Ivy League

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Clothing style

Ivy League can also refer to a style of men's dress, popular in the late 1950s, and said to have originated on college campuses. The clothing store J. Press represents perhaps the quintessential Ivy League dress manner, with two of its four locations found at Harvard and Yale University. It is epitomized by the sack suit which is defined as being a 3-to-2 blazer without darts and a single vent. The pants are cuffed without pleats. It was also characterized by the use of natural fabrics, shirts with button-down collars, and penny loafers. In suits, the Ivy League style was promoted by clothier Brooks Brothers and included natural shoulder single-breasted suit jackets. In 1957 and 1958, about 70% of all suits sold were in the "Ivy League" style.^[44][45][46]

Other "Ivies"

Marketing groups, journalists, and some educators sometimes promote other colleges as "Ivies," as in Little Ivies; Public Ivies; and Southern Ivies. These uses of "ivy" are intended to promote the other schools by comparing them to the Ivy League, but unlike the "Ivy League" label, they have no canonical definition. For example, in the 2007 edition of Newsweek's How to Get Into College Now, the editors designated twenty-five schools as "New Ivies," some of which— e.g. the four-year-old science-degree-only Olin College—share no characteristics with the Ivy League colleges except a good reputation.^[47]