Ivy Style proudly brings back its famous Battle Of The Wits contest. The prize for this contest is nothing less than an ALL CAPS AND EXCLAMATION POINT-DESERVING CUSTOM SHIRT OF YOUR CHOICE BY MICHAEL SPENCER! Contest is open to those who don’t already own a shirt from Michael Spencer. To enter, simply use the leave-comment feature …
Four-and-a-half years ago, our erstwhile columnist The Millennial Fogey mused on the uncertain future of neo-prep. Well, fashion life cycles are pretty short these days, and I think we can say it’s back. I’m a bit biased when it comes to Ralph Lauren. They’re my longest running client, as I’ve written for their online magazine …
Yesterday Stephen Hawking left us for another world. In honor of his passing, we revisit this amazing photo from his college days that we ran last spring. * * * Today we take a trip to England, the country that gave us the blueprint for America’s universities and the raw materials for the Ivy League …
Evidently there’s a day for everything. Today is Alfred Hitchcock Day, and so we raise a toast to actor Anthony Perkins, who starred in Hitch’s 1960 film “Psycho.” Perkins, who’s appeared on Ivy Style several times before, showed that a tall, lanky man can still look great in sack suits and blousy buttondowns. You’d probably, …
Although it’s 2018 and no longer the dubious 50th anniversary of the fall of the Ivy League Look, we can still continue our Dateline ’67 series. This one comes not from the twilight of the Ivy heyday in America, but from the dawning, rising sun of Japan. Tokyo-based W. David Marx tweeted out this vintage …
While struck down by a cold last month, I watched “A Futile and Stupid Gesture,” the new Netflix-produced film about the tragic rise and fall of National Lampoon founder Doug Kenney, played by Will Forte. Of course there never would have been a National Lampoon without Harvard Lampoon, and one of the film’s first scenes …
Today Troy Patterson, Princeton man and longtime linker to Ivy Style in his work, wrote a piece for The New Yorker on Robert Mueller as style icon, linking to this post from last summer. Writes Patterson: Within the community of men passionate about preppy clothing, there’s a lively conversation around Mueller’s preference for starch in his …
If you’re reading this, it’s highly likely you’ve already received the new J. Press brochure in the mail. If not, contact the store by phone or email and ask for one, because it’s terrific. In the meantime, you can check out a PDF right here. The brochure features graphics taken from heyday-era catalogs, the much-improved shoulder …
Four years ago today I lost my dear friend Michael Mattis, who unexpectedly died in his sleep at the age of 49. We had met in our mid-twenties through a mutual intellectual and historical interest in style (specifically, the long literary history of dandyism). As we got older we both found our taste in clothing …
There are several bits of news surrounding John Simons, the so-called patron saint of English Ivy (it’s been so long I’m not sure who coined that term; it might have been here). First off, the documentary about him, “A Modernist,” by Jason Jules and Lee Cogswell, is complete and has been getting theatrical screenings in …
Sorry to disappoint you all, but after much delay, the video of Richard Press’ chat at J. Press’ New York store last month is finally ready and…. — brace yourself — it’s been professionally and stylishly edited down to 90 seconds, making it quite literally a case of shoulda been there.
As a follow-up to our recent post on hook vents, here are two new finds from frequent comment-leaver Carmelo Pugliatti. The first shows a hook vent from the 1890s, when men carried walking sticks and wore bowler hats. Note the lapped seams as well. Below that is is a flash forward two-and-a-half decades later, to …
Things aren’t always what they seem. Activists don’t always dress like paramilitary revolutionaries, and those clad in traditional clothing aren’t always so traditional. As part of our Black History Month coverage, Ivy Style presents a gallery of images of Civil Rights icon Julian Bond, who attended Morehouse smack in the middle of the Ivy heyday, …
First off, apologies to everyone who’s had trouble logging on the site for the past few days. Apparently we’re under attack by robots and are working to block the little devils. In the meantime, what better move than to send you to another website! Well, it’s my duty to report the news. So a couple …
One of the most salient characteristics of the Ivy League Look is the hook vent on suits and sportcoats. Though primarily associated with J. Press — where it became a brand signature along with the combed Shetland sweater and the button-flap oxford shirt — the hook vent was also a common feature on jackets from …
Tonight at 9 pm PBS is airing a documentary about Historically Black Colleges & Universities, entitled “Tell Them We Are Rising”: To get you in the mood, here are a few shots from the 1964 Howard University yearbook. — CC, JR & LJ
A couple of years ago I posed the question “Is trad clothing politically incorrect?” The general consensus was that the answer is “no,” and the reason is because Democrats and Republicans have historically and currently worn traditional American natural shoulder clothing in equal measures, so the look doesn’t belong to the Kennedy dynasty anymore than …
The recent cocktail blast celebrating the new J.Press flagship store on 44th Street, prompted a question from MC media maven, journalist, man-about-town Zach Weiss about my brief time with Robert Frost at Dartmouth. Frost attended Dartmouth in 1892, joining Theta Delta Chi fraternity, but problematic family circumstances forced return to his home in California after …
How selfish are people today? Pretty selfish, it would seem. As in willing to file a class-action lawsuit against LL Bean for dropping its much-abused lifetime return policy. Reports Bloomberg: “The warranty, promising that there are ‘no conditions’ and there is ‘no end date’ has been a core component of L.L. Bean’s marketing and has been …