Here is a definition of the Ivy League Look from www.retroland.com, perhaps not the most reliable source, but it is interesting for it shows how mass the Look was, in whole or part.


Ivy League Look:

The financially prosperous times of the 50's sent kids off to college instead of war, and the best way to prepare for your collegiate days was to dress the part in your Ivy-look clothes. Madras plaid dress shirts with button-down collars, V-neck sweaters, and slim legged chino pants marked the college boy, while slim sweater sets, pleated skirts, and sweet saddle shoes all but guaranteed a good girl entrance to the university.

Back then, a college-bound kid took pride in his conservative appearance-after all, it was quite an achievement to continue on to higher education. The college look differed from the blue jean, leather jacket wearing ruffians that were doomed to pump gas down at the corner station for the rest of their lives. The square kids, in their neatly-Brylcreemed hair or pretty bow bouffant, were filling up on knowledge and going places.

Sears offered their own line of clothes, 'Fraternity Prep', guaranteed to make the boys look college ready. A crisp pair of chinos, paired with a buttoned-to-the-neck Ivy-look check shirt, a snappy cardigan sweater worn over top, and a pair of penny loafers prepared you for frat parties, panty raids, or whatever other shenanigans fraternity life might bring.

Unfortunately, girls weren't given a 'Sorority Prep' line of clothing, but they did get the option to 'look like mom' in crisp and fresh shirtwaist dresses by Kerry-Teen.

Terry Lean wrote:

And good to remember that these kids were just going to college. Any college. Not just the Ivies.

It might even be argued that post-WWII or at least post Vietnam, a lot of the smaller liberal arts colleges in the US were more Ivy than the Ivys...

Some interesting discussion on this thread regarding US influence on 60s UK style and some great pics of Yardbirds, Stones etc. I wonder if the American influence was mainly a London thing and to what extent was it picked up elsewhere? In the 1950s Liverpool sailors adopted the look:

http://www.liverpool2007.org.uk/cunardy … dyanks.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8jy31mC47M

Any other examples of provincial UK Ivy?

Cheers,

TBW

Last edited by The Big Wheel (2007-03-07 05:30:04)

Thanks Terry. I believe the DJ at the Twisted Wheel was Roger Eagle, who played the originals in exactly the same order as the covers on The Stones' LP.

Last edited by The Big Wheel (2007-03-07 06:02:43)

There is a nice button-down shirt being worn by the middle-aged man (Tige Andrews), and nice haircut.
I cannot be sure if the suit is a sack.
Photo is from 1968.



Yes, that is the television Mod Squad.

TV

Tony Ventresca wrote:

Here is a definition of the Ivy League Look from www.retroland.com, perhaps not the most reliable source, but it is interesting for it shows how mass the Look was, in whole or part.


Ivy League Look:

The financially prosperous times of the 50's sent kids off to college instead of war, and the best way to prepare for your collegiate days was to dress the part in your Ivy-look clothes. Madras plaid dress shirts with button-down collars, V-neck sweaters, and slim legged chino pants marked the college boy, while slim sweater sets, pleated skirts, and sweet saddle shoes all but guaranteed a good girl entrance to the university.

Back then, a college-bound kid took pride in his conservative appearance-after all, it was quite an achievement to continue on to higher education. The college look differed from the blue jean, leather jacket wearing ruffians that were doomed to pump gas down at the corner station for the rest of their lives. The square kids, in their neatly-Brylcreemed hair or pretty bow bouffant, were filling up on knowledge and going places.

Sears offered their own line of clothes, 'Fraternity Prep', guaranteed to make the boys look college ready. A crisp pair of chinos, paired with a buttoned-to-the-neck Ivy-look check shirt, a snappy cardigan sweater worn over top, and a pair of penny loafers prepared you for frat parties, panty raids, or whatever other shenanigans fraternity life might bring.

Unfortunately, girls weren't given a 'Sorority Prep' line of clothing, but they did get the option to 'look like mom' in crisp and fresh shirtwaist dresses by Kerry-Teen.

