P.S. Maybe Alistair would be willing to specify what he's wearing here ^, please ?

Really, really great!

When abouts was that taken?

A bit of vintage Paddy, written again just for Alex:

"Dear Alex,
To understand the Ivy League style in London you first have to understand its split personality.
It belongs here by now but it doesn't really belong here at all in the first place. It was transplanted here by Londoners in love with style.
All this goes way back before me as I only got into IL in 1970 at the Ivy shop Richmond when in my opinion it was already long all over in this country.
The split personality shows itself in many ways. Firstly its a flash style without being flash. The clothes aren't flash. They're very conservative. But the fact that you have them when no one else does is. Total one up manship.
Another thing is that the clothes may be conservative but the wearers mainly aren't. They were those who wanted more than a "sunday best" suit or some fashionable rag from Oxford Street. They were the more adventurous but also those who shunned the "way out". The rule was that if you could spot it easily it wasn't style.
For me IL style is pure quality in every respect. A solid style. For me in 70 I found it when menswear was getting very effeminate. Not me at all. Before IL I mainly wore the clothes my family made. Quality again but different. They saw American ready to wear clothing as a real step down. They couldn't see the style there at all. But For us it made us different. We had a style of our own and one that was international and young. It showed that you were a part of the wider world and not only London. It was to do with travel and wide horizons. You weren't staying put like your Dad!!
I'm no writer but I'll write more if you are genuinely interested in this story which nobody really knows. Jimmy didn't mention money and I don't want any anyway.
Good luck to you and your article. What magazine will it be in or are you in the papers?

Best regards,

P."

"Brooks Brothers is where it all really begins. I dont care what anyone else says. Troy shirt makers Guild were fine shirts. The company burned out in the early years of the 1990s I think. A lot of bad shirts were produced before they finaly folded with various different labels. Buyer beware!!
We talked Jimmy into that Saturday job. He'd never heard of the Ivy shop before that. We went along and teased him a little. He took it well (I think!!).
Sharpness and relaxation?? I am not sure that I follow. IL was a new kind of relaxed smartness. It wasn't "sharp" as I would use that term. It was nothing to do with razor edged creases or anything of that ilk. It was all about a slightly casual formality that spoke of not having to try too hard. A suit is a suit is a suit but an IL suit never puts on a show. It's more "laid back" in its smartness.
Do you like Paul Newman?"

"The gap is between what you need and what you want. Even a dozen shirts is probably too many for what you need. For what you want that number doesn't even come close when you have a clothes "habit".
Shopping for us was always a social activity:- It was what you did during the day doing the rounds. At night you worked round the bars pubs and clubs in the same way.
Jimmy shopped for England and never wore half of it. You would see him always in the same clothes.
Who needs more than 3 suits max? I have 19. How many do I wear on a regular basis? 2.
I have delayed in answering your Email because the answer is a complicated one. You can get by with a handful of IL clothes as they never wear out. For a person with a clothes habit the point is in display. IL twists that notion:- It is a display of a lack of display. What is then displayed is the man himself and not the clothes. I can wear a blue suit every day for a week with each one different each day if I wish. The suit is not what I'm showing off. What I am showing off is myself. Always the same although the outer wrapping changes. It's "in your face" with out ever being in your face. That is where the "flash" comes in. You can do things that other people can't and you can do them in such a back door way that they can never pin you down. Something is going on with you and they don't know what. It plays with people and gives you an upper hand. It's a game.
With my best regards,"

Thanks again . . .

I'd say that for my era ('78 onwards) there was also a similar divide. Which is why people like Mr. John Gall, Mr. Mark Issacs & Mr. Neil Henderson, et al, are so very interesting - 1980's Modernists who picked up on Ivy and did it so well.

Pre-Alistair's discovery of Ivy in '61, if you go back to the 50's Jazz Modernists then the links between what would later morph into 'Mod' and the Modern Jazz scene were much stronger.
Chris_H dates the death of Modernism to around '62, which would make sense of Alistair's observation that 'Mods' & Jazz Modernists were already different things when he got into Ivy.

Last edited by Alex Roest (2009-12-31 05:33:05)