Paul Stuart, Authentic Bleeding Madras, 1972

(click to enlarge)

Source:

New York Magazine - 6/12/72

Those lapels...!

Campus "Leisure-Style"

"In the world of male fashion...the early 20th century saw the development of a new, leisure-oriented aesthetic. Indicative was the rise of the 'Arrow Man' as a fixture in advertisements for Arrow shirts from 1905 onwards. A model of well-groomed and chisel-jawed masculinity, the 'Arrow Man' became the first in a series of youthful and stylish masculine archetypes whose virile muscularity guaranteed a fashionability untainted by suspicions of effeminacy. The Progressive Era also saw an identifiable 'collegiate' or 'Ivy League' style of dress take shape. Clothing firms such as Campus Leisure-wear (founded in 1922), together with the movie, magazine and advertising industries, gave coherence to this smart-but-casual combination of button-down shirts, chino slacks, letter sweaters, cardigans and loafers - a leisure-style that steadily reached out from the campus into the wider male population."


Source:

Masculinity and Men's Lifestyle Magazines, Bethan Benwell, 2003

The Not So Odd Jacket

Vic Seixas, national tennis champion, wears a luxurious sports

jacket at Los Angeles Tennis Club: Cashmere, custom tailored

by J. Press, N.Y., $175.

Source:

SI - 10/25/54, as referenced in Ivy Style - Tradition and Change: The J. Press Interview

Seaforth, 1952

(click to enlarge)

A new fabric import takes its place in the front ranks of sports jacket classics. Woven by skilled hands of fine Shetland wool...it has the full-bodied character and virile patterns that are so highly prized by knowing men.

Source:

Gentry Magazine - Issue #4, Fall 1952 (via flickr)

College Credit, Esquire, 1959

College spirit is still as high-key as crimson, as fresh as Esquire's Burnished Browns. And memories are sill as golden: the 'mum on her shoulder: the thrill of the first by-line and the smell of fresh ink on college newsprint - to haunt your psyche for years. Above, in the social Great Hall above the Lampoon offices near the Harvard Yard, serious conversation, camera-captive, reflects today's students' scholarly awareness. Fashion is in sharp focus in the Great Hall atmosphere where we spot an acceptance of the whole civilized bit. Detailed views of those prerequisite sports jackets are shown in close-ups this page.

Fall's most significant fabric is all-wool hopsacking, here in an even-larger -than-usual weave. Burnished Espresso accented with black gives it a checked effect; figured-cotton lining and crown-embossed metal buttons score high on examination; at Whitehouse & Hardy, N. Y. C. Basic as a class schedule are traditional grey flannels and rep tie, currently in Burnished Bronze stripes.

The corduroy jacket registers with new impact in its shaped, continental styling. Class notes: burnished Bronze pin-waling, foulard lining, cutaway front; at Bullock's Wynbrier Shop, Los Angeles. Trousered in madras-plaided wool, you'll cheer the classic b.d. oxford shirt, the new paisley wool challis tie.

Our close-up emphasizes the wool crow's foot tweed, specially translated for Brooks Brothers in Esquire's Burnished Browns. The one shown is Burnished Amber, a combination of black with amber. Another Brooks Brothers tradition is the matching vest and, of course, the button-down oxford shirt and striped rep tie, both in co-ordinated tones. You'll find these, naturally, at Brooks Brothers stores in New York City, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco.

No doubt about it, today's student takes a more dressed-up approach to college life. And he learns something from every occasion. For example (below). the meticulous attention to the fit of his clothes that Esquire editors are proud to help instill is as important as Chem Lab lectures or once-a-week afternoon tea - with stimulating conversation, please. Here, tailoring knowledge is applied to the important back-to-school suit, traditionally cut, and today's lecture is on " the proper cuffed line."

Source:

Esquire, September 1959, from Gypsy Wear Vintage

Newport, 1962

Source:

Google's LIFE photo archive

William Holden, 1954

Source:

The New York Sun - 7/2/08 with inspiration from FNB Talk Ivy

Milton and Maurice, the Julians of Chapel Hill

UNC-CH, 1965

If you were a member of a UNC sorority or fraternity this is how you dressed. Male clothes for this group came from Julian’s, The Hub, The Varsity Men’s Shop, or Milton's. These women were probably outfitted at the Fireside. All these stores did a booming business, and were located on central Franklin Street. (www.chapelhillmemories.com)

The story begins in 1946, when the Julian brothers, Milton and Maurice (father of fashion designer Alexander Julian), opened their first shop in Chapel Hill. Two years later, Milton went out on his own with Milton's Clothing Cupboard, pioneering the Ivy League look throughout the Southeast.

