Last edited by Coolidge (2007-06-03 14:40:41)

Lazy bugger!

You buy into "Trad" without a blink, but want me to hold your hand through a walk through the parent of your own style?

Having said that you're a cute little troll so I forgive you...

Defend "Trad" for me in return?

You're the one with the new style here.

Why's it called "Trad" then?

My best to your wife & kids -

t.

Terry, I hope the conciliatory nature in which you just posted is for real, and not sarcasm.  It seems the former.

And if so, I sense common ground nearing.

I'd like us to find what the common thread is between all the children of Ivy. 

I will concede, even celebrate that "internet trad", as it is practiced at Ask Andy is not the one true Ivy.  That style brings together conservative TNSIL business attire (sack suits, oxford shirts, repp tie, etc), and preppy weekend wear (AGAIN, not without its problems).  We talk about it, we source it, we celebrate when we find a great old coat in the classic style.  Some are too rules-bound, but they operate in an attempt to keep us within TNSIL and not drift into just plain old Am-Jack Boardroom, or CBD (AND NOT to claim that Trad is the only way in town). 

I will also concede that the one true Ivy has many other children, some of whom don't necessarily play well with their siblings, and that's ok. 

Now that we have that.  Could we explore what the One True Ivy (or OTI) is for real?  What is the common thread?  Is it the natural shoulders?  Is it dartless coats?  Or is there no one thread that bonds "the look"?  (if the answer to this last question is nothing, I'll be a tad disenfranchised in the whole thing.)

None of what I've said, mind you, is in conflict with what I perceive happens at the Andy Trad Land.  My opinion, of course, but I've been reading and posting there some time (pre-split).  I also think that the forum of this moment is doing quite well, if one omits the trolls who want to get us off track, or the newbies who simply haven’t read the great old threads.  And there is still more work to be done.  There are new sources for this and that, there are new interpretations of the old, new members can offer new things.

A simple declaration:  I like "trad", or TNSIL because sack coats fit me really well, I love the look, and I love the tradition and the timelessness of it.  I think if you asked the vast majority of members who post regularly on the trad forum they would tend to agree with me.

Good lord, I have to get back to work!

T to the B

Top hole debate!

For educational purposes, I re-post the following which our ol chum Horace was good enough to share long ago:


"Sartorial Note.  Commonweal magazine (9 Aug 1957)

The phenomenon has been there to be seen for quite some time, no doubt, but it was just the other day that we fell to musing on the triumph of the Ivy League style in fashions for men.  Natural shoulders and narrow lapels, somber colors and dignified cut are the now ubiquitous hallmarks of the Ivy mode, and what used to be the special garb of a special breed of northeastern American is now accepted dress of John Doe all over the nation.

What is curious about this fact is that the Ivy look is traditionally the mark of the Harvard type, the intellectual, the sophisticated Easterner.  And, as we are assured continuously by writers who claim access to the general will, this type is either an object of fun or a sinister figure in the popular imagination.  He is an egg head, probably a "pinko," more than likely a "bleeding heart" internationalist.  He is clearly not a one hundred per cent American.

But if the Ivy League egg head is a figure of mixed suspicion and derision, how is that his working clothes have become prestige symbols for the nation at large?  Why, if he holds the type in such contempt, does the average citizen now wear his emblematic short haircut and gray flannel suit?

We read too many papers to deny the existence today of anti-intellectualism or the prevalence of the anti-Harvard animus, yet merely to say paradox is to explain nothing.  All we can offer is the observation that in cultural values, as in everything else, things are seldom as simple as they seem.  Opposing attitudes can and do exist simultaneously in the minds of men, and we think this is the case here.  The Ivy Leaguers's place in American life is not to be seen in black or white; it is as darkly gray as his famous flannel suit."



From the above,, the astute can learn that at least from 1957, the Ivy look had become the wardrobe of John Doe (dare I write, middle class, or perhaps MC is more to the liking of some?).  Not just two country clubs in the northeast, not strict curriculae, no pronouncing of rules, no garish clown costumes meant to shock and awe, but good natural shoulder clothing adopted by all.  And from perusal at the old New Yorker ads (apologies to John Calvin who seems to eschew such historical reference), the evolution of the Ivy look can also be observed, pleats, darts, side-seams, and all.  Ivy for everyone!