... be a little bold, a little Newport 1958, a lot Boom Years... Plaid cap, hornrimmed spectacles, button-down with sleeves rolled up to just around the elbow, flat-fronted shorts (khaki?), white socks coming well up the calves, brown or wine penny loafers. Very 'JOASD', very Modern Jazz Quartet.
A great look. I'd love to. In London you can get away with looking like a twat as display on the street is much more a part of the urban panorama than it is in the provinces. But I couldn't do shorts and socks, though I would like to. I am attracted to the idea of getting more out there as I get older. You see some cool, funky older than me gents in my neighbourhood and I want to be part of the gang. Jeffrey Garet kind of did a muted version of this very American look.
I've worn a Madras jacket in this two-street town, together with a white button-down, Levis and loafers (sockless). I've worn a blue seersucker jacket and pink seersucker shorts - which may have been pushing it a little. But I've only been abused once, from a car, back in 2009, when wearing a Brooksgate duffle coat and chinos.
What I'd really like is a Monk-style Chinese hat.
The Don Richards overcoat I once had caused a few stares. It was well out of its time and place.
I dearly loved Jeff G. Think about him more or less every day.
Remember seeing JG outside Russell St one Sunday probably on a break wearing OCBD with the sleeves rolled up, shorts off white cotton burlington argyles and loafers. Only JG could carry that look off.
I visited Russell Street at least twice in full regalia - Press lambswool jacket, Italian wool and cashmere coat, buttercup-coloured Brooks knitwear (not necessarily at the same time, you understand) to be met by Jeff in the kind of clothes Runninggeez describes. I was undergoing that learning experience that others - our Gibson, Jimmy Frost Mellor had had - of dressing in our Sunday best Ivy only to discover that Messrs. Simons, Strachan, Garet et al. were, to coin a phrase, 'stripped for action': JS in denim shirt or wearing a simple green Tootal scarf, Jeff in sweatshirt, shorts and white deck shoes, Kenny Lovegrove in navy pocket polo and jeans.
Back I went to the Ivy drawing board.
It's easy to overdo the ivy look, especially on a pilgrimage to J Simons.
Some of the guys posting on the Facebook site seem to go way over the top and they are only standing in their living rooms!
I see Ivy dressing as a paradox, a puzzle, an enigma. 'Look at me/Don't look at me/Look at me'. Clothes send out signals, yes? When my OS Madras cap turns up in the New Year, what do I team it with in the late spring and summer? Something that simply does not catch the eye. The cap thus becomes the 'one stand-out' item.
I begin to wonder, though, if certain rules were laid down in the UK fairly late on which had only a partial relationship with Ivy in the US. This as regards colour in particular. I tend to abide by those rules now without giving it a massive amount of thought, but an older American poster might have a very different view. But to do 'full-on USA' in England now takes a little thinking about. As TRS has stated, Ivy is a 'mood' - thus capable of subtle alteration.
The FB people are probably just attention-seekers.