And Clarks used to advertise their Desert Boots in Esquire back in the day. Very Ivy, though they seem strangely to have been eliminated from the contemporary American conception of 'the look'. I'd love to think that this was a considered rejection of the shoddier contemporary Vietnamese Clarks boot but I fear it is instead merely a stylistic blindspot.
GG
I'd bet it is because there are no Desert Boots in the Official Preppy Handbook.
Poor Scholarship once more!
Is that their primary source book? God help us. I hate that bloody book. So braindead 1980s. All that unabashed reactionary nonsense - the days of Reagan/Thatcher/Merchant-Ivory white linen films/shoulder pads/Helena Fucking Bonham Carter/DuranDuran - to me the word 'preppy' is all part of that. It's Ivy with the style extracted. Ivy as caricature. Style blind. Colour blind. Brash and soulless. A million miles away from my notion of the natural shoulder look and its associations.
GG
- Let me just promise the watching Americans that I'm not GG.
And even more interesting, we grew up 170 plus miles apart (is that right?).
He's a Top Chap though, a real Kosher Cat.
I sometimes think that if it wasn't for J.Simons (and a handful of associates) in the UK, and the amazing things the Japanese do, then Ivy League as a term for a style of dress would have long died out. Certainly it appears in America to be largely redundant, replaced by 'trad' or 'preppy' in much mutated form. I say it again - thank God for Johnny Simons, thank God for Japan and Take Ivy and Illustrated Ivy and Van Clothing and The Button Down Club and all the rest of their mad obsessional stuff!
GG
...but I'm really not sure about these "hungry butt" trousers (thanks again for that term, AQG)... a lot of that Van stuff looks nice, different cup of tea!
I have to add again, that this is all about personal taste...
Last edited by Russell_Street (2009-10-02 10:45:19)
lets get back to that 'hungry butt' - LOL
I noticed that too, Hank. I wouldn't even begin to know how to go about trying to get my hands on any of this stuff though.
Yes - I don't link ScarletStreet to 'Trad' in any way in my mind's eye. I was just picking up on his point that there was TradSnark in this thread.
You make good points about Ivy, Hank. As befits one quoted by the NYC Financial Times on the subject.
... Who has more fun than us?