Podcast
99% Invisible
It was a Japanese book originally published in 1965, which was later translated into English in 2010, that featured photos of Ivy League students and discussed their style of dress.
It's an English translation of the 1965 book Take Ivy.
— Episode: Articles of Interest: American Ivy
Episode: Articles of Interest: American Ivy
It was a Japanese book originally published in 1965, which was later translated into English in 2010, that featured photos of Ivy League students and discussed their style of dress.
It's an English translation of the 1965 book Take Ivy.
Originally, it's published in Japanese for the Japanese market Take Ivy is mostly pictures of beautiful young white men walking to and from class, lounging in archways, going to sports practice and you lose track of which college is which and it all blends into a beautiful mid-century homoerotic American dream.
I just tell people you start with this book called Take Ivy and in Take Ivy they are wearing khakis like loafers and like a pair of madras shorts, chunky knit sweaters and sweater vests.
So take Ivy is an amazing document because these guys really look fantastic and it's not for the clothes themselves. The garments are pretty conservative. It's about how the students are wearing this stuff.
Take ivy as you will come to learn in the course of this story was made as a form of propaganda for the company that published this book.