# The Americanization of Ivy



## AldenPyle (Oct 8, 2006)

At the beginning there was the Brooks Brothers sack suit (1895) and polo collar shirt (1896).Of course, the sack suit had an antecedent in the French _sacque_ which was a popular leisure or workman's suit in the USA in the 1900's and British athletes did keep their collar points down with buttons, but Brooks developed a 100% American business style. During the 1910's and 1920's, the two button sack suit and soft attached collar pushed out the European style frock coat and stiff collar as the uniform of American business. Brooks Brothers describe their innovation "the suit offers soft natural shoulders, a single-breasted jacket, and full, plain-front trousers."

Here are ads in the _The Lafayette _from the early 1920's.


----------



## AldenPyle (Oct 8, 2006)

Trivia Quiz: Which iconic, fictional character from American literature graduated from Lafayette College in the early 1920's?


----------



## AldenPyle (Oct 8, 2006)

But London was still the world's cultural capital and remained full of sartorial innovation. One important innovation was the development of the drape cut lounge suit which began to make inroads into America in the late 1920's. From the _Lafayette _again. 









In the 1920's, there was a broad Anglophile wave among prosperous WASP's, especially in the northeastern states. Many UK sporting and country styles were imported at that time: tweed suits and Norfolk jackets (the antecedent of the sports coat), the gold buttoned double breasted navy Reefer jacket or blazer, regimental ties, flannel and covert cloth slacks etc. Read the _Apparel Arts_ article posted by Tutee in this thread https://askandyaboutclothes.com/community/showthread.php?t=45581 (perhaps the best single AAAC post) describing university styles in 1934 (prior to the coinage of the the term "Ivy League"). The article notes that many particularly English details were in evidence including belted backs, bi-swing backs, side vents, pleats, suppressed waists and ticket pockets. It could be said that this British look had replaced the American sack suit style. Consider this ad from the 1937 Lafayette 








The "correct" style of dress for the Lafayette man of 1937 was a classic example of the double breasted drape cut lounge suit.


----------



## AldenPyle (Oct 8, 2006)

But just about then, something changed. In fall 1938, the Lafayette man found a new style waiting for him. A good old fashioned 3 button sack








Where did this come from? Well maybe we can see versions of this being advertised in the Yale Daily News in 1940 .








Now, the "correct style" is the straight hanging coat. In 1941, this ad was in the _YDN.







_A similar ad with the same picture ran earlier that year referred to this as a straight hanging model. Now it is the straight hanging model with natural shoulders. Of course, at J. Press it remained known by the traditional name


----------



## AldenPyle (Oct 8, 2006)

So, the "natural shoulder style" was a digestion of all the British innovations, the tweed, the flannel, the covert cloth, but re-cut and re-styled along the lines of the Madison Avenue lines with the straight lines, the natural shoulder and the flat front trousers. Note, that pleats were the last to go. Consider this ad from _The Lafayette_ in 1954.








Two interesting things. First, the specific reference to "not a zoot suit" which was the perjorative for the drape cut suit the same store had been sellling as "correct" in the mid-1930's. Second, pleats optional.

So that's the thesis. The natural shoulder style was a counter-reaction to the foreign elements introduced in the 1930's; keeping the good parts and returning to the traditional American style. This change was centered at Yale probably due to the sack suit loyalty of J. Press. The "Ivy League look" was a radical codification of that counter-reaction.


----------



## Jovan (Mar 7, 2006)

Fascinating. Thanks for the information!


----------



## fenway (May 2, 2006)

AldenPyle said:


> Trivia Quiz: Which iconic, fictional character from American literature graduated from Lafayette College in the early 1920's?


I know it wasn't Mr. Magoo. He went to Rutgers!

Who was it?


----------



## Joe Beamish (Mar 21, 2008)

*Khakis*

When did khakis "happen"? After WWII?

What a happy primer this stuff is for me. Thank you for posting, AP!


----------



## randomdude (Jun 4, 2007)

Great thread title!


----------



## wessex (Feb 1, 2008)

AldenPyle said:


> Trivia Quiz: Which iconic, fictional character from American literature graduated from Lafayette College in the early 1920's?


Was it that creepy prep-school teacher who stroked Holden Caulfield's sleeping head? Do tell - go Pards!


----------



## paper clip (May 15, 2006)

AldenPyle said:


> Trivia Quiz: Which iconic, fictional character from American literature graduated from Lafayette College in the early 1920's?


