1966 wrote:

This was posted earlier.

http://i31.tinypic.com/n1ufc5.jpg

A *cough* slightly better fit in the chest

That is how I would have a sack fit.

It's perfect. Just perfect!

Gibson Gardens wrote:

Dismissing that Stanley Blacker jacket on this forum is akin to a Christian who rejects the Bible. Here we are presented with that weirdly straight almost asexual Ivy style in its absolute most perfect expression at the height of the original Golden Age of Ivy. This is a sacred text upon which we are gazing and I react with Al-Qaeda-like fury and intolerance when the very roots of the look are so nonchalantly dismissed with a few ignorant pokes at a keyboard. Ivy is NOT about wearing a plain Made in China T shirt, some Made in China khakis and a pair of Made in China sneakers. That does not mean you've mastered the look. It means you probably want to fit in, look safe and understated, and attract the interest of the opposite sex by appearing unthreatening and pleasingly casual and youthful. Nothing wrong with this of course, most of us do that in our teens, early twenties. But it is my perhaps rather twisted theory that those who are attracted to the Ivy thing in their youth are a little bit, shall we say, unconventional, a bit odd, definitely left-field, rather on the neurotic side. I know I was and so were my cohorts. At the age of 24 I lived for the Ivy look, I ate, slept and breathed the whole thing. A friend coming back from Brooks in 1987, our first pioneer, was greeted like he'd returned from the Moon. He looked different, his teeth were whiter, his hair glossier, his shoes shinier. He brought us carrier bags full of rare treasures. We studied the sales receipts like they were medieval parchments. We would visit J.Simons when it was closed in the evenings and silently stare in the windows. We were dysfunctional, intense and we didn't get any action with the opposite sex for about 4 years. We were all in our little sack jackets, Linet ones from Simons (fabulous quality - the best?), vintage from Flip, the occasional Brooks or JOS A Banks number. We wore our trousers rather too short, had crew cuts and horn-rim specs. We were a bit freakish, but I thought we looked fantastic and I don't regret a moment of it, in spite of our absolute lack of appeal to women. I feel modern youth is a bit too light about all this. I know it's a generational thing but I miss the mad, intense youngsters I used to know. I don't know where it all came from, this seriousness about clothes, but it felt very important back then, a real expression of self and our collective world view. I still get that way now and again which is why I get a bit punchy when a blatantly perfect expression of the style is so casually written off. I learned through people who knew what was what telling me it straight. Johnny Simons and Ian Strachan and Graham Marsh and others always told us where we were getting it wrong. They were our teachers - kind but clear and consistent. It wasn't just clothes, it was all the other associated ephemera. We were learning a code.

GG

I can only say that this is the great stuff I always wanted to read on this forum! This is damn cool...

One Trick Pony wrote:

There's perhaps a slight division between the 'American' and the 'Italian'.  I'm far more 'American', others will be, to a greater or lesser degree, 'Italian'.  Daniele provides us, it goes without saying, with a sublime example!, which must be the envy of many an English 'mod'.  But didn't UK Ivy, in the very beginning, mix all of this up to present something - I was going to say 'distinctively English', but I'm not sure that I can - ?  Just look at some of the pictures of John Simons and his friends.  They're having a lovely time of it!  A younger man - let's say Adam - might prefer something slightly 'Italian'.  A slightly older man - such as myself - probably benefits from the sack.  The roads have diverged a little, but only a little, and Gibson Gardens, as we know, is a flag-bearer for the Italian male.  More problematic, from my point of view, is the wearing of, say, DMs.  But, if we're allowing 'work wear' and 'Americana' - which we are - they probably belong.  Thus we begin to turn circles.  Much of it, though - I'm convinced of this - is going to depend upon age and experience.  Adam strikes me as open-minded.