I think there's a chance of looking "hip" in TNSIL style, but woman can be often doomed by the 50's versions of it.  At least to my taste.  Much better to roll with a chick who looked like she was hanging with Fonzie.

Tony Ventresca wrote:

Perhaps I posted this on another thread, I do know we discussed the gangs in NYC wearing the Ivy look. Here is a review of a book that touches on the topic. Absolutely fascinating stuff.


Vampires, Dragons, and Egyptian Kings: Youth Gangs in Postwar New York
by Eric C. Schneider
Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0-691-07454-2

Review:

They called themselves "Vampires," "Dragons," and "Egyptian Kings." They were divided by race, ethnicity, and neighborhood boundaries, but united by common styles, slang, and codes of honor. They fought--and sometimes killed--to protect and expand their territories. In postwar New York, youth gangs were a colorful and controversial part of the urban landscape, made famous by West Side Story and infamous by the media. This is the first historical study to explore fully the culture of these gangs. Eric Schneider takes us into a world of switchblades and slums, zoot suits and bebop music to explain why youth gangs emerged, how they evolved, and why young men found membership and the violence it involved so attractive.

Schneider begins by describing how postwar urban renewal, slum clearances, and ethnic migration pitted African-American, Puerto Rican, and Euro-American youths against each other in battles to dominate changing neighborhoods. But he argues that young men ultimately joined gangs less because of ethnicity than because membership and gang violence offered rare opportunities for adolescents alienated from school, work, or the family to win prestige, power, adulation from girls, and a masculine identity. In the course of the book, Schneider paints a rich and detailed portrait of everyday life in gangs, drawing on personal interviews with former members to re-create for us their language, music, clothing, and social mores. We learn what it meant to be a "down bopper" or a "jive stud," to "fish" with a beautiful "deb" to the sounds of the Jesters, and to wear gang sweaters, wildly colored zoot suits, or the "Ivy League look." He outlines the unwritten rules of gang behavior, the paths members followed to adulthood, and the effects of gang intervention programs, while also providing detailed analyses of such notorious gang-related crimes as the murders committed by the "Capeman," Salvador Agron.

Schneider focuses on the years from 1940 to 1975, but takes us up to the present in his conclusion, showing how youth gangs are no longer social organizations but economic units tied to the underground economy. Written with a profound understanding of adolescent culture and the street life of New York, this is a powerful work of history and a compelling story for a general audience.

I have to get a copy of this. Excellent find, Tony.

All this feeds into my thinking on rivivalism in style and things like that.
Why do we revive (via Ralph Lauren) the Ivy League style as 'Trad' instead of reviving it as a street punk style?
Why do we focus on any style of dress as being 'gentlemanly' instead of just being clothes & up for grabs to whoever likes the look of them?
It's all cultural and it's all about us here now, nothing to do with the past.
Why do we need these status props?

What is the gap we're trying to fill?

Terry Lean wrote:

I have to get a copy of this. Excellent find, Tony.

All this feeds into my thinking on rivivalism in style and things like that.
Why do we revive (via Ralph Lauren) the Ivy League style as 'Trad' instead of reviving it as a street punk style?
Why do we focus on any style of dress as being 'gentlemanly' instead of just being clothes & up for grabs to whoever likes the look of them?
It's all cultural and it's all about us here now, nothing to do with the past.
Why do we need these status props?

What is the gap we're trying to fill?

"We" as in you and I do not. 

BUT,

Mass culture equates the idea of "being gentlemanly" with "being rich."  Being rich, as evidenced by Donald Trump (or Rusty Trawler in 'Breakfast At Tiffany's'), is a sure way for men to attract women, no matter how ugly, obnoxious, insufferable, unbathed, uncultured, or otherwise not where it's at they may be.