Julian English?


----------



## Jim In Sunny So Calif (May 13, 2006)

Great thread. Thank you AP. No ideas here on your trivia question.


----------



## Brooksfan (Jan 25, 2005)

AldenPyle said:


> Trivia Quiz: Which iconic, fictional character from American literature graduated from Lafayette College in the early 1920's?


Would that be Jay Gatsby?


----------



## AldenPyle (Oct 8, 2006)

paper clip said:


> Julian English?


Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner. The protagonist of "Appointment in Samarra" went to Lafayette like his Dad.


----------



## Mannix (Nov 24, 2008)

I love those vintage advertisements that you all posted, they're more interesting than a lot of today's ads. Bally had some very neat looking Art Deco ads back in the day, hard to find many of them today though.


----------



## Jim In Sunny So Calif (May 13, 2006)

I noticed that some of the prices end in odd cents. We are used to seeing prices end in a 5 or a 9, but I saw some that ended in 4 or 7 for example. A penny had some value back then. One could buy a few things for a penny and a lot of things with just a few pennies. 

Now that a pack of gum costs a dollar or more some places pennies are just a nuisance.

I now return you to the discussion of clothing.


----------



## P Hudson (Jul 19, 2008)

Interesting the way IMPORTED is stressed in the 1941 ad. It probably, even where not specified, didn't mean Made in China.


----------



## Mannix (Nov 24, 2008)

P Hudson said:


> Interesting the way IMPORTED is stressed in the 1941 ad. It probably, even where not specified, didn't mean Made in China.


Too right you. Funny how things change...well not hilarious but interesting.


----------



## Speas (Mar 11, 2004)

Thanks for the super research AldenPyle. Very interesting.



Jim In Sunny So Calif said:


> I noticed that some of the prices end in odd cents. We are used to seeing prices end in a 5 or a 9, but I saw some that ended in 4 or 7 for example. A penny had some value back then. One could buy a few things for a penny and a lot of things with just a few pennies.
> 
> Now that a pack of gum costs a dollar or more some places pennies are just a nuisance.
> 
> I now return you to the discussion of clothing.


CPI inflation shows that $1 in 1941 is about $14 in 2007. Some of the items in the Macy's ad seem just right at that rate while some are cheap. Then again the CPI perhaps doesnt adjust well for quality on shoes. (I hate that inflation tax BTW). Something that caught my eye in the ad is the all caps IMPORTED. Today if it referenced origin at all it would say ENGLAND or ITALY or otherwise be printed imported


----------



## AldenPyle (Oct 8, 2006)

Joe Beamish said:


> When did khakis "happen"? After WWII?
> 
> What a happy primer this stuff is for me. Thank you for posting, AP!


Probably just after the war. Here is the 1949 _Harvard Crimson_

"The typical American college boy abroad in his tourist uniform looked something like this: He had a crew cut, khaki pants, and a seersucker coat with the green edge of a U. S. passport showing above the edge of his inside breast pocket."


----------



## Arnold Gingrich fan (Aug 8, 2008)

AldenPyle said:


> So that's the thesis. The natural shoulder style was a counter-reaction to the foreign elements introduced in the 1930's; keeping the good parts and returning to the traditional American style. This change was centered at Yale probably due to the sack suit loyalty of J. Press. The "Ivy League look" was a radical codification of that counter-reaction.


Well done, AldenPyle! A suggestion...

I think it's possible, even probable, that the credit you give to J. Press belongs to *Langrock* instead. Langrock (est. 1898) predates J. Press by a mere four years, but it successfully promoted the "new" sack suit look from the get-go. Furthermore, Langrock was then considered more upper crust --and therefore more desirable (and influential?)-- than J. Press. For starters, Jacopi Press was Jewish; David Langrock was not. In less enlightened times, such a fact mattered to trendsetting bluebloods.

J. Press then did what it had to do: it copied Langrock's merchandise styles. Time passed, the student body grew more diverse, and J. Press began to seem more attractive. Langrock tried to hold its place on Mount Olympus, but never became iconic beyond its declining circle of patrons. Meanwhile, J. Press became a byword for the Ivy look. Such is retail.

.


