UNITED STATES / NEW YORK: IVY STYLE

until Saturday January 05 2013
Tuesday-Friday – noon-8 pm Saturday –10 am-5 pm Closed Sunday, Monday, and legal holidays
The Museum at FIT
Seventh Ave. at 27th St. (southwest corner)
10001-5992 New York
United States

Press Contact
Cheri Fein
press@fitnyc.edu
www.fitnyc.edu

The exhibition celebrates one the clothing styles of the 20th century. From its origins on the prestigious college campuses of America in the late 1910s to the many reinterpretations seen in contemporary fashion, the “Ivy League Look” or “Ivy Style” has come to be viewed as a classic form of dressing.

However, in its heyday, Ivy style was once a cutting-edge look worn by young men of means. Ivy Style present the three main periods of the look: the interwar years of the 1920s and 1930s, the post-war era to the end of the 1960s, and the style’s revival from the 1980s to the present. During the interwar years, from 1919 to the onset of World War II, classic items, such as tweed jackets and polo coats, were appropriated from the Englishman’s wardrobe, modified, and redesigned by pioneering American firms such as Brooks Brothers and J. Press for young men on the campuses of elite East Coast colleges. The second period, from approximately1945 to the late 1960s, will illustrate the rise and dissemination of the Ivy look across the United States. The staples of Ivy style – oxford cloth shirt, khaki pants, and penny loafers – were being worn by a whole new, diverse population that included working-class GIs as well as leading jazz musicians. The final section of Ivy Style will present the revival of the Ivy look that began in the early 1980s and endures today.