Last Call: Ivy Style

A Back to School spread from the trade magazine Apparel Arts.

Today is the last day to see the wonderful menswear exhibit Ivy Style at The Museum at FIT so I thought I’d share a few more photos I took at the press preview. I think my favorite part of this exhibit was learning how very prescribed the wardrobe was for a young man entering an Ivy League school during the start of the last century right up to about the mid-1960s.

It cracks me up that these are supposed to be college men. They all look like they’re 45!

I’m looking at these “Back to School” spreads from Apparel Arts, a magazine created for wholesale buyers and retailers, and thinking, Really? College men? They all look like my husband, who’s 45! I have to say, I went to San Diego State University, and I would’ve absolutely melted had I met a young man wearing any of these clothes. Most of the college “men” I met dressed like absolute fraternity brother slobs. Or Jeff Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. No thank you! I prefer the look below, robes and all!

Do wear a 3-piece suit under your seersucker robe while in the dorm room, college boys!

I was at New Year’s Eve party the night I met my husband and he was wearing a gray herringbone blazer. In San Diego. I cannot overstate how unusual this was (and probably still is). He was the only man in the room wearing a jacket of any kind and I was immediately smitten! As those sage gents from ZZ Top once sang, “Every girl’s crazy ‘bout a sharp dressed man!”

Blazers from Yale (1916) and Princeton (1923.) Orange Princeton reunion blazer, 1919.

I definitely need a pair of these for around the house.

The Museum at FIT
Seventh Avenue at 27th Street
New York NY 10001-5992