Collective Wisdom is our new series in which I cleverly redirect questions that land in my inbox to you, the illustrious commentariat, because someone seeking advice should have access to more opinions than just mine. TJ writes: I’m taking the family to Paris in a week. I really wanted to pack clothes that were neutral …
A few weeks ago I received an email from a Bermuda-based clothing brand, and, in light of our current island-based miniseries, now is the perfect opportunity to address it. It’s also a follow-up to my essay on the “bro,” which I thought was posted not so many months ago, but in fact dates from last …
Today loyal reader BC emailed me to say he’d just returned from Bermuda and rushed to check Ivy Style to see what he’d missed. Coincidentally, our most recent post was on what to pack for a trip to Bermuda — if you were a wealthy Princeton man in 1949, that is. So here are a …
Our man in Princeton is semi-officially Julian B. Dean, an Australian doing graduate work there who’s fascinated by the history of the Ivy League Look. This guy is so dedicated he’ll take the train in for J. Press events and then train back home in the wee small hours. Dean will be presenting a number …
Random photo discovered on Pinterest. Checked sportcoat, club tie, and blue buttondown with delightful roll.
Whenever we put up a post on the bright colors and crazy patterns of what is known colloquially, or rather Internetically, as go-to-hell, the chorus of curmudgeons always chimes in with cantakerous remarks about how it’s all mere kids’ stuff. There’s no changing the minds of intractable fellows such as this, but for those of …
Our last post was about color, its charming effect on others and how that can open up new possibilities in your own life. And so we follow it up with a man who regularly wore bright colors and who also charmed millions, the late, great Fred Rogers. Last year Ivy-Style contributor Andy Owen wrote a …
I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with color. You could say there are two archetypal 19th century dandies dueling in my closet: George “Beau” Brummell, the so-called father of modern costume, advocates in favor of a simple palette and elegant restraint, while on the other side is Count Alfred d’Orsay, the “butterfly dandy,” who was …
England is just kicking off its first game in the World Cup, and so here’s a bit of belated Blighty Ivy news. In the wake of the new documentary about UK Ivy pioneer John Simons, last month The Guardian ran a lengthy profile, in which the soon-to-be 79-year-old talks about the “magical and distant” place …
You don’t have to be a staunch supporter of our president to be capable of diagnosing Trump Derangement Syndrome. In fact, a couple of tolerant, level-headed guys were talking about it just the other day. And so today a story caught my eye that immediately made it roll. “I didn’t buy my dad a tie …
Last night was the opening party for Rowing Blazers‘ summer pop-up shop. Located in Downtown NYC, founder Jack Carlson secured a much larger space than last summer, and pulled everything together in about a week. As befitting the Downtown location, the party was packed with the young and hip. I spent most of the evening catching …
Hippy Ivy is back, and may be a recurring theme this summer so long as I can keep my tongue planted in cheek without getting a muscle cramp. So last weekend there was fine weather here in NYC, so I went into Central Park for some sunbathing, meditation/contemplation/reading, and of course bikini-watching. Then I made …
Recently this photo came on my radar. Taken by Jean Pierre Leloir, it was attributed to the year 1946, making it quite surprising indeed. That’s a full eight years before Miles Davis got decked out in Ivy threads at The Andover Shop, yet here he is in a buttondown. I shared it on Twitter, saying …
Do you have a clothing conundrum and can think of nothing better (and braver) than calling upon the collective wisdom of the Ivy Style commentariat? Use the contact button above to email your query to the editor. * * * Gentlemen, your sage advice is needed for hapless reader Mr. J, who can’t figure out …
It’s becoming a Saturday tradition around here for me to share my self-improvement articles and essays. It’s the slowest day of the week, and I realize not everyone feels they need improving. For example, some people have been Internet trolls since the earliest days of the web and still haven’t snapped out of it. Let …
Today is National Seersucker Day, aka Seersucker Thursday, but we’re going to flashback to another day of the week, namely Monday, when J. Press hosted a shindig for David Coggins, who has a new book out called “Men And Manners.” For the event, Squeeze’s own DCG was clad in a mint-green seersucker jacket made by …
My farewell at J.Press half a decade after the sale of the family business in 1986 was orchestrated by Norbert Ford. Norbert was a charismatic entrepreneur who began his career dressing windows at the original Abercrombie and Fitch safari, rifle and menswear emporium on 45th and Madison. He was a scrappy senior executive, and when …
We bring the run of khaki-themed posts to a close with info on a US-made brand doing khakis the old-fashioned way. Some of you may have received an email blast last week from O’Connell’s plugging pants that looked strangely familiar. Similar to another brand, except that the monosyllabic name behind them is Frank. I reached …
Contributing writer Christopher Sharp has buckled-down, hit the books, and put his nose to the grindstone in an effort to suss out once and for all the origins of the mid-’50s buckle-back chino trend. * * * During my formative years back in the Fifties, I was the kind of kid who was secure in …