I can't help feeling that, in the first instance, John Simons and Jeff Kwintner were offering a slightly tongue-in-cheek range of clothing: having a little fun, perhaps, before settling into the serious business of retailing on Richmond Hill.
The reason I say this is that Pierre Cardin-style shirts and cord coats sound a little sexy to me, whereas campus Ivy comes across as celibate: a badge of honour almost, demonstrating to your peers that you 'belonged' in a relaxed, non-threatening way. Italianate and French influences feeding into what was already happening around Soho maybe emphasised latent English sexiness: clothing as 'social interface', but in order to impress for sexual as opposed to socio-economic reasons. A slight touch of the 'peacock', then, if non-Carnaby.
What tends to appeal to me now, after years of the reverse, is the very slight drabness of Ivy, which may accord better with the style before the advertising men saw dollar signs and got their hooks into it. Movies and modern jazz made The Look hip, of course - no denying that - and it's quite a trick to take conservative clothing and flip it around, as Miles Davis did, and make it sassy.
It's interesting to ponder just how Anglo Ivy might have developed had hard mod not evolved into peanut, and the Ivy Shop sold exclusively to the young city types just going steady and thinking a bit about Terence Conran and Elizabeth David. Absolutely no associations with the terraces, Jamaican music, Ben Sherman shirts, Tonik or crombies. Should we pin the blame partly on the G9, then? Speaking of 'the long march away from the spirit of '69' I'm speaking of the need, now, and for some (not all) to head off in a more clearly-defined Modernist direction - which involves cerebral activity of an advanced nature. It seems possible that 'The French Look', in some of its manifestations, came close; but the Ivy severity was missing. To me, now, the challenge is to consistently strike that balance between the old celibate severity - the drabness if you like, pre-(say) 1945-50 - and what came after: the Anglo-European 'sexing up' of the original. Look at pictures of John Simons, and he seems to pull that off: the style, the softness, the muted colour schemes. Could we have some of the old website photographs back on? Look at that picture of John pretending to 'throttle' Ken - and look at Ken. 100 per cent non-Mod.
I have almost no frame of reference with "Anglo Ivy" save the posts on this forum. I did however want to chime in on something you said a while a back, and a reference to a type of outfit I admire that a few fellow Americans seemed to mock. Chet, I remember a post you had on the simplicity of the crew neck, jeans, loafers combo. Another post last week wanted someone to name the perfect Anglo Ivy outfit and mocked the idea of Bean jeans etc. I like a lot of the sharper outfits I see, but Ivy can't be only that can it? There is something so perfectly distilled about the crew neck, and jeans combo. Maybe this is just my personal prejudice but nearly every person who posts pictures looks better and to my eyes sharper when they stick to the basics, and just show a simple casual look.
That is pretty interesting. If Ivy is at all subversive on this side of the Atlantic it tends to be because of the wearer themselves. I think this might be dependent on region in the States but I get some pretty strange looks for wearing the most basic of clothes. Maybe that has something to do with still being in my twenties, maybe not. It never occurs to me that what I wear is subversive. All though any male even tucking in a shirt around these parts is bound to get a few looks. Roll up my sleeves, see the tattoos, and it blows peoples mind. I can't help but wonder if the clothes mean what they do in this day and age based on the individual wearing them.
The people, yes; but it had to be pretty hardcore: the way I dress now when I'm wanting to 'show out': full-on Ivy. The shoes are just so important, wingtips being a touch more emphatic than loafers. I like what I call my USAAF look: beginning with the haircut, ending with the cordovan.
Whereabouts in the US are you, SS?
I think all that's going to get one noticed over here is, say, dressing up to the nines like Patrick, or wearing something like that Keydge Madras slack jacket or full-on seersucker with bucks. Mind you, I remember, oh, about twelve or so years ago, wearing a Daks tweed jacket with leather elbow patches in the wrong boozer and getting some very funny looks.
I live in Louisville, Kentucky. The town has a lot of nice history and of course yesterday was the focus of a lot of attention with the Derby. Most of the residents tend to avoid suits and even sport coats unless the occasion requires it. Any compliments on my clothes seem to come from weird sources. A lot of the black kids love any type of crepe sole boot, no matter what else you are wearing with it. Older ladies seem to enjoy any kind traditional dress, and hipster kids think I am being ironic if my tattoos are visible. I don't know how different it is elsewhere. I grew up in rural Florida, and went to the University of Florida literally up the road from where I grew up. I've mentioned before these clothes started out for me as my rebellion against both "normal" folks and the uniform clad "scene" types, now it's just what I wear. If you don't fit in the obvious southern frat uniform (chinos,ralph lauren, croakies) , or a cliched preppy outfit (d-ring belts, patch madras) people just can't seem to wrap their mind around it.
D-ring belts and patch Madras might cause a bit of a stir over here!
