Rebecca C. Tuite

committedtotheweird: The Vassar Girls of ‘67 vs The Vassar...

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 22:48:39 -0400

committedtotheweird:

The Vassar Girls of ‘67 vs The Vassar Girls of ‘10

Some serious Vassar Style right there! Love this piece!

These covers just never get old! Amazing!

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 22:48:11 -0400

These covers just never get old! Amazing!

History's Most Shocking Trends: Bloomers & America's College Girls

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 09:03:00 -0500

I had a lot of fun recently being interviewed by journalist Denise Winterman for her BBC News piece, “Fashion: History’s Most Shocking Styles.”

Although there are any number of surprising trends to consider, I talked about the Bloomer Suit of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. To women of the time, bloomers seemed like a rational alternative to cumbersome skirts, society was far from ready to accept the idea of young women “dressing like men.”

So head on over to BBC News and read more about why these bloomers were so scandalous… and how America’s earliest college girls were, once again, ahead of the fashion curve.

IMAGE ABOVE: Vassar College student jumping hurdles on field Day, 1918. Vassar College Archives.

IMAGE BELOW: Wellesely College student playing baseball in 1919. Wellesley College Archives.

Yet another perfect example of Vassar...

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 13:55:04 -0500

Yet another perfect example of Vassar style!

perfectlibraries:

Vassar Library Panorama by Dalboz17

Poughkeepsie, USA

Beautiful Jewett House on Move-In day during the...

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 15:03:00 -0500

Beautiful Jewett House on Move-In day during the 1950s.

des-paillettes:

these were my front steps when i was little. now they’re gone.

legrandcirque: Two American students sauntering along a...

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 20:18:34 -0400

legrandcirque:

Two American students sauntering along a Heidelberg street. Photograph by Walter Sanders. Heidelberg, Germany, June 1947.

Entry E - Yale and Vassar Siblings, Richard and Karen Frede '59

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 12:02:00 -0400

Karen Frede Nangle VC ‘59 and her brother, the best selling author Richard Frede, at Karen’s graduation. You can see Main building just behind them - and is this not the most chic examples of Yale Style/Vassar Style you have ever seen?

You can read all about one of Richard Frede’s best selling pulp novels, ‘Entry E,’ in my new piece for www.ivy-style.com here: http://www.ivy-style.com/voice-in-the-dark-richard-fredes-entry-e-1958.html

HUGE thank you to Karen for sharing this with me!

Get ready for more of this Vassar Style in my book,...

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 15:35:55 -0400

Get ready for more of this Vassar Style in my book, “Vassar Style: Fashion, Feminism and 1950s American Media.” More details on the way…

theniftyfifties:

Female students in a group study session with a typewriter at Vassar College, 1953.

Gotta love the sweater sets! theniftyfifties: College girl...

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 11:23:44 -0400

Gotta love the sweater sets!

theniftyfifties:

College girl fashions by Bernat Handicrafter, 1958.

The pearls, the lipstick, the gown, the earrings… not hard...

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 09:42:01 -0400

The pearls, the lipstick, the gown, the earrings… not hard to see why she became a HUGE part of the mid-century “Vassar Girl” style icon.

youngfirstlady:

Jackie, representing the formidable Kennedy women on the cover of LOOK magazine, October 20, 1960

The "Vassar Girl" Sells... Wrigley's Chewing Gum

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 06:37:00 -0400

Everyone knows Juicy Fruit, Wrigley’s Spearmint and Wrigley’s Double Mint, but what about the Wrigley’s brands that came before? Well, in 1892, just a year before the launch of Wrigley’s eponymous gum flavors, there was “Vassar.” Launched to target the women’s market exclusively, “Vassar” gum, with its “Perfect Peppermint Flavor,” was sold in a pink case, with elegant (and collegiate) navy blue typography that made no secret of its flagrant ties to the Seven Sisters College. Just as the “Vassar Girl” would become a fashion icon, a movie star, a gossip column regular and a cosmetics maven, she was also able to shift gum off the shelves. With her endorsement (although not the college’s), chewing gum became socially acceptable and even glamorous.

ABOVE (Courtesy of Worthpoint.com http://bit.ly/kHGAWH): An 1892 Wrigleys Vassar Chewing Gum tin - Some Vassar Style, Confectionery Style.

