RFK, Halloween 1967

Robert F. Kennedy with his children outside his Virginia home.

From a previous post.

J. Press, Madras, 1967

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Source:

Yale Daily News - 4/11/67

When "the natural shoulder look" and "classic styling" ≠ Ivy

Source:

Texas Monthly - September 1974

Brooks Brothers, Madras, 1955

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Some of the East's goods have made the passage to the U.S. in roundabout fashion. Cottons from Madras, India were made into sports clothes in the British West Indies for U.S. resort-goers during the '30s and have grown increasingly popular over the years. The murky but colorful plaids are being used by designers in more formal styles for town wear this summer. Woven by cottage workers in southern India, the best cloth runs somewhat in washing and is called "bleeding madras."

Source:

"East Brightens West", LIFE magazine - 5/16/55

Levi's Sta-Prest, 1969

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"The traditional campus favorite in classic ivy cut."

Source:

Yale Daily News - 4/8/69

Ivy-Inspired, 1964

Seersucker, madras, linen - three of the big summer looks in men's sportswear: (l. to r.) Novel seersucker plaid with red Haggar slacks; Cricketeer's multi-colored traditional jacket in Dacron and wool and Champion gold slacks; and Gordon-Ford's linen jacket in red and off-white stripes with red slacks by Corbin.

Source:

Ebony magazine - April 1964

Hemingway on Fitzgerald's tie

Photo published in LIFE magazine - 4/10/64

"He was lightly built and did not look in awfully good shape, his face being faintly puffy. His Brooks Brothers clothes fitted him well and he wore a white shirt with a buttoned-down collar and a Guard's tie. I thought I ought to tell him about the tie, maybe, because they did have British in Paris and one might come into the Dingo - there were two there at the time - but then I thought the hell with it and I looked at him some more. It turned out later he had bought the tie in Rome." (p. 126)

"...when I met him at the Closerie des Lilas a few days later, I said that I was sorry the stuff had hit him that way and that maybe we had drunk it too fast while we were talking.

"What do you mean you are sorry? What stuff hit me what way? What are you talking about, Ernest?"

"I meant the other night at the Dingo."

"There was nothing wrong with me at the Dingo. I simply got tired of those absolutely bloody British you were with and went home."

"There weren't any British there when you were there. Only the bartender."

"Don't try to make a mystery of it. You know the ones I mean."

"Oh," I said. He had gone back to the Dingo later. Or he'd gone there another time. No, I remembered, there had been two British there. It was true. I remembered who they were. They had been there all right.

"Yes," I said. "Of course."

"That girl with the phony title who was so rude and that silly drunk with her. They said they were friends of yours."

"They are. And she is rude sometimes."

"You see. There's no use to make mysteries simply because one has drunk a few glasses of wine. Why did you want to make the mysteries? It isn't the sort of thing I thought you would do."

"I don't know." I wanted to drop it. Then I thought of something. "Were they rude about your tie?" I asked.

"Why should they have been rude about my tie? I was wearing a plain black knitted tie with a white polo shirt." (pp. 128-129)

Source:

A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway



From Men's Style: The Thinking Man's Guide to Dress by Russell Smith:

Reps and Regimentals

There have long been very complicated discussions in men's fashion books and magazines about the correct name for certain kinds of striped ties - Americans call them reps, a word for the kind of weave that produces their corded or ribbed surface, apparently from old French - and about the correct angle and direction for the tilt of the stripe. But these discussions are increasingly academic. The reason for all the consternation was that there is a long-standing British tradition of wearing one's military and sporting associations on one's tie, and that these particularly associative ties are, for a certain British class, almost sacred. If you belong to a certain regiment or went to a certain school, you may, according to this class, wear the tie which signals your belonging; if you wear it without grounds, you are a poseur and a fraud.

Of course, this consideration has never bothered Americans much, and so the image of the loud American blithely walking into an English gentlemen's club, wearing a tie proclaiming his service in some ancient, elite military unit - the Household Cavalry or the Life Guards or somesuch - thus provoking offence and embarrassment, are legendary.

Probably the most famous description of such a faux pas is not by a snobbish Brit but by a laconic American. It comes in Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, when the young writer runs into F. Scott Fitzgerald in the Dingo Bar in Montparnasse and notices his friend is wearing the blue-and-red striped tie of the Life Guards (a tie that was popular at the time because the Prince of Wales wore one).

