Princeton Charlie, 1968

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Source:

The Daily Princetonian - 12/8/66

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Princeton Charlie is someone we all know. He wears a rep tie, tweed jacket, weejuns and wheat jeans to JP. He takes a bottle of bourbon to the dance and has a case of Colt 45 back at the room. Also back at the room he has all sorts of red and blue lights wired onto a wagon wheel hanging from the ceiling, a Princeton banner on the wall, a wooden bar and a closet full of cocktail accessories, photographic equipment, binoculars, toy tigers and watches.

The incredible thing is not that there are people on this campus whose life-style approximates Princeton Charlie's. The incredible thing is that this should be taken, even by the campus media, as a model or idea when plenty of freshmen aren't sucked in by this bush-league ethos, and most of the ones that are, outgrow it by the end of their sophomore year. Most clubs aren't even interested in Princeton Charlie, the exceptions being those sad clubs of declasse preppies who imagine that he lives on somewhere "down the street." Princeton Charlie is someone we all know; he is also someone we all want to forget.

The intriguing question is why he is with us still. In a sense he is the ghost of an imagined past. For one thing it couldn't have been that bad; for another he is a little too precisely like the daydream of a mid-west high school senior who has just been accepted at Princeton.

He lives on because the U-Store and Orange Key and the administration can use him. He is a way of getting at underclassmen. He is a way of inducing that false consciousness that is so necessary to move goods in a department store which has more to offer a 30-year-old vacuum-cleaner salesman than a student.

The campus media, including the "Prince," can use him because it is always easier for a writer to employ an intrinsically coherent rhetoric, no matter how much that rhetoric offends his own intelligence, his own taste, his own morality.

Source:

The Daily Princetonian - 3/15/68

Right on Target, 1966

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Yale Daily News - 4/29/66

Bulova made, 1966

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Harper's Magazine - July 1966

Brooks Brothers Number Two(s), 1932-1964

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Three new styles of ready-made suits have been added to our stock for this Spring. The familiar Brooks Brothers' models are continued unchanged and are supplemented by these three new styles, which are both single and double breasted - some with plaited trousers - the coats more closely fitted and with squarer shoulders.

Source:

The New Yorker - 2/27/32

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Furthermore, there are five different models which include our new close fitting, square shouldered coats in addition to our older models with natural shoulders. All models have soft rolled lapels.

Source:

The New Yorker - 4/23/32

The ready-made dealers, in fact, have taken several leaves from their custom brothers' books this year, both in unusually smart cloths and styles. The latter are generally giving more breadth to the shoulders and slightly less to the waist, and the best of these suits are so expertly cut and made that they achieve the desired effect without any shoulder padding. In any event, it's a style that has far more individuality than the usual ready-to-wear garment.

A somewhat surprising thing in connection with this trend is the way Brooks have taken the style up. Of course, Brooks still have their tables piled with the good old soft-roll, high-lapel sack coats that have been the accepted college and bond-salesman uniform for so long, but up on another floor, where the more conservative Brooks customer will never find it, is a whole new assortment of clothing hung on hangers in showcases, with two-button coats, peaked lapels, and pleated-waistband trousers! The models are single and double-breasted and show a nice refinement in design. This is especially true of the peaked lapels; they have a rather square cut that does not distract from their smartness, and also does not put your eye out any time you bend your head. From $50 up.


 Source:

The New Yorker - 4/16/32

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Brooks Brothers' ready-made suits for Spring include double and single breasted models in two different styles... one with natural, the other with squarer shoulders.


Source:

The New Yorker - 3/9/35

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 The Brooks Brothers staff unanimously deplores the later Number Two line, with fitted waist and square, padded shoulders. It was introduced as a concession to the Depression, and is now, they hope, on the way out.

Source:

The New Yorker - 5/7/38

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There never was a No. 2. For a few unhappy years, there was a No 222. It had a two-button jacket and pleated pants. Eventually, the pleats were banished, leaving a two-button suit called, inexplicably, No. 3.