A local icon, Milton remained in his original Chapel Hill location for more than 40 years. Through the 50's and 60's, Milton's Clothing Cupboard expanded to locations in Charlotte, Dallas and Atlanta. Bruce started cooking up marketing schemes at about 14 (like the time he unleashed dozens of turtles marked 'Sale at Milton's' all over the UNC campuses). (www.brucejulian.com)

"Milton Julian is the personification of joy. Of all the people I knew growing up in Chapel Hill from the 1950’s through the 1990’s, no one seemed to enjoy what he was doing more than this Franklin street merchant. His fame is derived from his store, Milton’s Clothing Cupboard, which he operated from 1948 to 1992, selling upscale men’s, and often women’s, clothing. Milton was also always a man just a little ahead of his time, and continued to adapt to fashion trends better than any other store in town. While his brother’s store Julian’s for example maintained the Ivy League look throughout its existence, Milton’s continued to evolve without ever feeling dated or trendy." (www.chapelhillmemories.com)

A Brockton, Mass.-native, Julian brought the Ivy League look down south, including the flat-front khaki pants and alligator belts, his son Bruce Julian said. Milton Julian owned six stores in North Carolina, Georgia and Texas that have since closed. (www.thedailytarheel.com)

Milton went back to school, but six weeks into it decided to return to the haberdashery business. He had sold shoes and socks before the war, but now he joined his brother Maurice, who had started selling to servicemen training in Chapel Hill during the war, but was now serving clientele returning to school, at Julian’s College Shop."

“I started out across the street,” Milton said. “We were sometimes not so friendly, but were mostly friendly competitors,” he said of Maurice, who would later sell his store to his children, Alexander and Missy, who continue it as Julian’s. (www.carrborocitizen.com)

Milton Julian, a young buck from humble beginnings in Brockton, Mass., came to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to attend law school after spending a year at Salem College in Winston-Salem. For two years, he went to classes in the morning and sold shoes and socks in the afternoon. He then served in the Air Force for three-and-a-half years, and upon returning to Chapel Hill in the fall of 1945, decided to join his late brother, Maurice (the father of fashion designer Alexander Julian) at his men's clothing shop on the bustling Franklin Street. After a couple of years, however, it was clear the siblings couldn't see eye to eye as business partners. As Milton cryptically puts it, "Some brothers are compatible and some aren't when it comes to business ventures."

Julian up-and-left Maurice's store in 1947, and nine months later, in the fall of 1948, started his own shop: the now- legendary Milton's Clothing Cupboard. After scoping out possible locations for opening his new store, including Charleston, SC and Morganton, Va., he decided to stay in Chapel Hill. He set up shop at 163 E. Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, a location at which he remained for over 40 years.

... Julian's game plan was simple: offer innovative, Ivy League clothing along with superior customer service. He told one interviewer, "We pioneered the Ivy League and Brooks Brothers looks in the Southeast. Esquire and GQ thought we were in the vanguard of men's fashion." Julian got the word out about his new store by placing fliers on cars around campus, and posting them around town. He also enjoyed extensive word-of-mouth referrals.

For the next 40 years, Milton's Clothing Cupboard sold items essential for the Ivy League look: Gant shirts, Weejuns, Rivetz ties, Harris tweed sport coats, khaki Chino pants, snazzy worsted wool suits. As one reporter stated, Milton's clothes had "snob appeal." (www.businessleadermagazine.com)


By birth a New Englander, Maurice Julian was the first to bring the best of Ivy League to the Southeast. A master in style and innovation, his groundbreaking designs helped to create "preppy." Julian distinguished his shop by his peerless taste and unending quest for only the finest, using the highest quality fabrics and custom tailoring. Maurice and his wife Mary sustained a rare, unique, genuine specialty store. Although the business was created to fulfill the needs of the Officer Training School (which came to UNC in 1942) Maurice quickly expanded his clientele to include the whole University community.

In 1990 GQ magazine described the gem of a store this way: "Julian's is a place where you can spend an afternoon looking at fabrics and buttons—some stock, some one of a kind—ordering a suit you won't see on every other guy on the street and talking about tweed and twill and Scottish mills and what all the rain lately will do for the magnolias."