...These days, unless you are actually spending a lot of time in England with the kind of person who is likely to recognize famous regimental or sporting ties - of whom there are actually very few - you don't need to worry about avoiding certain colours or patterns. Besides, most of the famous ones are so gaudy and ugly that you might not be tempted to buy one in the first place.

J. Press, Coolie Cloth, 1967

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Source:

Yale Daily News - 4/6/67

Of note: 4-inch-wide ties. As previously mentioned, J. Press was truly at the forefront.

Paul Stuart raincoat, 1968

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Source:

New York Magazine - November 4, 1968

Gant, 1967

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Source:

Yale Daily News - 4/6/67

Stanley Blacker, 1963

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Source:

Ebony magazine - September 1963

Ralph Lauren on Brooks Brothers

Q: I guess you're more than partially responsible for the preppy rage --

A: Brooks Brothers was the foundation, and I revived it. I worked for them and wore all their clothes; I also left them as a consumer when they started making Dacron and polyester. They no longer had a style, and I was a traditional guy. So I saw the opening in the whole market and said, "Well, I want to look like this, and I don't want to shop here anymore. They're not moving." They did change, but they became more ordinary, more mundane. I was not going to be high fashion, but I did believe in individual sophistication, a more customized look - what Brooks Brothers used to be when they were great. That was what I went after, what I love, which is a life-style. Men who had a lot of money would go into Brooks Brothers to buy shirts, and say, "Give me three white, three blue, and three pink," and they'd walk out. They'd do it every year, year in and out. They weren't interested in what was the latest this or the latest that. I recognized a certain mentality and security about them. Working there was like going to an Ivy League school; there was an "in-ness," a quiet "in-ness" about that kind of place.

Source:

New York magazine - 10/21/85

What's a "natural shoulder" sock?, 1963

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"Its a sock that looks just as casual and feels just as comfortable as your favorite natural shoulder suit."

Source:

LIFE magazine - 12/6/63

Hedera helix California

In yearbooks from this period, teenagers of the Silent Generation¹ seem older, more mature, than their counterparts of today...

While young men were showing in the late 1940s and very early 1950s remnants of the pachuco style in their one-button roll jackets with shoulder pads and wide lapels, or the influence of black culture in their flared Billy Eckstine collars², and even a retardaire hint of the late 1930s and early 1940s in their Pendleton wool shirts, the driving force of male teenage fashion through the 1950s, especially among the more affluent and upwardly mobile, was in the direction of an Ivy League look: poplin windbreakers from McGregor, khaki pants with a backside belt and buckle, brown and white saddle shoes or all-white bucks, loafers or Clark's desert boots.

Likewise did male hairstyles show the same transition from street-smart pachuco to suburban Ivy League as the pachuco-inspired ducktail or DA (duck's ass) haircut, with luxuriant side locks sweeping back to a meeting point, yielded by the mid-1950s to a modified flat-top with side fenders and by 1960 to the Ivy League austerities of the Princeton cut, short and flat against the head.

Since teenagers defined themselves so aggressively by fashion, the deliberately stylized upward mobility of teen fashions in this period, together with the ubiquitous coats and ties, adult dresses and high heels, of more formal occasions, suggested something about the social aspirations of the Silent Generation, its desire for success and an adult identity.

Ed. notes:
¹ The Silent Generation, as first defined in 1958 by Princeton dean Otto Butz, consisted of the high school and college generation of the 1950s and early 1960s (i.e., those born between the last years of the Depression and the end of World War II).

² From Wikipedia: "Eckstine was a style leader and noted sharp dresser. He designed and patented a high roll collar that formed a "B" over a Windsor-knotted tie, which became known as a "Mr. B. Collar." In addition to looking cool, the collar could expand and contract without popping open, which allowed his neck to swell while playing his horns. The collars were worn by many a hipster in the late 1940s and early 1950s."

Source:

Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance, 1950 - 1963, by Kevin Starr, 2009


Hedera helix 'California'

Brooks Brothers, 1952

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Source:

Cornell Daily Sun - 4/17/52

Shetland Cable Knit, 1968

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Source:

Yale Daily News - 9/26/68

Hart Schaffner & Marx, the "Trend", 1953

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"Shoulders have been given a natural, not-so-wide look. Lapels have been slimmed down, buttons placed somewhat lower and virtually all suggestion of waistline eliminated, front and back...And all these details in the "Trend" add up to a neat and youthful look of slim straightness."

Source:

LIFE magazine - 9/14/53

Harris Slacks, 1967

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65% Dacron is not very Ivy, but he's certainly got "The Look".