Vassar would continue to hold ties with Wrigleys and in 1938, Elizabeth Hawes, VC ‘25 designed a dress especially for a Wrigley’s Double Mint advertising campaign: “How Healthful Double Mint Gum Makes you Doubly Lovely.” LIFE magazine noted that, “Elizabeth Hawes has always had, in addition to her talent for designing clothes, an equal talent for publicising and promoting Elizabeth Hawes,” and so this campaign with a tie-in to the ever popular chewing gum reaffirmed her position as a fashion force to be reckoned with; on the runway, and in business. With Joan Bennett as her model, the dress was, “Simply designed,” with “the wide full skirt to which Hawes has always been partial.” The Vassar-Wrigleys partnership continued, not least because there is rarely a mention in mass-media of Hawes without the obligatory sentence: “An attractive lady […] Hawes graduated from Vassar in 1925.” The Vassar connection still managed to attract clients looking for a certain style something.

ABOVE (Courtesy of LIFE archives): 1938 Advertisement for Double Mint in association with Elizabeth Hawes - You too could look “doubly lovely”!

ABOVE (Courtesy of LIFE archives): A detail shot of the Hawes-Wrigley dress, with its full skirt, accentuated waist and high collar.

Actually, this isn’t the only tie to the famous Chicago-based family company… while it was William Wrigley Jr. (1861-1932) who launched the “Vassar” chewing gum, his son, Phillip Wrigley would later launch the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). Given that the first organized women’s baseball team in U.S. started at Vassar College in 1866, Wrigley’s eventually rewarded their forward-thinking sporting ambition with an entire League.

ABOVE (Image courtesy of the Vassar College Encyclopaedia): Vassar’s baseball team in 1876, “The Resolutes.”

From a dress history perspective, their uniforms were intended to abate criticism that Vassar women were losing every scrap of femininity: high necklines, with cravats and bow-ties, long sleeved blouses, classic striped caps, leather buttoned booties and, just to add to the team camaraderie, belts embroidered with “The Resolutes.” Wonder if these women were buying Vassar chewing gum fifteen years later?!

Take me out to the ballgame, indeed.

Don’t forget, you can follow me on Twitter for more Vassar related updates and history: @rebeccatuite

A little after my book’s timeframe, but still shows just...

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 02:11:03 -0400

A little after my book’s timeframe, but still shows just how the “Vassar Girl” could always be a lucrative front page headline!

yehyehgrace:

Sir! - 1964

Thanks for the Re-blog of this piece! markdchou: Bicycle Week:...

Sun, 15 May 2011 13:35:53 -0400

Thanks for the Re-blog of this piece!

markdchou:

Bicycle Week: The Yale-Vassar Bike Race| Ivy Style

I love goofy college traditions like this and Hey Day.

A Visit to Vassar...

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 07:21:59 -0400

“Fashioning an Education: 150 Years of Vassar Students and What They Wore”
May 16-June 12 at the Palmer Gallery, Vassar College (Poughkeepsie, NY)

PHOTO: Vassar College Costume Collection http://blogs.vassar.edu/vccc/

It was my pleasure to return to Vassar last week and spend some time with the students and faculty who are currently working on the exhibition showcasing 150 years of Vassar dress. I really enjoyed the discussion and piecing together what is most important to an exhibition of this nature. It also gave me a few more ideas to consider and hearing so much fascinating research into early Vassar dress is quite inspiring, not least because so many of the same themes and ideas can be traced from the 1860s to my 1950s-era research. I also donated (on behalf of those Vassar women who gifted them to me) a number of garments, some to be featured in this exhibition and others to hopefully find a safe home until it is their turn to be exhibited! It was funny remembering how this project so naturally led me to more structured material culture studies: I remember being somewhat terrified of the ACTUAL garments and being far more comfortable dealing with oral histories, written testimonials, stories and mass media consideration… but as time moved on, the garments themselves definitely became incredibly useful and wonderful to have. They bring alive another perspective on the Vassar experience in the time frame I am talking about.

Thank you to Arden Kirkland at the VCCC for inviting me and to all the students and faculty who shared in the discussion.

Ms. Kirkland actually wrote a blog about my visit on the VCCC website (http://blogs.vassar.edu/vccc/2011/04/a-visit-from-rebecca-tuite/), which I’ve reblogged below:

On Wednesday, April 13, we had a wonderful visit from author Rebecca Tuite, whose book Vassar Style: Fashion, Feminism and 1950s American Media will be published later this year. Ms. Tuite has been a wonderful source of information and enthusiasm on the subject of Vassar dress, and it was a delight to have her here in person!

