^ This is a bit rough & I wrote it under the influence...

It was going to be the start of an essay... but now it's not.

j.

Last edited by Jack_The_Lad (2007-11-12 09:15:47)

Very kind, Marc, thanks.

I don't dress as well as you do, but I admire your attitude no end.

-  Ummmmmmm - Of course none of this stuff is 'Traditional' in Europe (or Japan) we all have our own  traditions over here... Andy'Trad' is only an American thing... Elsewhere the clothes are freed up from all that 'Harris' stuff...

Good call on that Army jacket - I think you are the first real dresser who bothers with the Net. who doesn't pretend that he wears a tie even in the bath!

... I like the idea of the Total Man that you put forward: Suits for work, but off duty you wear whatever is  appropriate for whatever it is that you're doing. Too many Internet guys are keen to have us believe that they wear suits even to take out the trash... They think that that makes them sound well-dressed, but to me it just makes them sound like idiots...

Ahhh well...

j.

I have an old German (Federal Republic)  army sweater that my brother was going to throw out. I keep it in the trunk of my car in case I need something in a cold snap. My wife despises it.

Jack_The_Lad wrote:

http://j.simons.mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/index.jhtml


As a young man growing up in London - Learning how to order a round of drinks properly and when to make a girl laugh (and when not to) - all the usual 'rights of passage' stuff - two shops were important: Ray's and John's (And Ronnie's was the most important club...).

The old Ray's Jazz shop is now sadly lost to us, although the business still carries on as a department within Foyle's famous Charing Cross Road bookshop, but the old place on upper Shaftsbury Avenue with it's long counter and rough wooden floor is no more. It's a pizza place now I think and the wonderful smell of row after row of all those cardboard LP sleeves crammed in there has gone forever. But John's, or more properly ' J.Simons', is still with us and is still only a short stroll from where Ray's used to be.

'J. Simons' is far from John Simons' first shop, but it is the shop of his that I knew first and the shop where I first met real 'Ivy League' style in London after trying to put together 'The Look' by myself based on films, magazines and of course the LP sleeves that I used to study in Ray's Jazz every Saturday morning. And 'finding' J. Simons was a real life-changing moment for me too, because if there was a shop in London that sold all this little-known stuff that I was into then that meant that there were other people like me in London who were into all this too. What I thought was just my own discovery was in fact a well known thing amongst a certain group of people and through them I could explore my interest further and discover over time what has been one of the greatest pleasures of my life: Meeting strangers with whom I have an instant rapport through a shared interest in this 'Ivy League' style of dress.

But I'm jumping ahead of myself here - back to my first visit to J.Simons - Or rather what I'll do is to combine an amalgam of visits to the place over the past 22 years to give you a flavour of why the shop is so unique in London and why it means so much to a small section of the English population.

J. Simons opened in 1981, following on from his 'Ivy Shop' in Richmond (opened in 1965) and various other shops too, but it was only when I was told about the place in 1985 that I knew it even existed. I had walked past Russell Street in Covent Garden for years but had never been down it. I had been out for drinks after work when I met two guys in a club who dressed a bit like me. Like me, but much better. They had this really cool American 'college-boy' style, which was what I was aiming for, but they were wearing the real clothes, which I'd only ever seen in films and in old photos, not English clothes altered to approximate the look like I was wearing. So I thought they must be Americans. Tourists, probably. And then one walked over to me (we'd been checking each other out on the sly, but not even nodding or smiling at each other - you know,  the way blokes do in clubs...) and then the guy said 'Hi'. Well 'Hi' is American in my book so I said 'Hello' back to be sociable, thinking that I had this guy sussed and we were about to have one of those 'Have you been to the Tower of London yet?' conversations that Londoners often get stuck with when randomly friendly tourists take a shine to you. But then he carried on talking and to my amazement he was English and so was his mate who strolled over next. They were North London boys who talked in this really piss-taking way (to use an English expression) punctuated with what I was later to learn was Yiddish and also 'Yiddish-ish' the mock-Jewish street slang of their neck of the woods. It was a complete brave new world for a white-bread boy like me.
So we got talking and drinking until the club closed & they told me about John's and then that next Saturday we all went there. Simple as that.

J.Simons is quite a small place, about the size on an average sitting room I guess, with a real 'college shop' feel to it and for me it was very hard to take it all in at first. Shoes and clothes were everywhere . Having been told there was a small shop in London that sold all this stuff I really wasn't prepared for the volume of stock that the shop carried. The place was, and is to this day, crammed with Ivy League clothes and Americana. I had no idea where to start. After being starved for this style for 7 or 8 years I was suddenly standing in a space filled from floor to ceiling with just about everything that interested me. Later with the same new friends I was to go to the 346 on Madison, NYC and be bowled over again but on a much larger scale.

