Oh, so were talking about the fusion period for Trad?


Whereas the 20s and 30s were about Anglo-American Ivy league congealing, the 50s and 60s were what created that Italo-jazzo-Trad fusion, its very cool.

We need a Trad timeline tree

A really good summary of Ivy style in London by Chris H.
Thanks Chris.

I think the big difference between American clothes in London and the AAAC Trad is that over here Ivy Style has no class pretentions, no point to make about how well born you are. It's a much more comfortable, lively, youthful style.

Certainly the influence of the GIs was huge in London during WWII. Post war, by the late 40s, we already had an American imports shop "David's" on Charing Cross Road doing good business with 'Lion of Troy' shirts and Pendletons etc. After David's came Austin's and after Austin's John Simons took over and became the face of Ivy style in London for the past 40 years.

Another feature of the Anglo-Ivy stylist is the annual shopping trip to the U.S. Saved up for all year and still leaving you in debt for ages afterwards.
Between these trips we have mail order to fall back on and, of course, items from J.Simons. The quest is always to have an authentic Ivy item that your friends won't have. To discover some brand that nobody has heard of. Very hard to do these days!

It's a look that's clothes obsessed and all to do with being "cool" (an old-fashioned notion by now). Being knowledgable about clothes and Jazz are the only important things. You can be from any background at all and it does not matter.
It's all a breath of fresh air from stuffy class-ridden England.

Hi everybody,
very interesting posts here...
Laters,
Daniele

Here I copy and paste a post I wrote for another forum, some brief thoughts about links and reciprocal influences between the Ivy look and the Italian style in the late 50s - early 60s.
Hope that forumees who have already read it don't get too bored...

The Italian cut we are referring to originates as a 'contrary reaction' to the Scholte modelled cut who dominated the 30s and the 40s (period that for obvious reasons some Italians after the war preferred to forget): a slimmer, more natural, less dramatic, less structured, softer, modern line for jackets. Slimmer, pleatless, uncuffed trousers were directly derived from bluejeans introduced by American troops based here (some Roman tailors began to copy them immediately after the war to cope with requests by their younger customers, then the idea was taken up by major ateliers like Brioni, Litrico, etc..)
We somehow arrived on our own way (i.e. BREAKING with tradition) where young Americans had arrived FOLLOWING their tradition.
Since then, it's perfectly logical imagining a process of mutual influences. Italian jacket was darted and side-vented, but boxy 'almost' like the slimmer sacks worn in Campuses; Ivy League lapels got narrower, and trousers slimmer a-la Continentale, and so on... Natural born Internationalists (in the good sense of the word of course) like some jazz hipsters carried on this osmosis (Miles Davis' seersucker jackets were double vented, read on an Esquire's article posted some weeks ago).
Italian Style was adopted by early Mods in London at the turn of the 50s (sometimes even with slightly 'exagerated' alterations) along with the Ivy League style (the 'in' thing for every respected cool cat since the mid 50s). In Mc Inness's Absolute Beginners the sharp follower of Modern Jazz is described as totally 'Italian', while the main character -yet wearing short Roman jacket etc- explicitly refers to an Ivy League suit he owned. A proof of the perceived affinity between the two styles.
Later the Italian influence became the mainstream, and then they turned to the English cut for a while, and so on.
Nowadays among Mods the most widespread style is an Anglo-Italian thing, but the Ivy League look has its dedicated followers (among these, some of the more stylish people I've ever met around, I might add).



Cheers,

Daniele

ps) off in few minutes, George Fame and the Blue Flames play here in Milan tonite...:-)

Last edited by Daniele (2006-05-03 10:54:52)

Just another PS -
"Western House" or "Weston" are the names of the Beefroll Loafers I have in mind.
Minets ('Parlez vous cool' thread) would put American cents in to them...
Never heard of this before...
Cents in Penny loafers, Yes.
Cents in Beefroll loafers, No.

Maybe they just didn't know better? I was a transplanted style after all. Some mutation was bound to creep in...

Miles

Speaking of Steed and the article -- you'll recall that he was in writing paper for a good while.  I was surprised to recall, when browsing a few old New Yorker issues how many ads there were for different paper makers in New England.  Very few remain, but up until the 70's I guess, New England was "littered" with them.