In the fifties and early sixties, however, both Italian and American jackets typically had a boxy cut, without waist suppression or maybe with minimal waist suppression. So, Italian jackets were cut rather straight, as well, and they were also tailored quite softly, unlike the stiff Savile Row hour glass silhouette with its pinched waist and its flared skirting.
  Maybe the Italian suits were more slim cut than the American suits in general, and of course the jackets were even shorter (way shorter sometimes, hence the English term "bumfreezer"). They also usually had very narrow lapels, usually a higher gorge and button stance (no 3/2 roll) and they were a little bit more "constructed" (and thus accentuating the male features more strongly, unlike the "asexual", puritan sack suits) but there were also rounded shoulders/ sleeveheads... it wasn't like the American traditional natural shoulder, but not like the 80s power suit either (the monstrosities of Armani etc. with those terrible exaggerated shoulders)...
   Italian suits were sometimes double breasted (with a very narrow crossover), while the Ivy League look (notice: not the American style in general) was always single-breasted: pure and simple, minimalist, less is more (think of the 2 button cuff).... another difference is that the Italian suits had a one-piece-back and thus usually had short side vents (which became longer during the sixties) while the American jackets usually had a single vent (centre or off-centre/hook vent)...
I talk about "usually" because there always exceptions... JS talks about American/Continental, American/British, Continental/British crossover things in the interview on the website... think of the Rat pack lounge lizard styles and "Jivy Ivy", the Mad Men look, and the JFK 2 button style.... the company Brioni had become famous on an international level by 1953 or 1954 already and some Hollywood stars even went to Italy for custom suits....

I digress... what was it all about?.... erm, box jackets vs. waist suppression? Mod styles and Ivy League style?

Anyway, as far as I know (probably from Barnes), waist suppression wasn't common for Mod fashions before 1962... Dunno, if this City Gent style fad was just  a piss-take on the brokers, or if it was influenced by the Bond movies or the Avengers, but before this time, the mod look was decidedly un-English, foreign, in a way exotic (but not outlandish like the flash Teddyboy style).... even the materials often were different from traditional British choices (think of the American seersucker and Madras fabrics, khaki and olive cotton poplin... and the lightweight Italian wool/mohair blends and tropical wools....)

....

Hey, OTP! I guess, we're both off topic... Italian suits, DMs? Mod and skinhead stuff... why? this is an Ivy League forum... what does all this stuff matter, if we could just have some Stanley Blacker ads... and why can't I sleep... gotta be at work in 4 hours!!!

Shelly Hamilton wrote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzE6SQvhdGQ

Lord love me, that had me grinning like a fool. Lovely stuff!

Shelly Hamilton wrote:

One Trick Pony wrote:

There's perhaps a slight division between the 'American' and the 'Italian'.  I'm far more 'American', others will be, to a greater or lesser degree, 'Italian'.  Daniele provides us, it goes without saying, with a sublime example!, which must be the envy of many an English 'mod'.  But didn't UK Ivy, in the very beginning, mix all of this up to present something - I was going to say 'distinctively English', but I'm not sure that I can - ?  Just look at some of the pictures of John Simons and his friends.  They're having a lovely time of it!  A younger man - let's say Adam - might prefer something slightly 'Italian'.  A slightly older man - such as myself - probably benefits from the sack.  The roads have diverged a little, but only a little, and Gibson Gardens, as we know, is a flag-bearer for the Italian male.  More problematic, from my point of view, is the wearing of, say, DMs.  But, if we're allowing 'work wear' and 'Americana' - which we are - they probably belong.  Thus we begin to turn circles.  Much of it, though - I'm convinced of this - is going to depend upon age and experience.  Adam strikes me as open-minded.