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"The suits on the Brooks Brothers Men" - New York Times - 8/15/76

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The New Yorker - 3/21/64

1966, "Our Newly Redesigned No. 2 Suit"

[Note: Their 1961 two button suit is also sometimes known as the "Number 2".  According to Esquire, the Fitzgerald model is a modified version of this suit. -katon]

Carl Buck & Dominic Maresca, 1966

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Yale Daily News - 6/1/66

Collector's item, 1966

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The New Yorker - 4/16/66

"Why pay less than $10 for a canvas shoe?", 1966

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The Williams Record - 5/17/66

Woodsman Jacket, 1966

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Yale Daily News - 12/9/66

New corduroy selections, 1966

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Yale Daily News - 9/22/66

Young Bachelor, Botany 500, 1966

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Cavalier magazine - April 1966 via flickr

Comment: Not exactly Ivy (single button?), but I like the fit of the jacket.

Elliott Gant and "The Bush", 1966

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"Say 'Gant' to those who are 'with it' and they know you mean The Shirt. The one with the button-down rolled collar, back button and hanger loop with tapered shirt to wear with tight pants."

Source:

The Miami News - 12/6/66

Author comment: This article appeared in the "Woman's World" section.

Old School Suit, 1966

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"Today, we are told, you can buy la ligne naturelle in Paris, a sutairu nachuraru in Tokyo and even an estestvennaya lynya plecha in Moscow."

Source:

Deseret News (Salt Lake City, Utah) - 5/10/66

Fat Max and Slim Jim, 1966

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"(Brooks Brothers) has kept the width limit at three inches on its exclusive first floor, while letting it reach four in its university and young executives' department.

J. Press and Chipp, two of Brooks Brothers' competitors in the city's tailoring enclave off Madison Avenue at 43rd Street, also sell the wide ties, like Brooks in sober regimental stripes and club patterns."

Source:

Associated Press, July 1966

[Ed. note: See also this J. Press advertisement (look closely at the bottom of the ad)]

University of Maryland, 1966

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The Terrapin, 1966

Dexter, 1966-1967

 

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Dear Mr. Juster...

Dear Mr. Juster,

What do you think of a man of 47 wearing the same style clothes as his 17-year-old son? My husband thought that Tom looked so great in his Ivy League suit, he bought one himself. I know this is what the kids are wearing, but for a mature man...? - Mrs. L.J.

Time was when a boy dressed like his father. Now, father emulates his son. And why not? If your husband hasn't developed that middle-age spread and has retained a fairly slim build, he will look as smart as Tom in his Ivy model, even though he carries a brief case, instead of books, under his arm. (1962)
_________________________

Dear Mr. Juster:

I recently started working for an advertising agency and notice all the fellows dress in Ivy suits. Every time I've tried Ivy my sloping shoulders look even more sloping, but my wife still thinks I should dress the same way.

Now, I ask you - is it smart to conform, or risk standing out like a sore thumb among my associates? -J. N.

This business of trying to conform by wearing what everybody around you wears, regardless of the effect on appearance, is one of my pet peeves.

Forget about what your associates are wearing and stay to the kind of clothes that do something for you. In this case, it's a model designed with shoulders that help build up yours. (1964)
________________________

Dear Mr. Juster:

I go to the University of Michigan and wear Ivy type clothes. Recently, I bought a sport coat and it's two-button instead of three. Also, the sides curve in a little, and it has a long vent.

I was told this is for college men but a couple of guys in our fraternity say I got took because no natural shoulder wearer would be seen in this style. Now, I'm wondering if I goofed. - L.W.R.

No, you didn't. Natural shoulder styling is no longer confined to the three-button, straight hanging cut.

Variations in models, such as the one you bought, with shaped waist and deep vents are now available. And, regardless of your fraternity brother's opinion, I say this is a welcome development. Why must you be limited to one model? (1968)


[Ed. note: Harry Juster was a syndicated columnist writing on men's fashions in the 1960s. He wrote a book titled Clothes Make the Man in 1965.]

Triumph, 1966

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Source:

Black Watch

Florsheim Natural Shoulder Shoes

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Pittsburgh Post Gazette - 8/22/66

With Their Socks Off

At Harvard, going sockless is to the "preppy-clubby" set what the armless sweatshirt is to the athletic crowd.

With Their Socks Off - Time Magazine - 11/11/66