Speaking for London it's just a cult centred around one shop (J. Simons) and one man (John Simons). We had more over here in the past, but now we're just down to John.
In London we call the style Ivy League but the last thing that people are thinking of is the IL universities. The GIs brought the style to England in WWII and for us it's related to all the other things they also brought with them like Jazz and R and B music.

This is the story of Ivy outside the US in all the other places I've discovered it too - Jazz and Ivy went hand and hand even in Japan ('Take Ivy' is a combination of Dave Brubeck's 'Take' Five with Ivy League).
In Paris the Ivy style was a very conscious rejection of all things French. It was about young people breaking with tradition in a very visible way.

Probably because Ivy has cult status outside the US (and especially in Japan) the details have become all important and the collection of information about the style has become a kind of quest for its die-hard fans.

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

Funny old world, eh?

James

I think that on the Net., apart from FNB, there's just Modculture and AAAT that are interested in this 'cult' look. I haven't found any other forums yet with any knowledge or even interest in this style of dress (outside Japan!).
... And even then Modculture and AAAT are focused on their own particuar takes on this look (is that fair?). Anything beyond their perception of this style and their interest rapidly begins to fall off.
Which is fair enough I guess...

Last edited by Russell_Street (2008-07-18 11:56:11)

To re-think my thinking of 2008...

Ivy beyond America was largely spread by popular culture, not 'worthy' high culture - It was music and films. Films I'm sure far more than music, on the whole (Not everybody likes Jazz...And Jazz was once 'popular').
Ivy was just a menswear style, as it was also increasingly in the USA. American Universities had little to do with it, apart from a marketing point of view. Even in the USA far more non-Ivy attendees wore the style than Ivy Grads.

In America the style was worn because your family had always worn it, but also because it was fashionable or because it was a pathway to assimilation - I have family photos from the 20's of Jewish members of my family in New York wearing Brooks. My Nightingale-Bamford School connection.
Ivy was aspirational.

Outside of America it was just new 'different' clothes that some liked.

I think Ivy spread globally due to the clothes themselves primarily, but also with a myriad of associations that they carried which could very easily change from wearer to wearer. However, outside the USA the link to the clothes and higher education didn't really figure apart from in the naming of them and the presentation of them. Who bought a buttondown from Austin's in London wanting to look like a college boy (Even if they might have called the style that) ?
The point outside the USA was to look 'different' and a part of a broader culture primarily focused on style.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/i/robert-orbach/


Only an opinion.

This isn't a confrontational thread, my point is that clothes are clothes.
They are sold with various associations.
In fact, they are sold with so many associations that it gets meaningless.
Brahmin in Boston is Top Cat in London.

Only the clothes are true.