Another idea, Fussell says in "Class" that the middle class is spurred upwards by the Dress For Success mentality of the John Malloy books.  In fact, one of my classmates at the law school, who comes from a decidedly non-RL "lifestyle" background, has the whole set at his place. He's hoping to end up as a trial lawyer a la Edwards.  If these people were guided by Career Services offices, they would merely dress in a suit, probably the cheapest they could afford. Most at my school do. Very shiny suits. Very shiny, ugly ties. When they happen upon something else, however, like an internet thread about bespoke suits, or a friend like me who doesn't wear the shiny suits everyone else does, or an article about how GHWB shopped at this store called "J. Press" ('is that like J. Crew?'), it perhaps gives them a sense that Career Services has missed the boat, somebody else has an inside track, and if they adopt The REAL INSIDERS' LOOK and try to adopt all the correct rules they are sure to advance and be happy, rich and socially prominent.

In the above, by the way, I am not saying there are not rules, nor do I wholly agree with you, TL, that there is not a rough "curriculum" for certain looks out there or certain stores that bore the bulk of that "teaching"...I think there is plenty of evidence to support that by reading most novels of a certain era and often, the autobiographies of the men who wrote them, not just what you suggest at times is the creation of one person.  I am just saying that the loose gathering of rules, which are really educated suggestions, are applied by RL type revivalists into handbook style formulations of life and mannerisms not unlike those created by Malloy...in fact he even has a book out I saw in my classmates collection called "A Gentleman Would Say..."

There is a picture people want to see, and if Fussell is right and the Malloy readers are "always somebody's man" then it must be a great dream indeed...reviving the Ivy League look as street punk would not give hope to make this dream a reality.

Terry remember when you said

"nobody likes somebody who doesn't appear to be playing the game"

Well reviving it as a iconoclastic look would put the Indian sign on the look for its biggest market.


Ivy League, at least for a while longer, is always going to sell among at least some "traditional Ivy League types" (I know, I know) and also guys like you who want something a little different and are maybe from a different country like England or Japan.


But a "revival" suggests large voume sales. In America, mass sales=middle class. Middle class sells on fantasy, be it cruise ships or Ralph Lauren.

EDIT: If you think about it, this was partially the cause of the Ivy Boom. It had been the style, at least in the 40s, of the Harvard and Yale man. The G.I. Bill allowed the dream of college and a better life to pass to men at large.  They acted upon that dream by dressing "like a college man" using the model college man, the Harvard/Yale boy they wished they were, as an example, I suspect, even if they were only a Central Illinois boy.  Of course, I wasn't there. 

That thread on "trad and class" should have been "RL and class"... much more accurate.

Last edited by Coolidge (2007-03-09 18:30:27)

Coolidge, you are wise beyond your years. That "old head" of yours will serve you well if you make a habit of listening to it whilst others follow the herd.

Extremely stylish look for Hamilton. But most young men at that time would not have worn the spread collar shirt (button-down instead) or used the pocket square.

Regards,

Steven

Terry Lean wrote:

Another story is when the Rolling Stones walked into the Twisted Wheel club in Manchester the DJ played all the R'n'B originals they'd covered on their first LP which were all 'Northern' hits (But pre-'Northern Soul', of course) to show them that Manchester was not impressed by the boys.

Maybe that's just a story.



t.

Not a story, just History :-)  Roger Eagle was the man...

Tony Ventresca wrote:

I am intrigued by the shoulder seam on Hamilton's sport jacket.
It reminds me of the small photo posted on J Simon's website.

The partially buttoned cardigan is fun, too.

TV

A 'lapped' or 'welted' seam, I think the terms are. Mr Grayson & others will know best.
I like them.
A nice Ivy detail.

I've just been talking to a tailor about doing some Ivy work for me & he called an undarted sack a 'plain panel' jacket, which was new to me.
Ever heard of that before?
He's a provincial tailor in Leamington Spa, but I like his attitude.
"All the action's in the sides, right?" was the way he explained how the cut of a sack worked.
I look forward to drinking with him.

t.

Fun article which touches on Ivy style, but also is a look at "traditional" shopping in NY (from www.stevenstolman.com).