Alex says: "When I was 12, I tore the collar of one of my 200 blue oxford, button-down shirts while playing football. I went down to the store to have the collar fixed, but decided instead to switch collars with one of my yellow oxford button-down shirts. They say necessity is the mother of invention, but whoever would have suspected that sandlot football would launch a fashion career?" (www.julianstyle.com)

How Phyllis Was Won

The authorities of MIT discouraged privacy for mixed-sex couples. MIT didn't know where to put its female students; some were housed across the river, at 120 Bay State Road, and then the university opened up a section of Blexley Hall. Phyllis's room in either dormitory was out of bounds, but there were chintz-covered sofas at 120 Bay Street Road, and corners of the big reception room where the lights - stately floor lamps with pleated shades and three-way bulbs - could be dimmed to coziness. Students would lounge and lie in the semi-dark with their brush-cuts and perms; the boys then wore white bucks and narrow rep ties, the Ivy look not yet yielded to the blue-jeaned geek look, and the girls wore single-strand pearls and pastel sweaters whose wool seemed to melt in the hand.

Source:

Villages, John Updike, 2004

And Now for Something Completely Different*, Chipp, 1956

Silk is the perfect suiting for summer, but for men it has always had one big drawback. It has never had the adaptability of woolens and worsteds on the designer's drawing board and the weaver loom. Fine glen plaids have never been successfully incorporated into silk for the men's suits - until now. Gentry's stylists, working hand in hand with the master silk technicians of the Japanese firm of Kanebo, have finally licked the problem. Under this tissue you see a swatch of the first bolt of silk ever made with a glen weave. Superbly different in design, the material has still other remarkable qualities. It is a 4 1/2 ounce cloth, which makes for great lightness and coolness. It has fine wearing qualities, with a life span that will stretch through many hot seasons. Its wrinkles expired overnight on the hanger. On the facing page (above) you see the first jacket ever made of this cloth. We had it designed and executed by Chipp, custom tailors of New York East 44th Street, under the supervision of Robert DiFalco. It's a three-button model, buttonable at the top or middle. Its lapels are extra narrow. Its patch pockets are smaller than usual, in deference to the fabric's design. Its coin pocket is not patch, to stop your loose change from bulging. (The flap on this pocket can be worn inside or out). The jacket is lined with silk black pongee, full-lined to make it hang with perfect aplomb, and it has a long back vent. We consider it a handsome addition to nay man's summer closet; if you concur, you can take this blueprint to your tailor.

Source:

Gentry Magazine, No. 19, Summer 1956 from Gypsy Wear Vintage


*as in..."Tailored by Chipp, but it's not exactly Ivy, is it?"

Yale, 1957

More from this series:

Google's LIFE photo archive

J. Press, 1954, Part 2

Source:

Google's LIFE photo archive

And from that year...

Mickey Mouse to Mickey Cohen, 1959

Steve Stevens and Annette Funicello

For young men of my age, the preppy/Ivy League look was both fashionable and stylish. Button-down blue, pink and white oxford-cloth shirts from Brooks Brothers; narrow rep, regimental or knit ties. I'd recently purchased a pair of slim-fitting Cambridge gray flannels; a narrow-lapelled, three-button Harris Tweed sport jacket without shoulder pads; and cordovan Bass Weejuns penny loafers with Argyle socks from Zeidler & Ziedler, a trendy traditional-style men's shop next to Schwab's Drugstore on Sunset and Crescent Heights.

And that's how I looked when the (Hollywood Brown Derby) hostess led me back to find Mickey (Cohen), passing George Burns and Gracie Allen in one booth and Burt Lancaster and a party of studio types in another. Mickey and Joe were sitting in a large and very private back booth. As they moved over for me, I could see people leaning out of their booths, hoping to catch a glimpse of Mickey. His love of notoriety and publicity had obviously been given a boost since the Whelan murder.

Mickey, however, was appraising me.

"Nice threads, Kid. That's a very good look on you; very sharp."

Source:

The King of the Sunset Strip: Hangin' With Mickey Cohen and the Hollywood Mob, Steve Stevens, 2006

From Publishers Weekly:

Stevens traded Mickey Mouse for Mickey Cohen in 1959, after the mob mogul saw him play a "tuff guy" onscreen and sent a fan letter. Only 19, Stevens, who'd worked with Annette Funicello on The Mickey Mouse Club, was making the transition from child to adult actor, and under the tutelage of Cohen, he grew up fast in a world of guns, gambling, strippers and celebrities.

