MoneyWellSpent's Southern Trad Thread

[Artigas]

Speaking of departing from trad rules:

This Polo Ralph Lauren jacket, purchased last year, has great natural shoulders and is 3-roll-2, but it’s also double-vented and has front darts. It might not be authentically trad but I think it’s definitely in the spirit of things.

I happen to like it a lot more than my J. Press madras jacket, which checks more trad boxes, but due to its stronger shoulders, presents a less tradly silhouette.

 

[Caustic Man]

I don’t think that jacket would have been out of place in the so called heyday. Yes, some college kids obsessed over little details like hook vents but as far as I can tell, and especially as you get farther from the Northeast, there was a huge amount of variation. Some even wore *gasp* pleated chinos!

 

[Thin White Duke]

I don’t think that jacket would have been out of place in the so called heyday. Yes, some college kids obsessed over little details like hook vents but as far as I can tell, and especially as you get farther from the Northeast, there was a huge amount of variation. Some even wore *gasp* pleated chinos!

Do you think people in what you call the heyday really did obsess over such details or did they just wear what was the trend on sale in their local emporiums at that time and it’s only revisionist nerds fuelled by Japanese nostalgia etc who really obsess over such things?
I make absolutely no claim to be an expert on matters Trad but my impression is that the origin / aim was rooted in semi well dressed casual nonchalance and unrestricting comfort, not so much obsessing over vent and dart jacket styles etc.

 

[Caustic Man]

According to the kids who were there, yes, some kids did obsess over the details. I think it might have been Richard Press who said that you could tell what shop a kid frequented by the shirt and jacket details he wore. And if he didn’t go to the right shop he just wasn’t “in.” Kind of like how sneaker heads obsess over details today. But yes, I do think there must have been a lot of people who were less obsessed with those things.

On a side note, I shared an old 50s television interview with Christian a while back in which high school kids were talking about white bucks. They simply had to be dirty in order to be in, according to these kids.

 

[Artigas]

Even casual observers can’t help to absorb some of the details—in Season 6 of “The Sopranos”, when Tony is dreaming of being an Irish-American salesman instead of the Italian-American gangster he actually is, his wardrobe shifts from Italian sharkskin suits to a blue blazer, blue OCBD, and Brooks Brothers No. 1 Repp Stripe tie:

The show’s wardrobe people used trad as visual cue to represent the persona shift in James Gandolfini’s character, from mafioso to New Jersey salesman.

Now, certainly there were professional wardrobe people at work, and they didn’t get all the details correct, but what I mean to say is that, if there had been no one obsessing over Ivy details in 1962, the style wouldn’t have been cohesive enough to survive in a form recognizable and visually significant to the layman.

 

[Caustic Man]

I agree. Ivy style is many things but it is also a fashion trend, so knowing the details was essential for the hard-core set. Undoubtedly there were kids who were satisfied to simply approximate the look but just as there were dedicated Mods in England so too were there dedicated Ivy kids in the U.S. But on the other hand I do think people today obsess over details in ways that they didn't in the 1960s. The obsession in recent years, it seems to me, is predicated more on nostalgia and even a sometimes false image of what things were like in the past. Because of that it is often far too dismissive of how fluid and dynamic Ivy was in the heyday. But indeed Ivy inspired trends continue to be fluid and dynamic with the rise of Rowing Blazers and Drake's turn toward Trad. The more things change...

 

[Caustic Man]

For those of you who haven't heard, Pedro Mendez (The Hogtown Rake) have a new series in which he interview G. Bruce Boyer about his life in fashion. The first episode premiered today and is about Boyer's experiences growing up with Ivy style. Enjoy.

https://www.thehogtownrake.com/?p=4230

 

[Caustic Man]

By the by, for those of you interested in whether kids in the 50s and 60s obsessed over Ivy style details, Boyer seems to emphatically be saying "yes" they did.

 

[MoneyWellSpent]

 

[An Acute Style]

Black knit tie, shun shirt, Undarted jacket.

 

[Artigas]

O’Connell’s suit, Brooks shirt and tie. Allen Edmonds black wingtips not pictured. The shoulders on this suit are more boxy than I would have liked, but it has no darts, is 3-2, and center vent. Sometimes you can’t have it all.

 

[FlyingHorker]

Black knit tie, shun shirt, Undarted jacket.

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where do you find your stuff? mainly trousers and shirts

 

[An Acute Style]

where do you find your stuff? mainly trousers and shirts

Shirts are mostly Brooks Brothers and Spier and Mackay bought new. Pants are mostly Polo Ralph Lauren from eBay.

 

[Artigas]

For those of you who haven't heard, Pedro Mendez (The Hogtown Rake) have a new series in which he interview G. Bruce Boyer about his life in fashion. The first episode premiered today and is about Boyer's experiences growing up with Ivy style. Enjoy.

https://www.thehogtownrake.com/?p=4230

Always good to hear from people who were there. I found his anecdote regarding the distrust his political comrades felt towards him (due to his Ivy League dress) particularly amusing.

 

[FlyingHorker]

Shirts are mostly Brooks Brothers and Spier and Mackay bought new. Pants are mostly Polo Ralph Lauren from eBay.

thanks for the info.