Speaking to a group of at least a dozen students and faculty members, Ms. Tuite first introduced her research to those who were not already familiar with her work. She described her process at great length, answering questions about her approach to oral history, mass media, and dress. Each of us working on the exhibition for the sesquicentennial had questions for her about how her ladies from the 1950′s relate to the ladies we’re looking at in the earlier years. Certainly there are differences across time, but there are many common threads running through, especially when it comes to the themes we’ve been focusing on lately relating changes in dress to developments in education.

Our discussion certainly gave us all a great deal to think about as our research continues moving forward. We’re very grateful to Ms. Tuite for being so generous with her time and her thoughts!

(I must add that Ms. Tuite was also the bearer of many wonderful gifts – new donations to our collection, from some of the 1950′s alums she’s been in touch with. We’ll post more details about them soon!)

Wow! That’s Vassar style right there… Meryl Streep...

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 06:53:00 -0400

Wow! That’s Vassar style right there… Meryl Streep as Matthew Vassar (Vassar’s founder) on the Sesquicentennial issue cover of the Alumnae/i Quarterly. Go to http://vq.vassar.edu/ for more on the transformation.

IMAGE: http://vq.vassar.edu/

"Vassar Girls" Sell... Feminine Products

Mon, 28 Mar 2011 11:50:00 -0400

PHOTO CREDITS: www.mum.org courtesy of Harry Finley

It’s no real secret that Vassar students have been used throughout history to sell fashion, becoming trendsetters in everything from campus garb to American sportswear to elegant gowns. But actually, students, and their commercial counterpart the “Vassar Girl” have been used throughout history to sell almost everything: garments, accessories, magazines, books, plays and cosmetics. Occasionally, though, I find the Vassar name put to use in a more surprising way and I recently discovered the advertisement shown above…

In 1926, “Vassar Girls” were used in an advertisement for Hickory menstrual pad belts… yes, Vassar was so potent and popular a brand that it could sell even feminine products - and pretty terrifying-looking ones at that!

PHOTO CREDITS: www.mum.org courtesy of Harry Finley

According to the website for the Museum of Menstruation and Women’s Health (HERE and see ‘Credits’ section below for full details), which has the advertisement in its expansive online archives, “Belts holding menstrual pads were the main way women dealt with menstruation until the 1970s, when adhesive pads appeared.” The Museum website also observes that, “Vassar College was most people’s idea  of a college for women for much of the 20th century,” which explains the prominent Vassar pennant hanging on the wall in this dorm room.

PHOTO CREDITS: www.mum.org courtesy of Harry Finley

Although the product is perhaps not as commonly associated with the “Vassar Girl” brand identity, the intention behind her presence here does echo her use in marketing and advertising elsewhere: Vassar students were seen as respectable, sensible and smart young women, so here Hickory was hoping their presence would normalize, and certainly glamorize, the rather taboo subject of women’s menstruation products.

Yes, it almost goes without saying that the “students” featured were impeccably attired: one is wearing a silk night gown and the obligatory pearls, while the other is picture perfect in her drop-waist silk blouse, as they discuss the belt with one another. And another common theme in Vassar focused advertising is the little suitcase, well stocked with the latest fashions: whether it was trips to men’s colleges or just to make the point again that Vassar women were fashionable, the suitcase was used as an advert prop over and over again. They are both also sporting bobbed, softly waved hair, which became so popular on campus that even the Poughkeepsie Star newspaper reported on the trend during the early 1920s, with the headline, “Over 200 Vassar Girls Now Sport Bobbed Hair: Fad Grows.”

I do wonder if the college itself approved this use of the Vassar name: I have found considerable material relating to the rules and regulations of using Vassar College and Vassar students in media for the mid-century period I am researching, but not that much before this. By the 1950s, students were to ask permission for any and all interviews/photographs/articles they wanted to participate in that might include a Vassar mention. With the rise of the PR savvy college, not all press was good press and the archives are littered with polite letters from students asking if they could be allowed to be photographed for magazines and products. When I visit next month, I’ll be hoping to explore this a little further, so stay tuned.