Patch Madras seems to be everywhere around here this year. A lot of girls wearing dresses and skirts. A lot of guys wearing the shorts. I've seen the d-ring belts on some guys too. I've always thought they were a bit feminine all though I like surcingle if the color is muted. A lot of Topsiders this year, as well. It's a damn shame too, I do like my white and my navy pairs. I tend to stick to bluchers and camp mocs because of it.
Nice. I was sort of wondering if someone was going to comment on that after I typed it. You will have to forgive my chauvinism, living about three miles away from Churchill Downs, it would be redundant to refer to it as the Kentucky Derby.
Last edited by ScarletStreet (2009-05-03 14:42:06)
Part 2.
I'd like to know a whole lot more about the availability of Ivy clothing in England before 1962: about the shops John Simons, Jeff Kwintner, Patrick Uden and others either worked for, shopped in, or both. So: Gee, David's, Austin's, to name the three most obvious ones. This strikes me as a far more exciting period than the 60s in total. Did the same type of customer shop at, say, Gee and Vince? Did Vince, in fact, ever attract anyone who was Ivy-leaning or was it truly a pre-Carnaby peacock place? Were guys like Richmond Hill aware of Vince? Or were they still a bit too young? In the dark days of Uniqlo, outsourcing and Ivy Lite at Brooks it's good to know these things.
Last edited by The Laird of Enfield (2009-05-04 03:02:37)
You either get UK Ivy or you don't.
Okay.
The Americans evidently don't.
The continentals are, well, continentals. (But Daniele is Italian and therefore of The Brotherhood).
It helps to be London. East End is probably best, closely followed by Stamford Hill, Stoke Newington and that bit around Finsbury Park where John Gall mutters darkly under his breath every time he sees Hewitt).
Okay. Let's not dwell too deeply in the past, but lay down some basic guidance.
Ivy is not Ivy just because you say it is, it has to have pedigree.
Some Ivy is actually 'Americana'. Most of us own a bit.
Ivy is not 'skinhead' and 'skinhead' is not Ivy.
Natural fibres next to the skin are essential: cotton, flannel, lambswool etc. Mixed fibres may be acceptable in some outerwear, e.g. macs and trenchies, but cotton is always to be preferred.
Everything should ideally be made in a civilised country (or, failing that, the United States).
Austin's, David's, Clothesville, The Ivy Shop, Squire, Village Gate and J. Simons are pilgrimage sites and ever will be.
Oh, and Cecil Gee, the 'Mingo, Rays and that ace coffee bar that used to be in Old Compton Street where Quentin Crisp hung out in the day.
Here endeth the lesson.
(Awaits shit storm).
What I don't get is sentimentalism, didacticism and extremism. I'm not convinced these are necessary parts of the UK scene. As an outsider, I would be happily corrected. In all fairness, I don't get the sense that the British scene is as cohesive or as one-minded as you present it CM. Frankly, I think a lot of the British posters rile a bit. The thing I keep hearing from you guys is that people like JS had a remarkable singularity of vision and an eye for a definite style. It would seem that you can either choose to swallow the rules he came up with wholesale or instead find inspiration in his vision. He hasn't gone and closed up shop b/c Brooks aren't what they used to be or that Weejuns are no longer US issue. Again, correct me if I am wrong but he has adapted and found other items that represent that same vision. In other words, if Sero is no longer attainable, BD Baggies may not be Troy Guild but they can work.
For me CM, your vision has too much of the orthodox about it and an orthodoxy too frequently grounded in things that are pretty much unobtainable. I've got nothing against vintage but I think that there is a still a lot of new stuff out there that works fine--Madras at O'Connell's, tweed at Andover and slim-fit OCBDs from BB are all great.
For the record, I do find something attractive in Jim's comments about the magic of the old stuff. I agree w/ that. But as a guy in his late 20s, I find that magic in brands that are still alive today.
As always, this is not intended to be insulting. You draw a hard line in the sand CM. A case has to be made for the alternative.
Last edited by Decline & Fall (2009-05-07 09:46:01)
Last edited by Prof Kelp (2009-05-07 09:46:04)
My two cents: at least in the main shop of J. Simons when I visited, there is very, very little Ivy there. Ken and Jeff pointed out that fact.
The most authentic Ivy "scene" (even the term "scene" is too artificial to describe it) in the world is to be found in Cambridge, MA, and New Haven, CT, among some local citizens and older academics who have been wearing the Ivy style (although unconscious even that it is called "ivy") since the "boom years" without any studiedness at all. This is Ivy worn by people who have the most organic connection possible to it in the social location where the style emerged.
Preppy and its spin-offs (especially in media hype) or MBs do not equal the American Ivy "scene." You just have to be in a position to know where to look.
Last edited by BulldogNH (2009-05-07 09:49:24)