In the fifties and early sixties, however, both Italian and American jackets typically had a boxy cut, without waist suppression or maybe with minimal waist suppression. So, Italian jackets were cut rather straight, as well, and they were also tailored quite softly, unlike the stiff Savile Row hour glass silhouette with its pinched waist and its flared skirting.
  Maybe the Italian suits were more slim cut than the American suits in general, and of course the jackets were even shorter (way shorter sometimes, hence the English term "bumfreezer"). They also usually had very narrow lapels, usually a higher gorge and button stance (no 3/2 roll) and they were a little bit more "constructed" (and thus accentuating the male features more strongly, unlike the "asexual", puritan sack suits) but there were also rounded shoulders/ sleeveheads... it wasn't like the American traditional natural shoulder, but not like the 80s power suit either (the monstrosities of Armani etc. with those terrible exaggerated shoulders)...
   Italian suits were sometimes double breasted (with a very narrow crossover), while the Ivy League look (notice: not the American style in general) was always single-breasted: pure and simple, minimalist, less is more (think of the 2 button cuff).... another difference is that the Italian suits had a one-piece-back and thus usually had short side vents (which became longer during the sixties) while the American jackets usually had a single vent (centre or off-centre/hook vent)...
I talk about "usually" because there always exceptions... JS talks about American/Continental, American/British, Continental/British crossover things in the interview on the website... think of the Rat pack lounge lizard styles and "Jivy Ivy", the Mad Men look, and the JFK 2 button style.... the company Brioni had become famous on an international level by 1953 or 1954 already and some Hollywood stars even went to Italy for custom suits....

I digress... what was it all about?.... erm, box jackets vs. waist suppression? Mod styles and Ivy League style?

Anyway, as far as I know (probably from Barnes), waist suppression wasn't common for Mod fashions before 1962... Dunno, if this City Gent style fad was just  a piss-take on the brokers, or if it was influenced by the Bond movies or the Avengers, but before this time, the mod look was decidedly un-English, foreign, in a way exotic (but not outlandish like the flash Teddyboy style).... even the materials often were different from traditional British choices (think of the American seersucker and Madras fabrics, khaki and olive cotton poplin... and the lightweight Italian wool/mohair blends and tropical wools....)

....

Hey, OTP! I guess, we're both off topic... Italian suits, DMs? Mod and skinhead stuff... why? this is an Ivy League forum... what does all this stuff matter, if we could just have some Stanley Blacker ads... and why can't I sleep... gotta be at work in 4 hours!!!

I was wearing a cotton poplin suit last evening: with silk and cordovan.  Who noticed?  No one.  Of course, no one.  For my money, Orlon is as taboo as the DM.

Dear me.

Love it.

Barking Bonkers Mad.

Post often.

Best -

Hasn't BoO's writing style changed though?

Still love it.

Barking.

One Trick Pony wrote:

Russell_Street wrote:

Hasn't BoO's writing style changed though?

Still love it.

Barking.

Well.  The chap does have a valuable point or three to make.  I long ago gave up on the idea of searching for the Holy Grail, and just counted myself lucky when Ebay or the local Oxfam yielded something worth wearing.  I'm still doing just that.  My wife will often drive us to some market town (which we love for their vernacular, non-modernist architecture), then I'll search the rails for jackets, shirts and jumpers and the shelves for books and movies, CDs etc.  As for Brooks Brothers in 2009, a couple of white shirts will do me.  A trip over to Nottingham might result in my buying a bit of Woolrich or London Fog from 'Wild' - a shop which is 'Ivy' only by total accident.  .

you are right... passion is the key!

CDs?

One Trick Pony wrote:

But...

Mr. Gall has passion and passion is always mildly attractive.  I think, like many of us, he just gets frustrated and frustration can be cumulative.  It can spill over into vituperation, I guess.

English Ivy is for slight oddballs.  Jim, Mr. Gall, myself etc.  And he's interesting, that Mr. Gall, always interesting.

you are right... passion is the key!

adam! wrote:

Will interest not suffice?

Interest is fine.  Interest is actually fantastic to be honest...


I'm still enjoyiong BoO's sudden interest ...  He just doesn't sound like BoO anymore ...   No?


Top forum fodder -  Post often!

... But all you care about is trying to promote your shonky writing off all of this...


