^ Word.  In fact, words.

Couldn't agree more.

The modern Brooks 'shopping experience': in through the door bursting for a piss...  avoiding the clutching arms of the sales staff...  having the piss...  taking the piss (with a straight face)...  having the piss taken out of me (with a straight face)...  paying the bastards...  out through the door feeling less than satisfied...  going round to 'American Classics' and talking to two human beings...

Hep's right - the post-atomic world had a quick burst of genuine optimism, advances were made, then - once again - the soul became corrupted.  It's down the individual now; the collective solutions no longer seem possible.

/\   An excellent series of observations.

The core 'American' (Anglophilic) look that was to be rebranded and developed as 'Ivy' belongs to Brooks, but the real evangelists of the style were all the newbies who picked up the ball & really ran with it, pushing it on into further mutations.

Age has brought me back to classicism though. Small 'c' conservatism too, probably, and so my ideal now is vintage Brooks worn in Paris over a very long lunch.

Good stuff indeed. I've often thought about Brooks being closer to British tailoring (in looks - I don't know that much about construction) than some smaller "Ivy extremist" shops. Brooks seems to have been more conservative - for example trousers have been fairly wide and lapels never skinny.

So it looks like Brooks were the first with ready to wear apart from all the people lost to time and an Updyke and Scott (and in fact a Judson seems to be the first to manufacture stock shirts, followed by Davies)! Great info! Bloody Generations of Style! (To be fair to that book, it doesn't state definitively that the company was the first. It was hardly likely to include anything about poorly made uniforms etc either. It's a bit wobbly in areas besides bias, though. Not the best written book, which as a rule (noble exceptions of course) is a given with books on clothes, and it's vague on some details and the spiel on the two-button suit for example seems a bit eccentric.)

The whole development of ready to wear reminds me of what a democratic force mass production can be. (I never know how far to go with this, but if anybody's thinking that mass production or Ivy or America or whatever absolutely is or isn't a democratic force, please remember it isn't an absolute idea. Probably sounds obvious spelt out but people consistently seem to make this mistake. The version Plato had to put up with overdid it in many ways for instance, ended up with people voting to torture and massacre entire cities etc.) Anyway, I do heart the idea of Ivy. The story has everything in just the right amounts.

Last edited by Drink (2011-12-22 16:48:45)

And any way we were talking about 1958 Brooks Brothers,not 1858.

The original post on this thread seems to invite debate. Plus, just as it invokes the terrible ghost of Brooks present, it also invokes the ghost of Brooks Brothers past (the "idea of giving suit styles a number" for example: an idea that happened way before the boom years, or Zach Time as it's also known). People will doubtless try to decide Saint GG's intentions centuries after his death in just this way.

"I think he meant to set up a dialogue when he said that."
"No, I think he meant us take it at face value."
"I'm starting my own church."

OK, I've defended katon's intervention best as possible but there's no way I want to ruffle the feathers of the person responsible for the "ivy league over the decades" thread (one of the best I've seen). I admire any attempt to take a hardline on-topic stance on this forum, but I'm also glad that carpu brought in Savile Row say. Right time, wrong place, but surely that's how a thread moves, with comparison and contrast. Perhaps there's more going on here than I care to know about (ideological differences or summat), perhaps less (simple misunderstanding). Either way, I'm getting the hell out of it! Merry Christmas one and all!