J. Simons is softly lit and so walking in from the daylight you can easily miss things if you move too fast as your eyes need a moment to adjust (or at any rate mine do). On your right as you walk in is the shoe cabinet - an old wooden country style dresser pretty much - and it is 'round about at this point that the smell of the shop hits you, just a couple of steps inside and out of the traffic fumes of the street. The smell has changed slightly over the years (the Sanforized cotton of the shirts isn't such a strong note these days as you can't get the American shirts like you used to... The Americans don't make them like they used to for one reason...) but the smell of clean warm wool, leather and wood is still as distinctive as ever. No other shop smells quite as good as J.Simons in my experience. J.Press in Cambridge, Mass. comes joint second along with the Cambridge Andover Shop.

And another treat for the senses is that you can just wander over and pick anything up that you fancy and check it out. This is not always the case in London where certain sales people in certain shops can be a little 'territorial' about customers invading their space. Depending on who's on duty in J. Simons you'll get a nod from John, a smile and a Hello from Jeff and another nod from Ken and then they'll leave you to it. They let the stock sell itself pretty much, but as soon as you ask a question then you have their complete attention.

American loafers and brogues feature heavily in and on the shoe cabinet along with bucks, saddle-bucks, chukkas, Steve McQueen style 'Playboy' boots & shoes (a brand I've never seen anywhere else in the UK or US)... And all the usual names are there: Bass, Sebago, Alan Edmonds, Redwing, Loake, Walkover, Florsheim, Alden & Cole Haan too in the past. Unusual names have also featured: 'Eastland' handsewns from Freeport Maine, 'Buffalo Creek Traders' (again handsewn) from Virginia, Paraboot from France... Anything really with The Look that John Simons has discovered on his travels.

After the shoes come the ties along the right hand wall as you walk further into the shop. Knitted silk or cotton in stripes and solids, silk foulards, regimentals and reps, all hung across the wall between the shoe cabinet and the shop's counter. Usually round about here, if John is in his usual place near the till, you can just about start to hear the Jazz he has playing softly by his chair which reminds you of how the Ivy League style came into London in the first place via American GIs and English Modern Jazz fans mixing in the clubs of Soho.

Beyond the till are Sack and Slack jackets and suits, overcoats and outer jackets hung up to the ceiling pretty much with trousers, khakis and cords hung in the same way on the left wall of the shop opposite. And the space in between is also taken up with yet more racks of clothes and display cabinets featuring whatever new stock has just come in. At this point I find it all gets a little bewildering and hard to find room to turn round in as so much is packed in all around you. Usually I head for the shirts further down the left hand wall for a bit of a breather before I tackle the central part of the shop. It wouldn't do to miss anything...

Shirts are from a variety of sources in button-down and plain-point collar styles. Solids, stripes, multi-stripes, plaids, madras, seersucker - all the usual suspects. But you can't help thinking of all the names from the past which were once there in the wooden display cabinet and are now lost to us: Troy Shirtmakers Guild, Sero's 'The Purist' shirts ('Nothing is obvious except the quality'), New Haven's 'Par-Ex', even the slim-collared Geoffrey Scott button-downs... However Woolrich and BD Baggies are still there along with Hartford's wonderful soft-collared shirts amongst others so the sun hasn't quite set yet on this aspect of the shop. If America still made the old shirts then J. Simons would still sell them.

Like any Ivy League shop seasonal stock comes and goes at J.Simons. It's that Pendleton time of year at the moment with their wool shirts and zipper jackets adding to the mix in the shop. When spring comes the new season's range of Haggar half-sleeve sports shirts will appear along with polo shirts and shorts. The stock never stands still and there's always new things coming in sourced from the US or Europe. Increasingly important to the shop are John Simons' vintage finds which bring in fantastic original items from all the big names in the Ivy League style from over the years like Brooks Brothers. Remember when Brooks Brothers used to sell the Ivy League style? More than just the Ivy items the J. Simons vintage range also brings in original items from various designers and from Savile Row too - all one-off items selected for their quality and style.

The shop is very much John Simons own vision informed by his passion for and knowledge of the Ivy League style and so the gloomy thought is that when Mr. Simons has had enough then that will be that.
The place is a real London landmark though, and London without it would be very much the poorer so I can only hope that we will all have a few more years ahead still to enjoy the unique London shopping experience that is John Simons' ' J.Simons' Covent Garden Ivy League shop...


j.

Ohh Jack soooooooo much good stuff coming up and about now on this forum.Everyone`s buzzing, great ideas flowing..This to me is what`s it`s all about.Firstly i wanted to reply to this particular post.(I would`ve loved to have done so earlier today but unfortunately had to do a bit of work this morning! Earning a crust and everything...).


What a beautiful post. It really seems just far too `trite` to say it`s `beautiful`.Why Jack you`ve poured out and shared the very depths of your soul in that above piece.You can see that it all comes from a very deep place with you.So beautifully written. I love it because it has everything; a very individual charm, poignancy (without sentimentality), realism, passion, candour, wit, acute insight and an inclusive affability and most  importantly perhaps great integrity. Why Jack if you ever thought of writing a book on this subject of Ivy i think i might just buy a copy.


You paint a great picture when i imagine the curious and still callow young Londoner up West falling in with these smart and quite subtly `different` looking kids dressed as you say -identically- like a couple of clued up Americans.Had visions of a `Once Upon a Time in America` somehow.Great stuff.