Anyway, sorry for my little aside there, regardless of permissions, the incredible market appeal of the “Vassar Girl” is once again demonstrated, and she is still a strange blend of the various stereotypes and assumptions levied at her throughout history. She is a blurred figure between the idea of real students and a media myth, she is feminine and dainty but also radical and dangerous, she is studious and she is frivolous: she any of these things depending on the context within which she is to be sold. She could just as easily be used to sell an evening gown as she could a menstruation belt and that kind of broad appeal is also the root of why the idea of the “Vassar Girl” endures and fascination with her grows even now.

CREDITS: I found these images and quoted text on the website of the Museum of Menstruation and Women’s Health, run by Harry Finley. The original page is HERE: http://www.mum.org/hick26.htm I would like to thank him for letting me write about it here. The museum is now run completely online and it is certainly a more unusual collection. To read an interview with the founder see HERE: http://www.tbd.com/blogs/amanda-hess/2010/10/museum-of-menstruation-consumed-maryland-man-harry-finley-2697.html. Visit the site HERE: www.mum.org

Take Vassar

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 19:47:38 -0400

Vassar Style got a mention in the French magazine “Snatch” recently (see above). A piece was written by Marc Briant Terlet, who also interviewed me for his website Hell’s Kitchen. It’s a nice mention and what’s not love about Vassar getting the Take Ivy treatment?!

There’s lots of exciting stuff coming up so I’ll be sure to keep you all up to date here on the blog!

- Rebecca

An Interview Avec Moi - 'Le Style Vassar'

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 05:47:00 -0500

I was interviewed a little while ago by the online French Cultural ‘zine “Hell’s Kitchen.”

CLICK THE IMAGE ABOVE TO BE TAKEN TO A TRANSLATED VERSION.

You can read it in French HERE or in English HERE. It was a fun interview! I know I’ve neglected the blog lately, but it’s been super busy, so I promise to catch up soon!

Here is a transcript of the interview…

Could you introduce yourself? How was your studies at Vassar? How did you get interested in these part of History?

Sure, well, I am from London and majored in English Literature as an undergraduate. I was studying at the University of Exeter, but when the opportunity to attend Vassar College, in upstate New York, for a year arose, I leapt at the chance. I think I first heard of Vassar as a young girl watching classic movies. I watched Some Like It Hotrepeatedly, and all through high school loved American history of the Kennedy era (so knew about Jackie Kennedy’s connection).

And later of course, there was The Group, or the passing quotes by Ava Gardner inMogambo or, another mention in Sabrina. And I also read a lot about Jane Fonda, so had heard all the rumors about her risqué afternoon tea outift (the story goes that she turned up for afternoon tea at the Rose Parlor wearing gloves, pearls and nothing else – not true, of course!). So I was certainly, at least vaguely, aware of Vassar… but mostly within these stereotyped references and knowing that it was a great school.

It was really once I started to study there that I became more interested in how and why these ideas and stereotypes came to exist. I was far more aware of how often “Vassar Girl” was used in popular culture and just wanted to know about the way in which they developed – moving away from my sophomoric view of Vassar that I had largely picked up from Hollywood.

And of course, working at fashion magazines was a major influence on my interest in the “Vassar Girl” look – when I was at Harper’s Bazaar and Teen Vogue, I would take any opportunity to spend time in the Hearst and Condé Nast archives reading vintage magazines and gradually developed a collection of mentions, articles, fashion editorial spreads and photoshoots featuring Vassar and Vassar students over the years. It’s amazing how prominent Vassar students were (and, to a certain extent, are) as models and writers in women’s fashion and lifestyle magazines. So, all of these photocopies, notes and images were the first things I called on when I decided to take the project further.

How come Vassar became the Princeton of Seven Sisters? Were there specific preliminary factors which created a good bed for this style culture?

You know, I think it was probably because of a few different reasons. Even to take this back some way in history, certainly, the fact that Vassar was really the first college to offer a college education to the same academic standard as Harvard and Yale plays an important role: immediately the Vassar student became the focus of an unprecedented amount of media scrutiny, with her hairstyles, her fashion choices, her professional and personal aspirations all becoming fodder for the national press. And this was in the nineteenth century; this was the root of the “Vassar Girl” as a cultural entity, and the Vassar Look as a popular style inspiration (although, of course hoop skirts would be replaced with bermuda shorts for the twentieth century’s most iconic Vassar look). National newspapers and early periodicals are littered with long stories dedicated to how Vassar students dresses, and these laid the groundwork for people to look at Vassar as a place where a very particular style of dress was cultivated within the community.