Dear me.

bandofoutsiders wrote:

Gibson Gardens wrote:

Dismissing that Stanley Blacker jacket on this forum is akin to a Christian who rejects the Bible. Here we are presented with that weirdly straight almost asexual Ivy style in its absolute most perfect expression at the height of the original Golden Age of Ivy. This is a sacred text upon which we are gazing and I react with Al-Qaeda-like fury and intolerance when the very roots of the look are so nonchalantly dismissed with a few ignorant pokes at a keyboard. Ivy is NOT about wearing a plain Made in China T shirt, some Made in China khakis and a pair of Made in China sneakers. That does not mean you've mastered the look. It means you probably want to fit in, look safe and understated, and attract the interest of the opposite sex by appearing unthreatening and pleasingly casual and youthful. Nothing wrong with this of course, most of us do that in our teens, early twenties. But it is my perhaps rather twisted theory that those who are attracted to the Ivy thing in their youth are a little bit, shall we say, unconventional, a bit odd, definitely left-field, rather on the neurotic side. I know I was and so were my cohorts. At the age of 24 I lived for the Ivy look, I ate, slept and breathed the whole thing. A friend coming back from Brooks in 1987, our first pioneer, was greeted like he'd returned from the Moon. He looked different, his teeth were whiter, his hair glossier, his shoes shinier. He brought us carrier bags full of rare treasures. We studied the sales receipts like they were medieval parchments. We would visit J.Simons when it was closed in the evenings and silently stare in the windows. We were dysfunctional, intense and we didn't get any action with the opposite sex for about 4 years. We were all in our little sack jackets, Linet ones from Simons (fabulous quality - the best?), vintage from Flip, the occasional Brooks or JOS A Banks number. We wore our trousers rather too short, had crew cuts and horn-rim specs. We were a bit freakish, but I thought we looked fantastic and I don't regret a moment of it, in spite of our absolute lack of appeal to women. I feel modern youth is a bit too light about all this. I know it's a generational thing but I miss the mad, intense youngsters I used to know. I don't know where it all came from, this seriousness about clothes, but it felt very important back then, a real expression of self and our collective world view. I still get that way now and again which is why I get a bit punchy when a blatantly perfect expression of the style is so casually written off. I learned through people who knew what was what telling me it straight. Johnny Simons and Ian Strachan and Graham Marsh and others always told us where we were getting it wrong. They were our teachers - kind but clear and consistent. It wasn't just clothes, it was all the other associated ephemera. We were learning a code.

GG

GG,
You've officially brought me out of the woodwork.  I was content to stop talking about all this and simply collect my sacks and tie my repps in peace.  But now I must say a few words.  I assume that your tongue is in your cheek when you call a Stanley Blacker ad a "sacred text" and when you claim to have studied sales receipts like "medieval parchments."  I get it.  It's hyperbole; an older man recollecting his youth in comically exagerrated tones.  But your diction betrays something else, something that I think might be at the root of some of the reactionary, cliquish bitterness dispelled on this forum by some of the so-called "stylists" from London on this board.  That something is:  Your Style Is A Relic.  Hence all the nostalgia, the pseudo-religious vocabulary, the Kim Jung Il-esque cult of personality that surrounds John Simons.

Now me, I like relics.  I love the smell of old clothes and the thrill of the hunt that ends with you stumbling upon exactly what you wanted but weren't even looking for.  But I don't wake up every morning, put on my 1960s American Optical horn rim fade glasses, my Gant Rugger shirt, my 1960s Cricketeer suit and my Florsheim Imperials, look in the mirror and say "yep, I am hip and current."

Now me, I know I am an anachronism, clad in my relics, and I like it.  You and your ilk don't seem to get realize this about yourselves though.  You want the look to be alive and well, but where, pray tell, does one purchase this look nowadays?  Brooks is apparently out ("not what it used to be" and all that).  J.Press apparently is out (or so says the "J.Press: RIP" crowd).  And how many more months until J.Simons closes up shop?  Where?  Tell me where you buy this stuff then!  If Brooks, Press, and other modern incarnations and iterations are unacceptable, where? 

