I think that's the ideal.

There has to be an ideal.

Ask Andy About Trad was all about the yearning for that ideal and the groping towards knowledge to make that yearning an informed reality. That process still goes on.

This place, as I see it, comes from a slightly different direction. More informed already and looking at the next level up, but that yearning is still the same: To fully express one's self through the medium of one's chosen style.

It's all that FNB ever talks about. Following that White Rabbit.

The Trad/Ivyblogs also share this yearning and the magazine-style Ivy-Style blog with Christian Chensvold caters to that desire well in its Coffee-Table manner. 'The Curriculum' site has reached a consensus and so their quest is over.

We are all here because we want to know more & because knowledge is power. We take our information from wherever we can find it, weigh it up & use it.

In that way the works-in-progress that we all are advance and grow in understanding and knowledge which we can then share with those of a similar mind to us and pass on.

Ripples in a pond and all that.

From '04 on the Internet to date you can see the growth of this ideal. There is more on our subject now than ever before at various levels to suit the various interests of the reader.

And the journey goes on.


(God! But it's good to be free from "Russell" !    )


Best -

Jim

Last edited by Just Jim (2009-04-19 04:09:42)

Agreed. Style is a process.

Natural fibres was not a big deal in 1969.

The Ivy Shop and Squire shops were not the only retail outlets back then either.

Outsourcing is a separate issue; though I am now more worried about our own great firms - the Northampton shoemakers etc. - than, say, American shirtmakers.

I first saw the Union Label in 'Flip' on Longacre & was amazed by it. Not a thing we have in Engerland. Even just the idea of it is so un-English.

Top!

Could be.  I've got a pair of those Sanders boots, and rang them up a couple of years ago for new laces.  Not a sign of them now, either on-line or in the 'phone book.

^Always thought those George Boots had to have 3 eyelets...

I can't prove it but I would say that the Ivy League style as marketed by Brooks and to some extent Press decades ago placed more emphasis on the country of origin when the product was NOT made in USA.  In particular, I think goods made in England or Scotland had a particular cachet, and Brooks in particular was always trying to draw Anglo-American connections.

The "Made in USA" consciousness that we see today, as I read it, is more a product of the very late 20th c.--when the whole textile industry seemed to move to the far east.  In the 50s/60s my understanding is that most clothing items--even lots of really bad ones--were made in USA, so that in itself didn't matter much.

It's of course different for you Brits, I imagine, since you were self-consciously adopting another country's style, and so the "made in USA" label functioned as part of the authenticity of clothes that were hard to source there.