Take Ivy Hardcover – August 31, 2010 by Shosuke Ishizu (Author), Toshiyuki Kurosu (Author), Hajime Hasegawa (Author), Teruyoshi Hayashida (Photographer) (powerHouse Books)

It would be difficult for any book to live up to the extravagant praise the second coming of "Take Ivy" received on some of the styleblogs I read. Long available only in the rare and expensive Japanese original or in samizdat copies, the English-language release of "Take Ivy" some 45 years after it was first published was to be a milestone in menswear journalism ... even a touchstone for a new generation.

So I have to admit a bit of disappointment that I wasn't entirely blown away by "Take Ivy." The photos are interesting, if often a bit grainy, but certainly illustrative of the "Ivy League" style of dress in 1965. I particularly enjoyed the text, written as it was by a Japanese author for a Japanese audience eager to know more about the trendy Ivy style. "As a Japanese man," he writes at one point, "I struggle to conceive of `campus wear' or `college fashion.' It is because we Japanese have been put under the spell of having to wear school uniforms. Japanese students are confined to wearing a stand-up collar jacket, day in and day out for many years. Having come from such a background, even scratching the surface of the general campus wear and college fashion is, undeniably, a daunting task" (p. 122).

Undeniably. If there isn't much earth-shattering about "Take Ivy," it is still a useful reference to its particular time and place, and an entertaining time capsule for those of us who prefer a classic approach to men's style. A commenter on one of the styleblogs I mentioned above pointed out that nowhere in these photos is anyone wearing either Sperry Top Siders or LL Bean's Maine Hunting Boots, the supposed be-all and end-all of prep style. And while that is (undeniably, as our author would say) true, "Take Ivy" dates from 1965 while The Official Preppy Handbook, the satire that took on a life of its own as a lifestyle handbook, dates from 1980. Even in the overlapping but not identical worlds of Ivy, preppy, and American Trad style, things can change over 45 or even 15 years. "Take Ivy" is a useful indicator of how much has changed on campus and, in a certain corner of men's style, how blessedly little has changed.