In touch with Paul Simons today - Incredible shirts & trousers to follow.

All Ivy, no Jivy.

Which, today, is something really nice & new after 31 years of the rubbishy 'Preppy' influence.

I'm not really sure I agree with that, to me New Ivy is the jazzing up of the colours and the patterns, but with the right details, I don't think it has a home cause I see it coming from everywhere on here and other places, whether new clothes or not, It's kind of like contemporary ideas to pattern and colour matching, with the classically styled clothes. The design has to be right. I'm still vintage really, JS has the nicest looking stuff, but the Keydge left me a bit unstirred, to be fair, everyone said they were looking a bit different to previous offerings. I know JS is still doing the odd piece of J, Press, do you know if this is vintage Jim? Have you seen a new J. Press jacket, I'm half interested in ordering a new one. Or wait for the JS blazer.

Last edited by One For Bop (2012-06-22 12:43:12)

Forgive me, but I think this is a crock of shit.  Ivy League is Ivy League.  Some, as we know, are 'Beyond Ivy' - John Simons being the prime example.  I sense, amongst the London faces, a subtle shift in emphasis.  Of course, I simply observe from my Derbyshire eyrie.  But the switch from, say, Alden to, say, a modest desert boot strikes me as significant.  More stripping and paring.  Mind you, weren't Strachan and Lally doing this at the Ivy Shop?  'The Simplicity Of Ivy'.

One For Bop wrote:

I'm not really sure I agree with that, to me New Ivy is the jazzing up of the colours and the patterns, but with the right details, I don't think it has a home cause I see it coming from everywhere on here and other places, whether new clothes or not, It's kind of like contemporary ideas to pattern and colour matching, with the classically styled clothes. The design has to be right. I'm still vintage really, JS has the nicest looking stuff, but the Keydge left me a bit unstirred, to be fair, everyone said they were looking a bit different to previous offerings. I know JS is still doing the odd piece of J, Press, do you know if this is vintage Jim? Have you seen a new J. Press jacket, I'm half interested in ordering a new one. Or wait for the JS blazer.

Ah - You edited.

I certainly sell vintage JP though JS. Saw my latest modern JP yesterday & was unimpressed.

Being as I've established a Nottingham 'lad' (I wish) then London only is too restrictive of course, especially in this modern age of interconnected communication and travel.

I suppose I just want to wear Ivy inspired clothes without feeling like a museum piece.     I might be in Nottingham, I might be in London and I might be elsewhere.  I spend a lot of time in Lancashire for work and the Manchester people can be very sharp and informed dressers.

For those of us with humble origins Alden was something to aspire towards and feels an achievement when you get there (those Preston Venetian loafers are excellent).   Stripping it back feels like a further refinement of understatement which I understand.

I just don't want anything that becomes temporary and goes 'out', this classic/traditional type of look goes beyond that and provides a stylish template for maturing through life.

^Yes, but you live in Bristol.

Are you saying that London is a state of mind?

4F Hepcat wrote:

Beautiful Edith wrote:

Forgive me, but I think this is a crock of shit.  Ivy League is Ivy League.  Some, as we know, are 'Beyond Ivy' - John Simons being the prime example.  I sense, amongst the London faces, a subtle shift in emphasis.  Of course, I simply observe from my Derbyshire eyrie.  But the switch from, say, Alden to, say, a modest desert boot strikes me as significant.  More stripping and paring.  Mind you, weren't Strachan and Lally doing this at the Ivy Shop?  'The Simplicity Of Ivy'.

Exactly, it does not belong to London alone. All of Ivy's questions can be answered in the place where you live, you don't have to be in London to get it.

New Ivy is London thing.

And was The Ivy Shop not a London shop in Richmond ?

I don't give a hoot about geographical claims. You can be cool wherever you are. But I do see my concept of NI belonging to a very specific world - One which spread out in all sorts of directions.

There can be New Ivy in Nottingham - Why not? But that vibe didn't really originate from there.

- But well done to the forum... I only launched my New Ivy minutes ago and now my latest thought is all about your neighbourhood ?

I hope it is - I want it to be !

4F Hepcat wrote:

^Yes, but you live in Bristol.

Are you saying that London is a state of mind?

I've only been here three years !

Great hospitals.

Beautiful Edith wrote:

'New Ivy' - schtick - is doubtless wilfully based upon Chiltern Street.  Okay as far as it goes: JS assured me there would be nothing of interest in NYC.  Modern Brooks, Press, Paul Stuart are all wrecked, ruined - we know that.  But 'New Ivy' suggests a trend, a movement, and I would want to resist that at all costs, in order to avoid falling into some kind of 80s graphic designer/G9, Levis and Weejuns-style crap.  We all know there was an alternative, even then: John Gall and his crew, in 'Mississippi Burning' mode.  Gone now.

Ahhhh - I now understand your resistance.

I'm not proposing that. 

No 'scene' at all.

So what am I up to ?   Just another of my 'back to basics' moves, but this time stressing how much more the basics of the past had when compared to today. Bring back all the forgotten stuff. It would blow the socks off many of the designers of today & is all entirely Ivy. 

Show people the real old Ivy of the past & it would be brand new to them today.

1930's Ivy is especially fresh outside the US as it was pretty much totally unknown. No Austin's back then.

Even in the US it would be dynamic stuff, if you could trust them not to go all 'Fedora Lounge' over it.  It's the style they forgot for 'Boom Years' Ivy which they were later to forget for 'Preppy'.  And it's not RL either.

What could be newer just now than the classic, timeless American Ivy styles of 1932 ?

The bullshit name 'Ivy' hadn't even been coined then.

The 20s were still very Anglo in the US, the 40s were busy elsewhere, the 50s got very stylised, but the 30s were a very nice 'Ivy' epoch... Not, as I say, that that term even existed in '32.

But all the clothes were there.

Cue the Dempsey thread.

One For Bop wrote:

Cue the Dempsey thread.

Have to confess I used that in conversation - Thank you.