Jack, I agree completely, and thank you for helping to clarify trad for me.  It is a label to which i have been recently exposed but I've been dedicated to elements of this style for some time.  After finding the AAAT forum my confusion was only intensified.  I liked only a small fraction of the styles posted and felt the whole thing was far too stuffy with too many rules, remiscent of high schoolers jockeying for superiority.  Insecurity abounding.  I sort of fell into Ivy League or "traditional American" style rather naturally.  I was raised watching old movies, and i was raised in khakis and blue blazers and button downs.  We were not wealthy, did not sail, did not use "summer" as a verb.  While this style was not something i stuck with continually, it came creeping back after college.  Faced with adulthood but wanting to look neither too old nor too young, Old-School Ivy Style returned as a new option with old familiaries.  It asserted adulthood with a touch of rock n roll.  I found ways to keep it cool and not preppy (i went to a high school were A&F and popped-collared Polo was the unofficial uniform).  Skinny vintage repp ties, slim suits with narrow lapels, old wingtips, classic Ben Sherman button downs.  I like how Ivy League permits one to wear a suit without looking overdressed. 

That having been said, i don't conform to all trad "rules".  it's ridiculous to dislike something simply becuase it doesn't meet parameters for a subculture.  I dislike nantucket reds and anything in pastel or too bright.  I dislike madras but love seersucker.  I have some 3-2 sacks with center vents but I also have 2 button side-vented continental suits and one button peaked lapel continental suits.  I like bow ties but usually in muted colors or stripes with blue or gray suits and certainly not on a daily basis. 

I suppose then, I am semi-trad,

if George Peppard in Breakfast at Sir Winston Churchills Flem spoon.'s
and Paul Newman in Harper or Torn Curtain
and Jim Hutton and Cary Grant in Walk Don't Run
and mayeb even Connery as Bond

are Trad.  That having been said, i'll wear whatever watchband i please.

I'm 52. I grew up in New Haven CT, this was just the stuff I was brought up on. Fashion is a foreign country now. I dress the way I have always dressed and occasionally make a convert. I actually have had an influence at my office. through my efforts seersucker flourishes in the summer (the other day when 3 people showed up in seeksucker suits I was asked if that was the office uniform)  tom

in have a pair of pinchord shorts in blue and white and a grey pinchord jacket.  love them both.

A PM from a real Trad who graduated from that style to some of the Western world's best bespoke:

"In a real call to trads you say the term "Trad" is no older than this century but I heard of it before I got to these forums, it was in Flusser's "Style and the Man" which came out around 1995. Apparently it is the Japanese celebration of anglo-american clothes from the 50s and 60s."

I am very happy to learn from those who actually know. Flusser uses the term re: the Jap. style when he talks of Brooks & Press. Tom222222 ( I recommend his posts to you all) uses the term via Flusser on "GoPreppy". Harris when he posted there as Skip picks it up. That would seem to be the history of the term's usage in the West unless more new information comes in. And more new information is always welcome. For too long the discussion of this style has not been information based.

You are absolutely right, Brownshoe. "Follow your own sartorial White Rabbit". Just don't tell the world that your "notional, allusive, anecdotal, half-imagined understanding of The Curriculum" is anything more than that. That is where you pick a fight with those who came before you.
Trad has many aspects. If you are an OPH man then say so & say so with pride. Just don't pretend that your aspect of the style IS the style. This is where Andy Trad took a wrong turning way back when.

Real Trad has room for all aspects, moods and facets of the Trad style. However it has no room for bogus rules and curriculums based on ignorance.
Andy Trad is an evolution of the OPH. It starts in 2004 on AAAC with its roots in 1981's OPH. As such it is a valid take on the style. Make claims that it is anything to do with anything earlier and you invite waggish debate and puckish nose-pulling.

An obvious point, surely?

Jack.

"Follow your own sartorial White Rabbit". Just don't tell the world that your "notional, allusive, anecdotal, half-imagined understanding of The Curriculum" is anything more than that."

Wouldn't think of it!



"That is where you pick a fight with those who came before you.
Trad has many aspects. If you are an OPH man then say so & say so with pride. Just don't pretend that your aspect of the style IS the style. This is where Andy Trad took a wrong turning way back when."

Harris has become a Luther-like figure, nailing his theses to the church door.  I always considered his "rules" just that:  HIS rules.  He had good taste and a lot of knowledge, so those rules were a pretty useful starting point for those interested but not well-versed.  Turning his take into dogma is indeed silly and wrong, but I believe that people aren't doing that so much anymore, and were acting mostly out of enthusiasm and infatuation with something new-but-familiar.  It is deeply gratifying to have an inchoate (word of the day) but essential aspect of your identity articulated with such authority and eloquence; a lot of guys new the sort of stuff they liked, but had never seen it so clearly defined and illuminated before.  I think it was intoxicating for a lot of us.

To sum up:  Harris is dead.  Long live Harris.

"Real Trad has room for all aspects, moods and facets of the Trad style. However it has no room for bogus rules and curriculums based on ignorance.
Andy Trad is an evolution of the OPH. It starts in 2004 on AAAC with its roots in 1981's OPH. As such it is a valid take on the style. Make claims that it is anything to do with anything earlier and you invite waggish debate and puckish nose-pulling."

Well, it has quite a lot to do with what came earlier, surely?

Always a pleasure to kick this silliness around, Terry.  Be well.

PS

Ease up on TTTB.  Every Holmes needs his Moriarty, or we'd quickly lose interest in the story, right?

Best

Braunschuh

Thanks!  I've been on a Paul Newman kick lately.  Another great Ivy League styled film is Godard's Pierrot Le Fou, out of print but i watched it last week.  At one point Belmondo wears a slim seersucker suit with loafers and no socks.  In the end he has on a great natural shoulder 3 button and slim slacks with weejuns.

Interestingly enough, in Richard Barnes' book "Mods!," the term "Trad" refers to fans of "Traditional" jazz, as opposed to "Modernist" fans of Modernist Jazz (the forerunners to the mod craze).  This confused me slightly, because as I understand it, Ivy Style (or Trad) is more closely associated with the Modernists.  Is British Trad different than American Ivy League?  Another wrench thrown into gears....