Anyway, to move this into more contemporary discussions of the Vassar style and its place in the Ivy/Seven Sisters group, Vassar has that special quality of being geographically separate from other colleges and, more specifically, other Ivy colleges, but still within an exclusive and elite Seven Sisters group. Princeton, Yale and Harvard developed a style that was unique and codified by students on their respective campuses, but also maintained a unified style culture as part of the Ivy League community. In much the same way, Vassar was separate enough for its students to both play with the Ivy style culture, and adopt elements of the Ivy look that they had seen their brothers or fathers wearing, but also to re-define it as their own.

While there’s always the suggestion that Vassar’s more wealthy students had a lifestyle that afforded a more expensive fashionable look, which contributed to the eventual high profile nature of the Vassar style. The majority of students were not interested in the “Vassar Girl” style that the media loved (the debutante, ladylike, high-society girl in Lanvin and Dior), but rather, dressed as they wanted to: perhaps more casual and informal than many suspected, but still a source of widespread fascination and imitation.

Your thesis and upcoming book mentions feminism, do you think adopting a boyish style, similar to their masculine peers, was somehow a way for those young women to affirm a new form of feminity, a more emancipated one?

I’ve looked a lot at the way menswear was used in the Vassar style of the 1950s and it’s interesting that certainly, many young women enjoyed being able to dress in a style similar to that of their Ivy educated brothers. To experience purchasing a college wardrobe somewhere like Brooks Brothers would have been, up to that point in their lives, something that their brothers and fathers had enjoyed. So menswear did hold a level of status: it was another outward affirmation that they were academic equals to the Ivy men in their families and in society.

But as for the question of emancipation, or a new femininity… this kind of thing was written about a lot at the mid-century; suggestions that Vassar students wore denim or men’s shirts as a kind of performative gesture to show “bohemianism,” or “liberation,” or “rebellion,” but this kind of argument always relied on the suggestion that this was all just an act, that is was all before they settled down into marriage and domesticity. So, it was about a freedom of sorts, as it allowed the students to focus entirely on their studies and created an egalitarian feel on campus during the week that was not predicated on any serious dress code (other than skirts for dinner), but I don’t think it signaled a sign of complete freedom in terms of women’s rights or liberation. The 1950s is still really the pre-feminist era, and you can see hints of what was to follow and the changes on the horizon, but the transition to greater equality was not complete at this point.

Ultimately, I think that the menswear inspired style adopted certainly indicated a status on par with male collegians at neighbouring Ivy League colleges, but allowed a sense of freedom and focus on campus during the week, where studying came first always.

The women’s role during the World War II pulled the trigger for those gender changes, didn’t it? Giving evidence that they were as skilled as their husbands to do the work of the latter while they were at the front.

Certainly attitudes more generally had started to change after World War II. Of course, Vassar was filled with the best and brightest young female students in the country, so graduates were always pushing the boundaries professionally. Vassar had always produced doctors, lawyers, writers and women moving into many areas of business and academia, so its students still continued to pursue careers.

However, 1950s Vassar graduates still encountered shocking sexism and discrimination as women in the workplace. And the question “after college, what?” remained a central thought for graduates throughout the decade. Most students still felt a pressure to achieve marriage and family as much as anything else: In 1951, the results of a study showed that 95% of Vassar students indicated that they wish to be married and have children before they are thirty, while 15% percent hoped to be engaged in a full-time career at that age.

I remembered reading words from Bruce Boyer saying that these classic Ivy style was a way for young men coming back from war to show their will to be part of the “grey flannel suit” society, did the Vassar style have the same role for the American women, being a way to show their will to change the classic woman’s role in Western societies?

I think the Vassar style, on campus at least, indicated a sense of independence, as one 1950s graduate described it, “I was dressing for intelligence.” Vassar graduates were wanting to push their education into excellent jobs and careers, but many were not being sure how exactly to make this happen, and still knew that marriage and home-making was heavily expected of them. Yes, the Vassar look on campus was casual, heavily influenced by menswear and gave an impression of not trying too hard, of being easy, appropriate and indicative of the Ivy League look. But the fact that skirts HAD to worn for dinner (and this stayed in the rule book until 1969, when Vassar went co-educational) underscores the greater challenges women faced in the 1950s: this was a transitional period and the developments in work and society are certainly mirrored by gradual changes in trends on campus, but also by the rules and expectations of more feminine dress that remained in force.