Do you do like I do? Rummage the thrift shops and vintage dens to clad myself in the vestements of the dead?  If so, good for you and happy hunting.  But to do so and pretend a style is alive and well makes as much sense as a gleaner picking through the remnants of a field and pretending that food is plentiful.

You say that someone who dislikes a cut of blazer can't comprehend the look and even does the style a disservice, but you and your small band of poncy little virgins did the style a far greater disservice by sucking all the confidence and unassuming, nonchalant masculinity right out of it.  You, like the Japanese, turned it into a fetish, but unlike they, who imbued their look with playfulness and vitality, you turned it into something deadly serious and secretive.  Maybe today's youth lack all that seriousness about clothes and tribalism and standing around critiquing eachother, but then again, women sure are fun when they're naked, and even the most sussed clothing has to come off at some point. 

What would Miles Davis or Bill Evans have thought if they could have witnessed a little band of neurotic boys, transfering their unreleased libidinal energies into an obsession with sartorial minutiae.  How is a London "ivy stylist" fretting over which brand of cigarettes to smoke, or the length of his fingernails, any less laughable and ridiculous than a "Trad" ruminating on which dog to purchase?

Also, as far as I am concerned, the blazer in the ad and a Brooks garment from 1987 are completely different garements, alike in the same sense that a pair of selvedge Levis from 1955 and a pair of Wal-Mart Wranglers are both blue jeans.

But go ahead, as you were.  Maybe you're right.  Maybe you and your kind are the guardians of cool in a callous, soulless, uncaring world (for in what universe with a semblance of justice could J. Simons not prosper?).

Now if you'll excuse me I have some holy relics to pick up from the tailor.

You make a few good points, as OTP has already said, but I am not sure, if you really got, what it was all about... I think that you have to understand Gibson Garden's post in the context of what was going on here, and in some other forums... He didn't get angry for no reason, and I'm sure that he could care less about what someone else thinks about a vintage ad for a blazer!

GG doesn't hate the "Mods" (I don't know him personally, but if I got it right, his roots are in this "scene", too)...

  He's probably just pissed off, when certain people who didn't "do the knowledge" come to JS or write some stuff on the net like "Oh, this is boring, old-fashioned, bland..." whatever, or "it's baggy", "the lapels are too wide", "this is a bad cut" etc... It's always the same stuff! So, it is these people that aren't tolerant in the first place... these wiseguys who have just seen Quadrophenia and come here with their 1964-66 "Mod" stereotypes of Carnaby Street and The Who in mind...
....but this MB is not about Swinging London style, it's about the Ivy League Look! So, in a way, dismissing an ad like this one, is a little bit like going on a forum for... say, "fly-fishing" and saying that harpoons are better... maybe this was a bad example... well, it's like going to a forum for "Northern Soul" and saying that you don't like these sounds because their not "funky", whatever... it's just missing the point...

There is a Mod/Ivy crossover, but not all of the Ivy League clothes are "Mod clothes" and certainly not all of the Mod styles are Ivy League style... No way! By 1965/66 the term "Mod" was almost a meaningless marketing term, that was applied to anything that was in fashion...

I remember, when a certain "Style councillor" came here, and dismissed heavy Brogues and chunky Loafers, while he was advocating to wear thin soled Brogues by a small Italian company catering for the Mod revival scene specifically... He also defended electric blue Mohair as a serious business suit... and he wasn't exactly respectful, but my point is that he wasn't talking about the Ivy League style....

I'm not saying that adam is like this (I'm sure he's not), but some of those "Mods" are way more intolerant or one-track-minded than all of the hardliners over here!


