“If you grew up with Lisa Birnbach’s lifestyle bible The Preppie Handbook, this is your jam. It doesn’t get more authentic than this.”
Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence” echoes through the storied halls at the New York Historical Society for the J. Press show – a theatrical stroll down the patrician, ivy-lined path of American prep. The show pays homage to Take Ivy, the cult chronicle of Ivy League style, written in 1965 by four Japanese menswear addicts. Creative Director Jack Carlson (who founded the label Rowing Blazers) has models with bicycles and books in letterman jackets, rep ties and straight-legged khakis that break neatly over loafers. There are great slouchy patchwork madras pants, women in men’s suits carrying briefcases and a navy scoop-neck sweater that reads: “TAKE IVY” in bright orange varsity style letters. If you grew up with Lisa Birnbach’s lifestyle bible The Preppie Handbook, this is your jam. Carlson intimately knows the rarefied world of the “true prep.” It doesn’t get more authentic than this.
“J. Press quietly suggests that thoughtful evolution, not reinvention, is the true marker of longevity.”
Carlson sold his label Rowing Blazers, and just last year, joined J. Press, which was founded on Yale University’s campus in 1902. Carlson isn’t out to “disrupt the system” or introduce anything radically new and that restraint is precisely J. Press’s strength. In an era when heritage brands scramble to reinvent themselves or chase trends, J. Press quietly suggests that thoughtful evolution, not reinvention, is the true marker of longevity.
So, while getting dressed, I think of the show while rummaging through my closet. I pull on a striped Rowing Blazers rugby with a baby blue J. Press “Shaggy Dog” sweater and my trusty Weejun loafers. And taking a nod from the show, I opt for crisp white socks this time, instead of navy. – TED HILDNER
