-2018

Actor Tab Hunter died yesterday at the age of 86, prompting a revisit of this 2016 post, updated with new images.   Like this post and want more content, more often? Help Ivy Style reach its goal of 1,000 true fans.  * * * Tab Hunter was a clean-cut, all-American ’50s dreamboat heartthrob. But when