How do you think this style impact the feminine gender’s definition in the 50s USA? How were those young women perceived by the rest of the American population?<

I think Vassar’s campus style had a big impact on the way young college women were dressing in the 1950s. Yes, there was a collective “college girl” style, but there’s no denying the extra attention that Vassar’s look received. It was representative of a fascinating generation of women, and it really was the height, the peak of its popularity and appeal. I think that the Vassar style enjoyed its Halcyon days a little before the best days of the Ivy Look, but that’s just my opinion. It was as though the Vassar look of the 1950s captured every aspect of transition: attitudes towards jobs, careers, marriage, independence, men, equality. There is a mix of old and new, a mixture of tradition and innovation in the way that menswear mixed with traditional preppy womenswear, but that the girls still evoked old-time, 1950s glamour and dresses on formal occasions.

With regards to the perception of Vassar students, I would say the overriding feeling was one of respect. These young women were exceptionally gifted academically and intellectually; they were from a very highly regarded college. What’s interesting about the perception of Vassar and Vassar students in general during this time was the impact of the “Vassar Girl” stereotype that was widely circulated in American popular culture and media. There was always this stigma of the “Vassar Girl” – a vague notion of snobbery, or that the students were “high-hat,” or debutantes, or society girls. But this was all just an exaggeration of the fact that, yes, there were wealthy students at Vassar, and daughters of important national and international figures, but really, this was not the full picture of the reality of Vassar undergraduates.

I saw that you attended class meeting, of ’51 for example. Do they realize the impact they had on the American feminine community at that time?

Yes, I arranged focus groups with Vassar graduates from the 1950s and it was fascinating. I think that it is really only now, looking back, that they realize just how much of an impact they had on American women at the time. One graduate recalling this topic started talking to me about the careers of Vassar women and said, “We were pushing the glass ceiling before it was even called that.” And this is really what was happening: before feminism, Vassar women were defining a sartorial style, a determined approach to careers and a continued desire to raise families.

I think that most students did have a vague awareness that their style influenced other young American women, mostly because students were so frequently recruited to model in fashion magazines, or to serve of College Boards in department stores and that sort of thing. Especially, once they graduates and left the “bubble” of the campus culture, they saw that their style almost preceded them and employers/new friends/partners all seemed to have a certain style expectation of them, which largely stemmed from the Vassar image in media, and that was not always favorable.

Your thesis discussed the role of the American media regarding this style. Vassar girl’s stereotype is pretty strong in the US pop culture (Some like it hot, Gentleman’s agreement, The Simpsons, American Dad, etc.), how the media promoted this new style, which was less congruent with the constructed image of it?

Yes, after almost 100 years of promoting the “Vassar Girl” as a high-hat, society girl, who wore the finest designer gowns, furs and jewels, the sartorial informality of 1950s students in reality wasn’t always welcomed, and, in many cases, was quite a shock! To “outsiders,” it was easy to imagine that Vassar students lived in luxury – one article even claimed that they lived the life of Princesses, with butlers, and incredible closets, and personal kitchens! Most likely at the root of the disparity between the style reality and the style myth was, simply, that Lanvin suits, Oleg Cassini gowns, mink and raccoon coats, pearls, heels, make up and the like, were far more lucrative than the jeans, bermudas and shirts borrowed from Dad!

But younger magazines definitely began to embrace the reality of the Vassar style and it became more often marketed toward the young American girl/college girl in magazines from the mid to late 1950s. In many ways, it became aspirational in a much more positive way: it came to represent talented students, not simply the stereotyped “girl.”

You recently wrote about the role of Brooks Brothers within this community and especially about their special service helping new students in having the right look on and off-campus. Do you think that somehow those Vassar girls made the brand realize that a woman side was needed?

Sure, but I think that it was an inevitable development at that point. Vassar students definitely enjoyed the status that came with Brooks Brothers garments, as I mentioned, and Brooks was an authority on college style from a very specific, “Ivy” perspective. I am sure it was more than just Vassar students wanting Brooks Brothersgarments that made them add womenswear, but Vassar must have played some part in that development – they were key potential consumers.

Although, even with the women’s department, there were still plenty of Vassar students, and I’m sure other women, who continued to shop in the men’s department. There is plenty to say on the subject of authenticity when it comes to this style, but certainly at Vassar, the actual men’s garments did not immediately become replaced by women’s, it simply added to the choice available for young women interested in this look.

Was it the main brand in this community? What about J. Press, Bass and other typical men’s brands of that era?

