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What’s This About
Ivy League fashion is the soft-shouldered campus menswear of north-eastern American universities, built on sack jackets, Oxford button-down shirts, chinos, knitwear and loafers.
This guide explains the look and how to wear it now, such as
Where the Ivy League name came from and when the conference was formed
The sack jacket and the three-roll-two lapel
Why the button-down collar is soft and rolled
How Ivy differs from preppy and Old Money
Two starting outfits for smart and casual days
Books that document the style
and many more!
No label is required, so start with the shirts, chinos and jackets you already own.
Key Points
01The clothes are older than the athletic conference. Brooks Brothers’ sack suit is generally dated to 1895, while the league was formally established in 1954.
02A sack jacket has no front darts and natural shoulders, so its relaxed shape is a chosen silhouette rather than a poor fit.
03Ivy describes documented campus menswear; preppy also covers later reinterpretations, and neither says anything about a wearer’s wealth.
04Japan helped keep the style alive, from VAN Jacket in 1951 to the 1965 photo book Take Ivy.
Ivy League fashion, usually shortened to Ivy style, is the way of dressing that grew up on north-eastern American university campuses in the first half of the twentieth century.
Its core garments are soft-shouldered tweed and flannel jackets, Oxford cloth button-down shirts, chinos and grey flannel trousers, knitwear and penny loafers.
This guide explains what defines the look, where the name and the clothes come from, how Ivy differs from preppy, and how to wear it today.
What is Ivy League fashion?
Ivy style is a relaxed version of classic American tailoring, meaning jackets with little padding, shirts with soft collars and trousers cut straight, worn with knitwear and casual shoes.
The Museum at FIT’s 2012 Ivy Style exhibition describes it as beginning as the “Ivy League Look” on elite campuses, built on Shetland tweed jackets and Oxford button-down shirts alongside more casual madras shorts and khaki trousers.
The same exhibition notes that, before the Second World War, firms such as Brooks Brothers and J. Press adapted garments from the English wardrobe, including tweed jackets and polo coats, and drew on British country clothing.
The result was a wardrobe that looked tidy without looking stiff, which is why the same jacket could be worn to a lecture, a football game or a city office.
Where the name and the look come from
The word “Ivy” was first applied to a group of eastern colleges by the sportswriter Stanley Woodward in the New York Herald Tribune in October 1933, and the Ivy League’s own timeline records the exact phrase “Ivy League” in an Associated Press column in February 1935.
The eight universities, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Pennsylvania, Princeton and Yale, extended their football agreement to all sports in 1954, which is when the athletic conference was formally established; the first season of league competition followed in 1956 to 1957.
The clothes are older than the conference. Brooks Brothers, founded in New York in 1818, introduced its undarted sack suit, which is generally dated to 1895, and its button-down collar shortly afterwards.
Brooks Brothers dates the button-down collar to 1896, while the EBSCO Research Starters history records it going on sale at the New York store in autumn 1900; both accounts credit John E. Brooks, who copied the buttoned collars worn by English polo players.
J. Press opened in New Haven, beside Yale, in 1902, and campus shops like it supplied students for decades.
According to the FIT exhibition, after the war the style absorbed the clothing of a new generation of students, many of them former servicemen, and spread beyond the campus, including to jazz musicians.
By November 1954, LIFE magazine reported that the Ivy League look had “got out of eastern hands” and was being sold by discount clothiers across the country.
The FIT exhibition records that Ivy fell out of favour in the late 1960s and returned from the 1980s onwards, and it has been revived several times since.
The details that define Ivy style
The sack jacket
The traditional Ivy jacket is a “sack” cut, which has no front darts, so it hangs fairly straight from the chest instead of nipping in at the waist.
It usually has natural, lightly padded shoulders, a centre hook vent and three buttons with the lapel rolled so that only the middle button fastens, a detail known as three-roll-two.
Grey flannel, tweed, hopsack and seersucker are common cloths, and the same cut appears in suits, odd jackets and the navy blazer with metal buttons.
A tweed odd jacket is a sports coat rather than a suit jacket, so it pairs with trousers of a different cloth.
The Oxford button-down shirt
The Oxford cloth button-down shirt is the most recognisable Ivy garment.
Its collar is soft and unlined, so it curves as it rolls over the buttons rather than lying flat.
White and pale blue are the usual colours, with university stripes and tattersall checks as alternatives, and it works with or without a tie.
Trousers
Chinos in khaki or olive and grey flannel trousers are the two staples, cut straight through the leg with a flat or lightly pleated front.
Many traditional Ivy trousers have turn-ups and a short length that shows the shoe, but a longer length with a slight break is just as wearable if you prefer it.
Knitwear
Shetland crewnecks, cable-knit and Aran-style sweaters, V-necks, cardigans and tennis sweaters with striped trims all belong to the Ivy wardrobe.
Knitwear can replace a jacket on a casual day or sit under a tweed jacket in cold weather.
