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#1 2009-07-03 14:11:48
- One Trick Pony
- Member
- Posts: 530
The Proper Study of Ivy...
What first attracted me to this forum - in my original ChetMiles incarnation - was the epic 'Boom Years' thread; and I return to it from time to time, to complement my studying of (mainly black and white) photographs of Jack and Bobby Kennedy and their circle, of Paul Newman, Jack Lemmon, Henry Fonda etc. etc. How natural they all look - Bobby in one shot wearing what looks like a Fred Perry with a popped collar - and it certainly that naturalness that gives the game away.
We do tend to be self-conscious in the UK. We perhaps make a game of it. No harm in that. But chaps like Patrick have that lovely eye for setting and detail. Oh, the ambience! The Boom Years... The Golden Years... When? 1945-November 63? I do wish we could get John Simons to tell us more about the kind of customers he hoped to attract: 'Esquire' readers... discoverers of Elizabeth David and Terence Conran... the original James Bond fans... Young men of discernment, the forerunners of some of the chaps on 'TI', in fact...
But if we could be transported back, where would we go and in which particular year? New York? Cape Cod? Rhode Island?
And not a skinhead in sight...
#2 2009-07-03 16:14:40
- Terry Malloy
- New member
- Posts: 8
Re: The Proper Study of Ivy...
Got to be New york City, Martha's Vineyard, or Boston...it's definitely a New England thing - you seem to be suggesting the whole thing died with JFK taking a bullet from the book repository in Dallas 63...damn rednecks got no stlye and don't like anything different..especially a charismatic Irish Catholic president with a beautiful wife...haven't tried it since have they? just hope Obam is not the JFK for his generation...
See and appreciate where you're going with the skinhead reference but spare a thought for the suedehead, silence in violence and up for the English working class take on the Ivy look
#8 2009-07-04 01:29:12
- Taylor McIntyre
- Son of Ivy...
- Posts: 342
Re: The Proper Study of Ivy...
- And The Ivy Shop between '66 & '68 would be fascinating too.
#10 2009-07-04 08:34:23
- Long_Playing
- Member
- From: The Woodshed
- Posts: 147
Re: The Proper Study of Ivy...
Last edited by Long_Playing (2009-07-04 08:35:38)
#11 2009-07-04 10:04:16
- Taylor McIntyre
- Son of Ivy...
- Posts: 342
Re: The Proper Study of Ivy...
^ FANTASTIC!
Another nail in the coffin of that old canard that our 'Traditional', 'Classic' American styles have always stayed the same...
The Weejun hasn't.
The Brooks BD collar hasn't.
And J. Press is not the same as it was in 1902 (sorry, Wikki) !
Another thread could catalogue all these, maybe. But, then again, it would only be a long list of everything so why bother?
Even the shades of the Pink & Yellow Brooks BDs are not what they were...
#12 2009-07-05 11:55:26
- Taylor McIntyre
- Son of Ivy...
- Posts: 342
Re: The Proper Study of Ivy...
"The proper study of Ivy" - How I'd love this. Enough with the slanted prose of most of the bloggers. Ivy as culture. Ivy as a style to be treated as seriously as Savile Row.
#13 2009-07-05 14:39:25
- Gibson Gardens
- Ivy Author
- Posts: 873
Re: The Proper Study of Ivy...
The man in the chunky Weejuns is William Holden, a lovely actor who always wore clothes well in great pictures like 'Sunset Boulevard' and 'Sabrina'. He was a pretty boy with a drink problem who consequently grew less pretty and probably more interesting. If Graham and I get our book of the ground (and this is looking more and more likely) then there will at least be a good, well-researched visual book out there on the Ivy look even if it will lack the level of academic analysis and credit which I so agree the style deserves.
GG
#14 2009-07-05 15:19:02
- Staceyboy
- Ivy Archivist
- Posts: 936
Re: The Proper Study of Ivy...
More power to your elbow GG; Graham too. Hope it comes off. Really looking forward to it.
Staceyboy
http://thetownoutside.tumblr.com
#18 2009-07-06 04:38:09
- Natural Sole Brother
- Ivy, naturally.
- Posts: 782
Re: The Proper Study of Ivy...
Yes, I should have credited the pic of Bill Holden. It's a publicity still from Billy Wilder's Sabrina. As an irresponsible, polo-playing layabout from the posh part of Long Island in the movie Holden gets to wear some great clothes. There's a slightly yellow cast to the above image, but from other stills from the film the shirt is ecru and the suit navy. The tie is navy with gold/red stripe and the loafers are tan.
#23 2009-07-07 08:20:52
- Kingstonian
- Member
- From: sea to shining sea
- Posts: 3205
Re: The Proper Study of Ivy...
Last edited by Kingstonian (2009-07-07 08:22:22)
#24 2009-07-07 08:21:22
- One Trick Pony
- Member
- Posts: 530
Re: The Proper Study of Ivy...
We're talking American. Purely American. More than that we're talking a time before most youth cults were a gleam in the eye of ad men anywhere. We're talking Long Island, not the Isle of Dogs. We're talking the Hamptons, not West Ham. Skinhead has nothing - let me repeat nothing - to do with it.