“The Traditionalist's Hit Parade”
By GINIA BELLAFANTE
December 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 might dress a young man for his John Knowles life into one that might dress him for his Olive Garden life. Like Talbots, which has also shifted its focus, Brooks Brothers now attracts legions of customers who have never used "summer" as a verb; it has even gone so far in its efforts at democratization as to issue a CD featuring the music of Santana.

As old guard purveyors of East Coast establishment style enlarge their tents, and as the fashion world pumps out a slightly mocking simulacrum of it, one might wonder — if one wonders about things like madras patchwork pants — where that culture's authentic retail experience can still be had.

A tour through the more antiquated precincts of the Cheeveresque life would begin at J. Press on East 44th Street, which even during the holiday season rarely feels bustling. Depending on one's perceptions of privileged people, J. Press either gives rise to visions of Beefeater-saturated extramarital affairs behind the tennis courts at the Greenwich Field Club or remains the proper and unpretentious place to buy a whale-print belt.

J. Press offers all the accouterments of an idealized life in which good bloodlines dominate: Black Watch plaid pants, grosgrain watch straps, ties with ducks on them — all presented without irony or shame. Although the store is now owned by Onward Kashiyama, the Japanese fashion conglomerate that has also invested in Alexander McQueen, its claims to the universe it is hawking are not false. It was first opened in 1902 by a Russian immigrant, Jacobi Press, in New Haven and suited members of the Yale faculty. "We were credited with creating the Ivy League look," said Arthur Noble, who manages the store's Washington branch. That look was essentially a four-piece suit, comprising a sports coat, vest, trousers and plus fours to wear with the coat on weekends. "We haven't changed a lot in 98 years," Mr. Noble said. "But we don't sell the knickers anymore."

A man who outfits himself at J. Press might well have a pair of Belgian shoes in his closet, or if not, he'd be looking for a woman who did. Unlike, say, duck ties, Belgian shoes are an essential part of the prep wardrobe, carrying an image more genuinely exclusive than goofy. Part of the reason is that the fashion world embraced them in the 1970's, and part of it is that they can be found in only one spot, Belgian Shoes, on East 55th Street. The store was opened in 1956 by Henri Bendel, originally one block away. It still maintains the genteel hours of 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and started opening on Saturdays only last year.

The store has had the same manager for 44 years, Margaret Cardone, a native of Queens, who will tell you first and foremost that the Belgian shoe, a piped, bowed, slip-on affair, "is not a loafer." Like other elements of the prep iconography, Belgian shoes, brought to this country from Belgium in 1955, were intended for times spent swirling swizzle sticks in Palm Beach and on Harbour Island. Like many of their wearers, Belgian shoes aren't meant to do much at all. "You have to remember, the people who wore these didn't go to work," Ms. Cardone said, standing in front of a shelf full of shoes in pastels and bright yellow with contrasting piping. "This is not a shoe to be worn all day."

The traditionalist's shopping tour of Manhattan might end at Steven Stolman on East 72nd Street, which traffics in Muffywear so convincing it would not cross one's mind that the store is less than three years old. Having lamented the passing of shops like Jax on 57th Street and Le Shack in Locust Valley — private label establishments that put people like Jackie Kennedy in resort wear — Mr. Stolman decided to open a store in Southampton in 1995 specializing in floral cotton shift dresses, toile de Jouy skirts and that staple of country club night life, the tartan hostess skirt.

"When Pappagallo died that was the last hurrah," Mr. Stolman said, referring to the closing of the conservative shoe store in New York years ago. His hope has been to revive the hurrah by opening stores in all the important compass points on his clients' trajectory. In addition to Southampton, he has shops in Palm Beach, Nantucket and Naples, Fla., which have attracted shoppers like C. Z. Guest and Pauline Pitt, who as a girl growing up on Long Island frequented Le Shack.

"Everything was all packed up in white bags with pink and green," Ms. Pitt remembered fondly, speaking of Le Shack, which closed in the 70's. "It was that era of lion earrings. I think it's all coming back."