----------



## AldenPyle (Oct 8, 2006)

Arnold Gingrich fan said:


> Well done, AldenPyle! A suggestion...
> 
> I think it's possible, even probable, that the credit you give to J. Press belongs to *Langrock* instead. Langrock (est. 1898) predates J. Press by a mere four years, but it successfully promoted the "new" sack suit look from the get-go. Furthermore, Langrock was then considered more upper crust --and therefore more desirable (and influential?)-- than J. Press. For starters, Jacopi Press was Jewish; David Langrock was not. In less enlightened times, such a fact mattered to trendsetting bluebloods.
> 
> ...


Its possible. I'm sure sack suits remained available from many retailers throughout the late 1920's and 1930's (including obviously Brooks Brothers). Who exactly was responsible for cutting tweed jackets and navy blazers in the straight-hanging style, I'm not sure. Or who could be said to be most influential in making a sack cut, the correct university look. But I didn't see anything in the Langrock ads in YDN or the Lafayette that emphasized the straight hanging natural shoulder style in the way that it was in the Roger Kent or Macy's ad. In fact, maybe the opposite. 
Anyway, here is one clue from March 12, 1937 _The Lafayette_


----------



## outrigger (Aug 12, 2006)

Fascinating stuff AldenPyle, 
I might print this out and read it at leisure.


----------



## P Hudson (Jul 19, 2008)

Great thread. That last scan mentioned wider lapels. Is that because they were reverting to the mean after being really thin? I ask because I prefer a not-too-wide lapel, but wonder which is truer to the style being described.


----------



## AldenPyle (Oct 8, 2006)

*Yale Daily News, 1947*

Here is a Press ad from the immediate post war, 1947








Unlike the Press jacket from 1941 or the Macy's ad above, I think the Tan Gabardine suit on the right, looks a lot like the Press from 1954 from Heavy Tweed Jacket's blog


----------



## AldenPyle (Oct 8, 2006)

Perhaps an even higher resolution on this linen jacket from the same year.


----------



## Desk Jockey (Aug 19, 2005)

There was a Press shop in Andover?


----------



## Pale Male (Mar 24, 2008)

*Andover Press*

After Princeton but before San Francisco?

Linen jacket OK, but don't like lapels and always prefer patch pockets.

DO like DJ especially since it has some shape.

Prices are long before my time.


----------



## Desk Jockey (Aug 19, 2005)

To answer my own question, Press closed up shop in the early 50's and the Andover Shop moved into the same location. Learn something new every day.


----------



## AldenPyle (Oct 8, 2006)

Desk Jockey said:


> To answer my own question, Press closed up shop in the early 50's and the Andover Shop moved into the same location. Learn something new every day.


Any connection between the Andover shop ownership and Press?


----------



## AldenPyle (Oct 8, 2006)

Compare, for instance, the Press linen 1947 jacket 









with this picture from 1941 from the old Bulldog blog. 









I think if you went to Press today, the 1947 model would not look out of place (maybe the lapels are a little wide). But the 1941 model would look quite strange.


----------



## AldenPyle (Oct 8, 2006)

Here's an interesting picture from 1947. Note, is taken as given that the accepted style for odd trousers are pleats.


----------



## AldenPyle (Oct 8, 2006)

*Yep No Pleats*

But also notice this ad also from 1947. Notice that the correct Ivy league SUIT has no pleats


----------



## Desk Jockey (Aug 19, 2005)

AldenPyle said:


> Any connection between the Andover shop ownership and Press?


Not that I'm aware of. Press abandoned it & a family started a shop there after that. Might have kept the furniture, I imagine.


----------



## Pale Male (Mar 24, 2008)

*Press 1941 Model*

I have a blazer in this style and have my college patch attached to the patch pocket. Not for the Puritans, but then they like to rewrite history to suit their beliefs.

Interesting to see Gentree. They were still around in my day, and the building survived until very recently when it was replaced by the new History of Art Building.

And a note on pleated trousers: likely much more common than is admitted in these parts. There are a few great photos from LIFE on SF than show Yalies in pleats, though I don't know the date.


----------



## KCKclassic (Jul 27, 2009)

_yep.....its the darkest flannel you...*ever saw!*_

-great pitch

Re: Pleats, I'm no expert but I suspect they were far more common than some here might admit. I am anti-pleat personally, but for purely aesthetic reasons, as opposed to ideas of tradition.


----------



## Zon Jr. (May 20, 2009)

P Hudson said:


> Interesting the way IMPORTED is stressed in the 1941 ad. It probably, even where not specified, didn't mean Made in China.