Shoes
Penny loafers, plain or brogued lace-ups, white or dirty bucks, desert boots and canvas or leather boat shoes cover most Ivy outfits.
Brown and burgundy leather, including shell cordovan from makers such as Alden, are traditional choices.
Ties, belts and socks
Repp ties with diagonal stripes, small-pattern foulards and knit ties are the usual neckwear, and some striped ties carry club or regimental meanings, so choose a stripe you like rather than one that claims a membership you do not have.
Leather or canvas belts and argyle or plain wool socks finish the look.
Outerwear
The camel polo coat, the duffle coat, the raincoat and, for cold weather, a tweed or check overcoat are the classic layers.
Waxed cotton jackets and varsity jackets with wool bodies and leather sleeves bring in the sporty and country sides of the look.
What is the difference between Ivy, preppy and Old Money?
Ivy describes the documented campus menswear of roughly the 1900s to the 1960s.
Preppy, from the word “preparatory”, covers the same core garments but also their later and more colourful reinterpretations, especially after The Official Preppy Handbook (1980); our guide to preppy style origins covers the schools and books behind the label.
Old Money is a recent label for a polished appearance that borrows from Ivy, preppy and European tailoring, and it says nothing about a wearer’s actual family or wealth.
For a decade-by-decade account of how preppy fashion changed, see our history of preppy fashion.
How to style Ivy League fashion today
Start with clothes you already own, since an Oxford button-down shirt, chinos and a navy jacket or sweater already make a complete Ivy outfit.
Check fit first, especially the jacket shoulders and the trouser length with your shoes on; the sack cut is a deliberate, slightly roomy silhouette, which is different from a jacket that simply does not fit.
Mix textures rather than colours, such as tweed with flannel, cotton Oxford cloth with wool knitwear, or suede shoes with corduroy.
Keep logos small or absent, and let well-worn garments look worn, which suits the relaxed character of the style.
For a smarter day, try a grey flannel or navy hopsack jacket, a white button-down shirt, a repp tie, grey flannel trousers and brown loafers.
For a casual weekend, try a striped rugby shirt or a Shetland crewneck over a button-down shirt, chinos, boat shoes or desert boots and a waxed cotton jacket.
Ivy dressing grew around campus life, so check the dress code before relying on it for a formal event.
Our guide to Ivy style for work and weekends adapts the look to office, interview and weekend settings, our five Ivy League outfit ideas show complete campus-inspired looks, and our preppy wardrobe guide goes through each garment in more detail.
Ivy League fashion brands
You do not need any particular label to dress in the Ivy style, but several companies are closely tied to its history, and our list of Old Money fashion brands covers more.
Brooks Brothers, founded in 1818, made the sack suit and the button-down collar that the look grew from.
J. Press, founded beside Yale in 1902, is known for sack jackets, Shetland sweaters and repp ties.
The Gant shirt label was launched in New Haven in 1949 and became known for button-down shirts with a locker loop and a box pleat on the back.
Ralph Lauren reinterpreted Ivy and preppy clothing from the late 1960s onwards, and its Purple Label line is the brand’s most formal tailoring.
Newer labels such as Todd Snyder and Rowing Blazers offer more contemporary takes, and Japanese companies such as Kamakura Shirts and Beams Plus also make Ivy-inspired clothing.
Second-hand and vintage shops are a good source of tweed jackets, Shetland knitwear and Oxford shirts, and older garments often already have the softened, lived-in look the style favours.
Ivy style in Japan
Japan has done much to keep Ivy style alive.
Kensuke Ishizu founded the clothing company VAN Jacket in Osaka in 1951, and by the early 1960s it was selling Ivy-inspired ready-to-wear to young Japanese men.
Around 1964, young people dressed in Ivy clothes gathered in Tokyo’s Miyuki-dori area and became known as the Miyuki-zoku.
In 1965, Ishizu’s team and the publisher of Men’s Club magazine produced Take Ivy, a photo book of students on American campuses wearing Oxford shirts, chinos, madras and loafers.
Japanese makers and shops are still known for careful reproductions of Ivy jackets, shirts and knitwear, and Take Ivy was republished in English in 2010.
Books about Ivy League fashion
Ivy Style: Radical Conformists, edited by Patricia Mears (Yale University Press, 2012), accompanied the FIT exhibition and covers the style’s history with archive photographs.
The Ivy Look by Graham Marsh and JP Gaul is an illustrated guide to the clothes and the period.
Take Ivy (1965; English edition 2010) by Shosuke Ishizu, Toshiyuki Kurosu and Hajime Hasegawa, with photographs by Teruyoshi Hayashida, shows how students actually wore the clothes in the mid-1960s.
The Official Preppy Handbook (Workman, 1980), edited by Lisa Birnbach, is a satire of preppy life that also became a widely used reference to its clothes, and True Prep (2010), by Birnbach with Chip Kidd, updated it.
Related questions
What are the Old Money wardrobe essentials?
How do you wear Ivy League style for work and weekends?
What are some Ivy League outfit ideas?