IZOD presents the Famous Lacoste, 1956

(click to enlarge)

Source:

Gentry Magazine, Summer 1956, via Gypsy Wear Vintage

The Izod "India madras look":

The Ivy Look and Philip Morris, 1958

(click to enlarge)

THE CLOTHES YOU SAVE MAY BE YOUR OWN

"In this column we take up fashions for college men, which means of course, the Ivy Look. Today's Ivy Look clothes have made a great stride forward...


...But I digress. We were talking about well-dressed men, and the one essential for every well-dressed man - and every well dressed woman too - is a well-dressed cigarette - neat, compact, flavorful, and correct for work or play, sunshine or shower, repose or revelry, darkness or light. And where does one find such a perfect companion? Just go to any tobacco counter and ask for Philip Morris..."

. . .

"Those of you who favor filters, try a filter that will favor you - Marlboro, made by the makers of Philip Morris, who bring you this column throughout the school year."

Source:

The Daily Collegian (Penn State Univ.) - 11/25/58

Robert McNamara, 1968

Robert S. McNamara, 1916-2009

Source:

Google's LIFE photo archive

McNamara with John F. Kennedy, Hyannis Port, MA, 1961Source:

The Washington Post

Ivy Down Under, 1961

(click to enlarge)

Source:

The Sydney Morning Herald - 9/5/61

HS&M, Very short thesis on tweeds, 1952

"It used to be that tweeds were strictly for the great outdoors. But our Pan American tweeds have helped change all that. This fall you'll find them looking equally smart and appropriate on campus and in conference. Woven exclusively for Hart, Schaffner & Marx, they are a special blend of two kinds of imported wools. One is tough and wiry. The other is soft and luxurious. The result is a tweed that is rich and pleasing to the touch yet has incredible stamina and longevity. Try on a Pan American outercoat as well as a suit."

Source:

The Saturday Evening Post

Alden and Southwick, 1952

(click to enlarge)

Source:

Gentry Magazine - #5, Holiday Issue 1952, courtesy of DixieRising on The Curriculum

Racquets, National Amateur Championship, 1947

Source:

Google's LIFE photo archive

Brooks Brothers, 1965

(click to enlarge)

This Fall we are changing the size range of our University Shop clothing to keep pace with the constantly increasing average size of today's undergraduate.

Source:

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - 8/23/65

[Ed. note: The range of sizes was increased from "35 to 42" to "36 to 44"]

A Lighter and Brighter...Spring is Ahead, 1963

(click to enlarge)

A Lighter and Brighter...Spring is Ahead, by Howard Charles

A subtle lightening in colors heralds the arrival of 1963 spring-summer fashions for men. The months ahead will witness a trend reversal that will have a long time effect on the look of men's clothes.

Even sports wear and leisure wear have taken on added brilliance in this swing away from the darks.

Vigorous new shades of brown which made fashion headlines last fall are big in spring summer-weight suitings, too. These brawny browns will be turned out in a host of smart variations and mixtures of brown-grays and brown-olive.

Here is the way that several segments of men's wear shape up for spring and summer:

Suits - Silver gray is an important color and, for a big change, this is a light color rather than merely a lighter one. Designers have come up with new and varied sharkskin effects, shadow checks, hairlines, pin stripes and pencil stripes, plaids and overplaids, classic glens, multicolored vertical effects and the ever popular frost points.

The natural shoulder styling will be more popular than ever this season. Men everywhere are attracted to the youthful appearance of this approach with its casual air, straight waist and natural shoulders, trim lapels and flap pockets.

Most conventional models, too, will be somewhat slimmer in appearance this year. Pleated trousers still will be worn by most men, although younger executives will favor the plain front with natural shoulder jackets.

Two button suits continue their revival, helped no end by the fashion pace set by President Kennedy. There is even a stirring in college circles to give the two button a chance to regain its position in the fashion world.

Sport Coats - 1963 will be the gayest, most colorful yet for sports jackets. Blues and olives and a thousand and one blends of these colors will predominate. Checks and plaids will outweigh stripes in popularity, while India madras in classic muted colorings of brilliant new shades will continue to brighten the scene. And seersuckers, in both blends and cotton, will enjoy their busiest season in a generation.

Blazers in many shades, but with navy blue still the leader, will be widely worn to contrast with white and bright, or merely lighter, slacks and walk shorts.

Source:

The Milwaukee Sentinel - 3/25/63

McGeorge Bundy, 1960s

April 1961, National Security Advisor to JFK

August 1962

December 1965, Presidential Assistant for National Security Affairs

Source:

Google's LIFE photo archive