How Black culture reinvented and subverted the Ivy Look
Named one of the best books of 2021 by The Financial Times
From the most avant-garde jazz musicians, visual artists and poets to
architects, philosophers and writers, Black Ivy: A Revolt in Style
charts a period in American history when Black men across the country
adopted the clothing of a privileged elite and made it their own. It
shows how a generation of men took the classic Ivy Look and made it
cool, edgy and unpredictable in ways that continue to influence today's
modern menswear.
Here you will see some famous, infamous and not so famous figures in
Black culture such as Amiri Baraka, Charles White, Malcolm X, Martin
Luther King Jr., James Baldwin, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Sidney
Poitier, and how they reinvented Ivy and Prep fashion--the dominant
looks of the time. The real stars of the book--the Oxford cloth
button-down shirt, the hand-stitched loafer, the soft shoulder
three-button jacket and the perennial repp tie--are all here. What
Black Ivy explores is how these clothes are reframed and redefined by
a stylish group of men from outside the mainstream, challenging the
status quo, struggling for racial equality and civil rights.
Boasting the work of some of America's finest photographers and
image-makers, this must-have tome is a celebration of how, regardless of
the odds, great style always wins.
