The Ivy Look: Classic American Clothing - An Illustrated Pocket Guide - Softcover

Marsh, Graham; Gaul, J.P.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0711231389 ISBN 13: 9780711231382

Publisher: Frances Lincoln, 2010

Synopsis

A pictorial celebration of the clothing and accessories that dominated the American male dress code from 1955 to 1965.



Democratic, stylish and comfortable, the Ivy Look was the height of cool, worn by presidents and hipsters alike, and its impact and influence can be seen to this day in the clothes of designers such as Ralph Lauren, and in the continuing popularity of classics like the Harrington jacket and Levi’s 501s.



Digging deep into the vaults, the book combines new illustrations and still life shots of original clothing and accessories with contemporary magazine advertisements, key movie posters and album cover art, and photographs of icons like Steve McQueen, Paul Newman and Miles Davis to bring the Ivy Look into sharp focus.

About this title

About the Author

GRAHAM MARSH is an art director, illustrator and author. He has written and art directed many groundbreaking visual books including The Cover Art of Blue Note Records Volumes 1 and 2, East Coasting and California Cool (Collis & Brown). He co-authored and art directed a series of ten movie poster books and Denim: From Cowboys to Catwalks (Aurum). His illustrations have appeared in magazines, newspapers and on many CD and album covers. He has contributed to numerous publications including Country Life and the Financial Times. This is his first children's book. He lives in Greenwich, south-east London.

J.P.GAUL has long had a fascination with American clothing styles of the 1950s and 1960s, a passion nurtured whilst working at J.Simons' legendary clothes shop in central London. A jazz and architecture fan, he is also a regular blogger on all matters sartorial. This is his first book. He lives in North London.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

THE BUTTON DOWN COLLAR

The French novelist Gustave Flaubert once wrote â “Be regular and ordinary in your

life, like a bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work.â ” Miles

Davis, the embodiment of hip and the coolest man on the planet from the early 1950s

until his death in 1991 certainly subscribed in part to Flaubert’s credo. On the cover of

his 1958 album Milestones Davis subverted a standard issue garment that Joe College

claimed his own by wearing an immaculate green oxford cloth button-down shirt. It

was the Ivy look with attitude.

A host of new, young Hollywood Method actors such as Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Montgomery Clift and the epitome of the Ivy look, Anthony Perkins, also favoured this comfortable, quintessentially American collared shirt. When starring in the Hitchcock movie Psycho, Perkins took care of business at The Bates Motel wearing a corduroy

Ivy League suit, desert boots and a white button-down shirt, he looked as sharp as his mother’s knife.

The button-down shirt had come a long way from its origins on the Polo fields of England, which is where, in 1900, John Brooks, president of Brooks Brothers first saw that polo players had fastened their collars with buttons to keep them from snapping in their faces. Brooks took the idea back to New York where to this day it is the best use a sewing machine has ever been put to. George Frazier, the late, great taste master and columnist for The Boston Globe on the subject of the button-down shirt summed it up this way, â “The roll of the collar, that’s the most important thing.â ”

Edition details

• Publisher: Frances Lincoln
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0711231389
• ISBN 13: 9780711231382
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208