Context is everything of course.It was a different world and time then.For me personally i was imagining those guys as being a couple of very cool, quiet (in fact almost deceptively unassuming ) but very worldly wise guys who didn`t need to overtly show they were `hard` but who  it was somehow a tacit `taken` that they`d been around the block and were indeed quite able to look after themselves.Guy`s who were so cool in fact , and so confident and `at one` with their own personal clothes choices that they didnt have to try to be cool.They just oozed it...And you basked in it.I personally imagined one of the guys perhaps having a very very dark blue crew neck sweater with a beautiful american blue ocbd soft roll shirt underneath, oyster colour balmacaan raincoat and beautifully cut chino`s and -crucially here- American Ivy style shoes...

They were indeed just `being` for want of a better word.Just great, great guy`s.And you the young Jack were hooked eh Jack!? It`s funny how the some of the coolest people you meet really are so low key and `genuine`.It`s like a faculty for seeing for seeing a far  `Bigger Picture`.I loved it.

I think i loved it because i can relate to the PASSION which you feel for all this.Great stuff! Keep it all coming!

Jack, do you think you would have found J Simons had it not been for that fateful night meeting Jim and Paddy?

TB

Trad to the Bone wrote:

Jack, do you think you would have found J Simons had it not been for that fateful night meeting Jim and Paddy?

TB

Honestly - It would have taken me years.

I lived in Chelsea (with a house in the country in Kingham, West Oxfordshire, in those days). J.S. was in Covent Garden. I knew the Opera House, Rules, Simpsons, The Market - Everything around his shop, but I had no way into his world - A world I had only glimpsed through Ray's Jazz & my early trips to Ronnie Scott's club.

I lived in an entirely different London to the world of J.S. But I lived about 45 mins (?) away.

Not that J.S. is at all 'down-market' - His stuff was more expensive than Simpsons & Austin Reed used to be (The places I used to shop with my Pa).
But his stuff required a certain knowledge, a certain 'Suss' to use the London word, and that knowledge didn't belong to me, my class, or my background.

My late Uncle George was Hip as Hell as a Jazz fan up in Yorkshire, but knew nothing of Ivy League in London. He  thought the clothes were only available in NYC - A place he'd always wanted to go, but never did.

It was entirely a class thing that I had to overcome: From the stuffy world of English 'Trad' to the classless world of American 'Ivy' style exported into London. A style which started off in the UK with the working class.

Surely this story of American 'Trad' in London is a real jaw-dropper to the Andy'Trads'?

And then there's the story of their 'Trad' in Japan, Paris, Hamburg, Portugal, Uganda, & aspects of it in Sydney, Australia? (Have I left anyone out?)

They're all a part of our story & we're all a part of theirs.

... If we're just talking about clothes that is...

j.

Oh - And dishonest of me not to mention that I was a bit of a mascot and  a joke at first to these 34 year old Ivy fans whom I first met at 19.
I was as obsessed then as I am now by the Ivy style & by Jazz and  had (as now) a certain 'manic' enthusiasm about me which is fun to sit back & watch if you don't get too close.

I was always well aware of that. Probably I played on that more than I should have done too... And I'm certain that they were both very well aware of that also.

They Kinda became my mentors & became their kinda project too in a way I think.

... And we never fucked (to head off an obvious question).

They were just nice guys.

Lucky break!

j.

Boss tune!

Chums,

I'd be interested in seeing any pics out there of the tassel.  Esp Weller-Style.  I didn't know ol' Weller sported them.

I've got this book "Cool Cats" I think contains a pic where PW is sporting loafers w/a nice sheen and a bunch of revival moddy boys looking at him in awe. I'm positive I've seen this pic on the net not too long ago, Modculture forums very likely.... on second thought it may also have been some mag doing a piece on Mods, but the pic is pretty well known among the Modernist crowd.

Jack_The_Lad wrote:

The Moddy Boys are all in Fishtail Parkas & PW is in (Burgundy?) Weejuns. No-break chinos, a Smedley (?) & a Tweedy Ivy overcoat with slicked back hair.

Yeah, that's the one, I think he's wearing a scarf though, but I could very well be wrong. Must say I found the combination of wearing an overcoat and loafers a bit odd, the Weejuns being very much a summer choice IMO. Pic is in black and white BTW.....

I'd personally never wear loafers with a raincoat either for that matter, somewhat unpractical that, although one could choose to wear the mac for style reasons only of course. Hardly ever wear my Sebagos these days to be honest, but that aside...... I'd sooner wear some modern brogues anyway in that case like the ones I got from van Lier that are pretty sleek at that so they're a nice choice if I'm in a bit of a Modernist mood.
Within that very setting I'd very likely also opt for some basic jeans/matching belt, a crisp BD w/a nice roll on the collar and perhaps a cotton crew neck in a daring colour too

Last edited by Alex Roest (2007-11-14 09:17:54)

Tony Ventresca wrote:

http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/721/ … lerbc2.jpg

Funny how the mind can play tricks on one, but that is the pic.

What year, Tony?

Oh - and thanks!

j.