 Even later than that. While we bemoan the loss of American manufacturing, most of it was mediocre in quality and even worse in design. "Imported" goods had a great deal of glamor (except from Japan)--Scandinavian furniture, English clothes and fabrics, anything French, etc. Someone in the early 70's created a business called Pier One Imports, reassuring you by the name that what they sold was tasteful, exciting, and exotic. Their name is now sadly redundant but they are still in business.


----------



## AldenPyle (Oct 8, 2006)

Desk Jockey said:


> Not that I'm aware of. Press abandoned it & a family started a shop there after that. Might have kept the furniture, I imagine.


thx


Pale Male said:


> I have a blazer in this style and have my college patch attached to the patch pocket.


Interesting. You should post a pic.



Pale Male said:


> And a note on pleated trousers: likely much more common than is admitted in these parts. There are a few great photos from LIFE on SF than show Yalies in pleats, though I don't know the date.





KCKclassic said:


> Re: Pleats, I'm no expert but I suspect they were far more common than some here might admit. I am anti-pleat personally, but for purely aesthetic reasons, as opposed to ideas of tradition.


Looking at ads from the 1930s into the early 50s, it seems that, on odd trousers at least, English style pleats were at least as prevalent as flat fronts. In fact, they were probably the norm, maybe the overwhelming norm and that includes at places like J. Press. But I think that the natural shoulder Brooks Brothers style suit had flat front pants as a rule, which is why the above ad by Westbrook is so clear in insisting that their suit pants are not pleated. Westbrook also ran other ads in which they simultaneously sold their "Yep, no pleats" suit pants side by side with pleated covert twill and other odd trousers. This is not to say, either, that suits with pleats weren't popular in the US in the thirties, of course they were, even among rich East Coast WASPs, young and old.

Tapered, flat front pants were clearly a specific part of the quote-unquote Ivy League style and the guote- unquote Traditional natural shoulder style that followed. I think, originally, the "Ivy League" style boom was for business suits which naturally followed the Brooks-ish details but those styling details spilled over to jackets, odd trousers and even pants as casual as khakis. As a high fashion, this contributed to the broader decline in wearing pleats over the 1950s through 70s.


----------



## Bradford (Dec 10, 2004)

I was under the impression that the sack suit and the fact that it had flat-front pants was a direct outgrowth of the uniforms worn by US soldiers during WWII.

While it may have been prevalent at Ivy schools, it was also an outgrowth of a style that millions of men found comfortable during their military service.


----------



## AldenPyle (Oct 8, 2006)

Bradford said:


> I was under the impression that the sack suit and the fact that it had flat-front pants was a direct outgrowth of the uniforms worn by US soldiers during WWII.
> 
> While it may have been prevalent at Ivy schools, it was also an outgrowth of a style that millions of men found comfortable during their military service.


I don't think that is the way I would put it. Brooks Brothers claimed it came out with its #1 Sack suit about the turn of the century and a 3 button sack suit in 1930. The original sack suit would have had flat front pants and ads for suit pants with "English pants" show up in the 1920's. I certainly don't know for sure that Brooks never had pleated pants on its sack suits, but I think so.

It is true that pleats were banned during the WWII (Macarthur excepted) and its hard to believe that the post-war trend to flat front pants was unrelated. Also, the relatively unprepossessing nature of the Ivy League suit is often argued to have appealed to the GI generation.

Anyway, here is a good picture of a turn of the century sack worn by the grandfather of Time Magazine co-founder Briton Hadden in 1905








Note flat front pants and four button suit.

Here is a good picture of a turn of the


----------



## AldenPyle (Oct 8, 2006)

In fact, there are a few good pictures of Hadden that illustrate East Coast style in the 1910s and 20s.
In high school 
1914








1917-18 with Henry "Hank" Luce


----------



## AldenPyle (Oct 8, 2006)

Yale Daily News 1920








1923








1925 with Luce


----------



## AlanC (Oct 28, 2003)

Great hat on grandpa. Notice how short everyone's trousers are.


----------



## Joe Beamish (Mar 21, 2008)

Short and tapered. You can't have one without the other.

Those early sacks were almost like shirts, like flannel shirts. Look at grandpa on the beach, and see the jacket on the mustachioed Brit in the printing room with Luce. Almost like shirts; talk about your natural shoulder. 

As usual, all of these men look perfectly comfortable in their duds. They do not seem restricted anywhere; and yet, today so many men decline to wear ties and jackets because they're so uncomfortable. "No need to wear a tie, just be relaxed, be yourself", they tell each other.