So, in a way, this post from GG was just a reaction... If I got him right, he isn't a style dictator like this Manton at AAAC used to be.... He is just saying, that this ad is an essential, typical example of an Ivy League jacket, and if you don't like it, you probably don't have a clue about "The Look"... I don't think it was directed against someone specifically.... Of course, it's a little harsh, the way he said it, but adam was cool with it, and I think the post that you just quoted here, explains a lot about why he couldn't stay calm... It's his passion and he loves the Ivy League style and there's a lot of personal history involved.... If he simply said, that he liked the jacket, he wouldn't have got his point across... In the end, it was just talking TACHELES, and sometimes you need to speak this language... It's not a secret code like Polari, it's a language that everybody can understand...

Of course, clothes are just a matter of taste in the end, but if it is about the Ivy League Style, it is a very specific taste, it's an aesthetic with certain rules.... Jim is right when he compares it to Savile Row... You couldn't go to a Mayfair tailor and ask for a Tonik suit with a 4-button jacket and skintight trousers with 14" bottoms and frogmouth pockets...

However, saying this, I don't think Ivy League is just an upperclass thing...

Especially, with the London crowd it is not! Nevertheless, there is a certain elitism, but the Americans usually don't see the difference...

The i-Gent/ "Trad" elitism of AAAT and the curriculum is all about "old money" aspirations, the "good old times", Yacht clubs and about pretending to be a New England Brahmin, whatever...

The "London Ivy" crowd's elitism is about passion (I know I repeat myself), it is about being "sussed", being "in the know", about getting hip, maybe in an obsessive way, but it's only about the aesthetic... nothing more...

that's the difference.... as far as I understand it....

... but I'm not a Londoner and I'm not as hardline as John Gall and Jim, I have to add...

Anyway, nice that you joined in the discussions, once again, BoO! I really like your contributions! And I also hope that Paul and Lewis will be back here, too.... If they didn't like "The Look", they wouldn't have come here in the first place, I guess....


(we're all running in the Special Olympics here, anyway)



Cheers, Shelly

Last edited by Shelly Hamilton (2009-07-22 11:20:43)

adam! wrote:

Will interest not suffice?

Interest will suffice.  But, Adam, you may feel that, sooner rather than later if you're fortunate, that you owe it to yourself (and your bank balance) to invest wisely.  Hewitt quotes a chap in 'Soul Stylists' talking about 'quality'.  That, to my way of thinking, does not mean Uniqlo.  Nor does it mean - and I'm sorry to have to say this - the £50 Chinese-made Haggar shirt on sale in John Simons.  It might have meant, on Monday, a pair of well worn Grenson brogues (had they been my size and should I have needed another pair of brogues) on offer in a charity shop.  Did you see that pair of Church Lewis managed to get his hands on?  Better a pair of secondhand brogues made in Northampton than anything knocked out in Vietnam.  I also saw Lands End and Hanes on Monday, but the quality looked decidedly iffy, so I didn't bite. 
Actually, Adam, I think you're far too modest, and I would like to get a look at you at the age of, say, twenty five.  I think you'll be like Chris H or Brideshead. 
Chensvold apart, we do have to face a few facts.  Either that or we waylay Staceyboy on his way home from work and not only steal the clothes from his back but also force strong drink upon him until he reveals his secrets...

Russell_Street wrote:

Here's the deal with 'Sussed' Ivy in London:

You do what we all did.

You just turn up & watch & learn & politely ask questions.

- Anybody with manners can do this.

I only ever torment arseholes. Check the record. I take PMs & emails from all over & try to help as best I can. There's one guy from Modcult. called 'Colin' whom I really rate - We only really talk by PM, but he is all you'd want from a guy with an interest in Ivy: He asks for pointers when he's not sure (not often), but he knows his own mind & had that own mind long before he started out. He's into style & it shows.

Today with the Net. it's even easier, providing you're not an arsehole. People are here to chat & to share info. What we won't do is to feed anybody's BS agendas. Come to us trying to promote a load of crap and we'll use you up...

"Trad", anybody?

"Ivy-Sty"?
Oh, Jim, you can be so butch when you get angry...  'Colin' sounds like he should come over and join us...


Get it yet?



Best -