And "the action".

Source:

A brilliant flickr collection, which includes an interesting Botany 500 ad from 1966.

Robert Watson (Harvard), 1946

Robert Watson, Associate Dean of Harvard College, at The Choate School*, October 1946.

Source:

Google's LIFE photo archive

*merged with Rosemary Hall in 1974 to become Choate Rosemary Hall.

J. Press, 1948

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Source:

Yale Daily News - 3/24/48



2009 vs. 1948...

Bespeaking of Suits, Chipp

Bespeaking of Suits

Trading up to Custom

by Linda Dyett

...

Co-existing in the low-Forties ambit of the Yale, Princeton, and Harvard clubs is the other upmarket trio, Brooks Brothers, J. Press, and Chipp of New York -- all specialists in the button-down shirts and the sack suit. Brooks Brothers dropped its custom-suit department in 1976 (though, by special order, it still does made-to-measure). Press does a fair job with both custom and made-to-measure. As for Chipp, "no one," says G. Bruce Boyer, "surpasses them in making suits in the classic American tradition."

Chipp is one of the most pleasurable American-oriented men's stores around. Cyrus Vance buys his suits here. So do Jamie Wyeth and a major New York fashion designer-sophisticate whose name I can't reveal because one of his sub-licensees is a men's-suit line.

The far end of the well-planned new interior is a quiet, librarylike setting where the custom and made-to-measure wares are sold. Its shelves are filled with gorgeous Scottish Cheviots, handwoven Shetlands, estimable flannels and tweeds, and a stunning collection of Lesser & Sons woolens. Sipping, perhaps, at a glass of Jameson scotch [sic] from the discreet cherrywood-paneled bar, you're bound to wonder what better ambience there could be for choosing a business suit.

And then there are the owners, the Winston brothers, with their funny, off-beat personalities. They're brilliant at making clothes-shopping endurable for men who hate to shop. Imagine equal measures of Woody and Steve Allen trying to sell you a suit.

If you go the made-to-measure route, you'll get a traditional style priced at $500 to $900, plus and extra $40 for cut-through sleeve buttonholes, and the finished product will be ready in six to eight weeks. The custom-made suits start at $1,100, vests at $205. At least some of the excellent craftmanship is provided by an outside contractor, but Chipp's old bushelman is right on the premises to do the fine detail work. So valued is this man, says Jim Winston, that he's kept "absolutely out of sight, with a towel over his head."

You can order almost any custom style your heart desires. André Leon Talley, a House & Garden creative director, recently had Chipp do a snug-fitting hunting-jacket suit with a high-rolled lapel, deeply slanting pockets, and cuffed sleeves meant to be turned up to reveal a flame=red printed-silk lining - a gift to Talley from Tina Chow. The trousers have single reverse pleats and an extension waistband. The style, in covert cloth and carefully modeled on one worn by Jack Bouvier, is proof positive that Chipp can accommodate even very outré wishes. The only taboo here is the heavy-shouldered, oversize look.

The house specialty is unusual jacket-lining fabric, including Liberty, foulard, and challis prints. Or you can have solid-colored Bemberg, and lighter-striped rayon for the sleeves. The Winstons know all about traditional tailoring.

Chipp of New York, 342 Madison Avenue, at 43rd Street, second floor; 687-0850. Open Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5:45 p.m.

Source:

Excerpted from New York Magazine - 2/15/88

The Peak Year for Pink, 1955

Traditionally feminine color becomes a staple for male

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Like most male fashions, including the Ivy League look (LIFE, Nov. 22), this pink hue and cry has taken some time to develop. Sole responsibility lies with New York's Brooks Brothers, whose pink shirt, introduced in 1900 but long unnoticed, was publicized for college girls in 1949 and caught on for men too.

Source:

LIFE magazine - 5/2/55

This "Think Pink" post was done in support of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Visit the Susan G. Komen for the cure website for information.

Cyrus Vance, 1967

US envoy Cyrus R. Vance meeting with Pres. of Cyprus Archbishop Makarios.

Source:

Google's LIFE photo archive

The Ornette Coleman Quartet, 1960

Jos. Schlitz Brewing Co., 1958 (2)

"Raiders of the Schlitzbox"

Source:
plan59.com

Detail:

Private Eye in Ivy Style, 1959

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"He likes Ivy League clothes, sophisticated women and cool modern jazz."

Source:

LIFE magazine - 5/11/59