----------



## Jovan (Mar 7, 2006)

That's because they, like me, didn't grow up with comfortable clothes immediately available. The lowering of armholes and trouser rise has contributed to that. This is why I encourage my friends to thrift for old suits.


----------



## Joe Beamish (Mar 21, 2008)

Yes, but I think ill-fitting shirts are culprito numero uno. Men buy shirts in S-M-L-XL-XXL-XXXXXL sizes; they buy non-irons; and even while in ties they walk around in unbuttoned collars in revolt against a centuries-old conspiracy to make men uncomfortable in the workplace.

In the corporate world, it's always the same thing. Jackets and ties = discomfort and uptightness physically and creatively. They're fine when appropriate in client meetings and presentations, but otherwise "let's roll up our sleeves and get to work" is the overwhelming idea. Because everyone knows these clothes are brutally uncomfortable.

> Someone should market a line of clothing positioned squarely on comfort, plain and simple. That's the Trojan horse. The Greeks inside are lovely American traditional clothing....


----------



## David V (Sep 19, 2005)

Joe Beamish said:


> When did khakis "happen"? After WWII?
> 
> What a happy primer this stuff is for me. Thank you for posting, AP!


Khaki the color was adapted to British uniforms in India in the 1880's.

As for cotton twill pants of khaki color...probable migrated to the civilian population after WWII.


----------



## AldenPyle (Oct 8, 2006)

*Yale Graduate 1949*

Here's a picture of a Yale University graduate in 1949. Note how much this jacket looks like the one in the 1947 J.Press ad.


----------



## Reds & Tops (Feb 20, 2009)

Joe Beamish said:


> Yes, but I think ill-fitting shirts are culprito numero uno. Men buy shirts in S-M-L-XL-XXL-XXXXXL sizes; they buy non-irons; and even while in ties they walk around in unbuttoned collars in revolt against a centuries-old conspiracy to make men uncomfortable in the workplace.
> 
> In the corporate world, it's always the same thing. Jackets and ties = discomfort and uptightness physically and creatively. They're fine when appropriate in client meetings and presentations, but otherwise "let's roll up our sleeves and get to work" is the overwhelming idea. Because everyone knows these clothes are brutally uncomfortable.
> 
> > Someone should market a line of clothing positioned squarely on comfort, plain and simple. That's the Trojan horse. The Greeks inside are lovely American traditional clothing....


I just re-read this post, and was struck at how spot on it really is.


----------



## AldenPyle (Oct 8, 2006)

Here is something from the 1934 Yale Daily News


----------



## P Hudson (Jul 19, 2008)

Side vents at Yale! I wonder how often they were considered acceptable by the TNSIL crowd. I think of them as much better paired with the British ideal of a padded shoulder. I don't have anything with a good shoulder that has side vents except for an Italian linen suit that is relatively unpadded.


----------



## AldenPyle (Oct 8, 2006)

P Hudson said:


> Side vents at Yale! I wonder how often they were considered acceptable by the TNSIL crowd. I think of them as much better paired with the British ideal of a padded shoulder. I don't have anything with a good shoulder that has side vents except for an Italian linen suit that is relatively unpadded.


There was a boom for side vented natural shouldered jackets in the early 1960's, kind of a bastard child of the Ivy League look and the Continental. As recently as a couple of years ago, Southwick had a side-vented sack model. Bobby Jones also was selling side-vented Made in Italy sacks with an extremely soft shoulder.

I still think that the tweed sport jackets in general were looked on as a British look and were over the 1930's modified according to the Brooks cut.


----------



## AldenPyle (Oct 8, 2006)

This is from December 1937 when the Drape cut was a fashion hit. I guess the "costly original" is Brooks but who knows.


----------



## Trousers (Nov 22, 2020)

Arnold Gingrich fan said:


> Well done, AldenPyle! A suggestion...
> 
> I think it's possible, even probable, that the credit you give to J. Press belongs to *Langrock* instead. Langrock (est. 1898) predates J. Press by a mere four years, but it successfully promoted the "new" sack suit look from the get-go. Furthermore, Langrock was then considered more upper crust --and therefore more desirable (and influential?)-- than J. Press. For starters, Jacopi Press was Jewish; David Langrock was not. In less enlightened times, such a fact mattered to trendsetting bluebloods.
> 
> ...


BTW, David Langrock was 100% Jewish! 
Also, there is a "Langrock Way" in Burlington, NJ. Does anyone know if it was named for the chain of Langrock clothes shops?


----------

