I'd forgotten about the company Albam mentioned by 1966. Looking at what they supply today it looks as if they manufacture in Portugal and not the East Midlands factories anymore.

I've gone back to looking - when I do look at all, that is, being pretty well provided for - for names like M&S: when Made In England.  For instance, their lambswool sweaters occasionally turn up, generally at around the £5 mark, and are still worth having.  I've looked over what Cable Car sold in and around San Francisco and they truly remind me of M&S.  Good, solid, plain knitwear in decent colours (and sometimes slightly offbeat ones like mustard).  Our esteemed poster, Horace (absent of late) has commented on the American liking for English (probably Scottish more so) knitwear.  I take him very much at face value.  So I'll often be wearing an American shirt with an English or Scottish made sweater.  The Brooks navy cashmere I've had for a good many years now and am currently living in (darned, it is) was made in Scotland.  But, new, it was about £350 (not, I assure you, what I shelled out for it).

I remember Albam opening their first shop and thinking some of it had that "quite tasty" vibe. I too had forgotten about them until just last night, when somehow they cropped into my mind. A quick look told me nothing much had changed, some quite nice clobber. These days with Albam stamped all over it. I can't be then only person to eschew names on clothing can I, almost certainly not on this forum I'd have thought!

I inherited some lovely vintage cashmere from the likes of N Peal, Made in England M&S, Hawick etc etc from my father when he died. None of it ever fit me though, I'd out grown him by the time I was about 17.

Knit-wear is something I'm only now starting to understand and appreciate - I did at one stage have a pair of gorgeous Cashmere/Lambswool mix Shawl-collar jumpers from Brooks Brothers. Special-ordered from the US via their Regent St store shortly after it opened (2006 ish?) and also made in Scotland. One in Burgundy, the other in what they described as "Biscuit" AKA Beige. I wish I could remember what happened to them but they're long a thing of memory.

I'm reminded of one of the last blog articles The Weejun posted - "In Praise of De Paz" - even with the internet and availability of stuff online, it still feels as if the best stuff finds it's way out of the British Isles to the export market.

At one time there seems to have been a definite nostalgia in the USA for clothing from the British Isles, especially in the Ivy heartlands of the North East. Unsurprising, given the large number of people in that quadrant of the country who proudly trace their lineage back to England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Eire. But the allegiance to British and Irish clobber is not so strong in other areas of the US where the Ivy look was not so popular either. The US is becoming more diverse as immigration no longer follows previous patterns and catchment areas, 80% of entrants now come from Asia, South and Latin America or Africa. Leaving aside the trend toward more and more casual attire, why would someone from Columbia be interested in owning a Scottish sweater?

Woof raises some interesting points about immigration into the United States.  Hadn't occurred to me.  So - 'old money' shuffles off to Buffalo?

Woof's US demographic analysis is spot-on, and further highlights the extent to which our beloved Ivy Look becomes more and more niche in its homeland. In 1960 Ivy League style accounted for about 70% of the US market, today what must it be? 5%? Though I must say, as sad as the demise of the great American makers and retailers is, I welcome the erosion of WASP culture in the States. The rise of the likes of Trump is partly due to white working class entrenchment in the wake of a country changing around them. Given time their resistance will wane as a new America emerges, hopefully one rooted more in the true principles of the American constitution. Sorry to get all heavy here, this is just a topic that fascinates me. We are in love with an image of America that no longer exists apart from on a few sandy beaches on Cape Cod. Clothes as the ultimate metaphor - no doubt about that.

As to WASP culture, what is that?  I was reading Stephen King last week (the literary equivalent of a gaudy shirt or Big Mac and fries).  One of his characters (based loosely upon himself) sneers at one of the former town bully boys, now driving round with a Reagan/Bush In 1980 sticker on his fender.  Not the type, perhaps, one would think of as WASP-ish.  I tend to think more of a William Buckley or Tom Wolfe figure. 
Read Mencken: 'Democracy is the notion that once every four or five years, men and women think they know what they want - and then they deserve to get it, hot and strong'.  One of Paxman's journalistic heroes.

Q. Is there really such a creature as an English 'Ivy' item, favourite or otherwise? 
It's possible (even probable) that England valued more in the way of 'cross-pollination' than the United States.  And still does.
Have Vetra, Keydge, Paraboot, Mugler etc. found a place over there? 
John Simons, over the years, may have left O'Connell's standing.

Dunn & co. was for retired folk. Hepworth was slightly upmarket of Burtons and the fifty shilling tailor.

That said, Burton made my brother a blazer with an off centre vent and patch pockets. We did not know anything about shoulders or three buttons rolled to two at the time. Nice houndstooth trousers too. Not bad for a teenage schoolboy.

What was the English crossover at Ivy/J Simons. I'd be interested to know if anything still available was around then.

Many years ago I went to a Bat Mitzvah in upstate Now York wearing Weejuns and a soft shoulder suit. Im my addled mind I thought that would be the norm but I looked positively dowdy in comparison to the Zegna and Armani clad gentlemen dancing the Horah.

The Ivy Shop was a bit more English than J.Simons primarily due to its location. There were, and probably still are, some Sloaney types on Richmond Hill, 'rus in urbe' and all that, and such rugged chaps like their heavy cords, and sensible shoes, and Viyella shirts, and chunky knitwear. J.Simons was much jazzier and adventurous, but John himself adores the Savile Row/old school English way of dressing, so in his own dress, and sometimes in his vintage selections, he would quote from the English side of the traditional family. Also toffs from the nearby law courts would often come in and John could sell to them and dress them fantastically well, and these chaps weren't there for Ivy League. When I think back, his ability to understand and adapt to the unspoken sartorial desires of his many varied types of customer was remarkable to witness.

Mixing comes easily and naturally: the other weekend, a Peter Geeson navy long-sleeve polo shirt beneath a summerweight USA-made Hilfiger jacket.  One item made within a thirty minute drive of where I live, the other on the opposite side of the Atlantic.  Maybe that's how it should be: hands across the water.  It seems natural enough when our American friends favour Barbour (which has gone so far overground in England it's positively blinded by the sunlight).