J. Press did actually introduce womenswear briefly – but only briefly – around this time, and there are some great catalog images for their womenswear collection. Some Vassar students would definitely have worn this in the 1950s. Again, this was in response to the amount of college women flooding their stores looking for clothes in the smallest sizes. There were plenty of students at Vassar wearing garments from the stores on Nassau St, or other New Haven stores more typically frequented by men. Usually, this was because they had brothers or boyfriends at college there. No Bass at Vassar really. But yes, Brooks Brothers was definitely one of the more popular brands for the campus style.

Other popular brands were Peck & Peck (particularly for Black Watch Bermudas, which were a definite indicator of Ivy inspiration), Liberty print shirts, Capezio shoes, department stores like Lord & Taylor, B. Altman and similar (although, again, it was more abut knowing the brands and garments that were worn at Vassar and buying only these, not being persuaded by a shop assistant in the College store to buy inappropriate or unnecessary things.

How did Vassar style evolve from this era? Did the hippie style (which includes workwear) influence the campus in the Sixties?

Things certainly started to change throughout the sixties and on campus dress started reflect this change. The first few years of the 1960s showed remarkably little change – but certainly denim gradually began to find increased popularity again, and the typical sixties silhouette started to be seen in the campus style. I think that what really spelled the end for this look was the start of co-education at Vassar: the balance on campus changed, this was a new era in Vassar’s, and America’s history. It was gradual development, for the most part, you can still see students wearing the iconic style into the 1960s: there was talk of a merger with Yale in the early ‘60s and there are some great, iconic shots of Vassar students expressing their support of this on campus, with bermudas and blazers out in full force.

You also wrote about this signifying practice which is “the scarf and locker loop” for lovers. The scarf practice went more general, going from signifying a love relationship in a certain context to the belonging to this context. Have any new practices been created at this moment? Were there others signifying the belonging to sororities, study fields, ect. ?

Vassar has never had, and continues not to have, sororities and I certainly love that about the college. But sure, the college scarf was quite a status accessory and certainly indicated a sense of belonging. There were pieces of jewellery that also indicated belonging and campus solidarity, like the class ring, which was made of gold and had the interlocking “VC” logo embossed on it. The ring was issued each year to the graduating class. And Vassar actually issued an official blazer during the decade, in grey wool with the ‘VC’ logo on the breast pocket – it was very popular. Students enjoyed wearing something that actually had the Vassar name/logo on it. Ivy colleges had their club jackets, their sports team blazers, their House Party jackets, their Letter Sweaters, so this was like Vassar’s equivalent. It really helped promote college spirit.

The Man in the Brooks Brothers Shirt... & The "Vassar Girl"

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 15:33:00 -0500

My latest piece for Ivy Style is up HERE and has the honour of being the 300th post on Christian Chensvold’s great site! It is about “The Man in the Brooks Brothers Shirt,” which is a story from the novel The Company She Keeps, written by Vassar aluma Mary McCarthy, VC ‘33. But of course, not only is the Vassar connection to the author, but also in the story (this is me, after all!): The Brooks Brothers man himself is married to a “Vassar Girl.”

Here is how McCarthy describes her…

“Leonie was his wife… Leonie loved her house and children. Of course she was interested in culture, too, particularly the theatre, and there were always a lot of young men fro the Cleveland Playhouse handing around her; but then she was a Vassar girl, and you had to expect a woman to have different interests from a man.”

Nothing particularly new here - she’s described as cultured, dedicated domestically and she is certainly a status symbol for her husband, which is all typical “Vassar Girl” stereotyping and in line with the general mystique she had accumulated. But how I love to see everything and anything Mary McCarthy has ever written or said about Vassar and the “Vassar Girl” - really, some might call it an obsession! She is a fascinating woman and gives me plenty of material to write about! If you haven’t already, be sure to watch the video I posted from the Vassar YouTube page a little while ago!

SCREENCAPS - From the 1990 film version of ‘The Man in the Brooks Brother’s Shirt’ with Elizabeth McGovern and Beau Bridges

From the New York Times, 1913, this article describes how,...

Sun, 16 Jan 2011 06:27:04 -0500

From the New York Times, 1913, this article describes how, despite the vigilance of the Vassar staff, one student managed to “escape” and marry her college sweetheart. Probably the best part of this is that the girl’s fellow students conspired to help make this happen, just with a note in a textbook that was passed around!

Click the image to read the full article!