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Black Ivy: A Style Revolution in pictures | Fashion

Black Ivy: A Style Revolution – in pictures

Black Ivy looks back at a period in American history when Black men across the country adopted clothing seen by many as the preserve of a privileged elite and made it subversive, edgy and cool. From Miles Davis to Sidney Poitier, it was an era when a generation of people struggled for racial quality and civil rights

Black Ivy: A Revolt in Style is published by Reel Art Press

Main image: Miles Davis, 1958, shot for the cover of the album Milestones. Photograph: Dennis Stock/Magnum Photos/Courtesy of Columbia Records

Wed 1 Dec 2021 04.00 EST Last modified on Wed 1 Dec 2021 11.07 EST

  • Sonny Rollins with Benny Golson and Thelonius Monk, Harlem, 1958

    Rollins stands out from the crowd wearing a classic, summer-weight, three-button suit and button-down shirt made famous by original Ivy League clothiers Brooks Brothers. Shot during Art Kane’s iconic 1958 Esquire Magazine photo essay, A Great Day In Harlem.

  • Percy Heath, Milt Jackson, John Lewis and Connie Kay of the Modern Jazz Quartet, 1958

    The Modern Jazz Quartet elected to wear matching suits when they decided to perform in concert halls and auditoriums rather than jazz clubs and bars. They considered every detail, down to the colour of their socks. Black Ivy trailblazers, their look was so striking it in fact often overshadowed their virtuoso performances.

  • Lee Morgan Sextet Album Cover, 1957

    Blue Note album sleeves were and remain to this day a great resource for the Black Ivy Look. Featured on the cover of this 1957 release, trumpeter Lee Morgan, known at the time for his dapper dress sense nails the Black Ivy style perfectly with his button-down shirt, high -waisted trousers, pinky ring and watch.

  • Sunglasses and a popsicle, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1960

    Black Ivy was synonymous with civil rights activists like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. But it was also a street style that allowed young Black men to imbue classic, essentially conservative clothes with new confidence and cool.

  • John Lewis, Atlanta, Georgia. 1963

    Civil rights leader John Lewis began his life in politics as a student and worked closely with Martin Luther King. He stayed true to his politics and in fact his dress code until his death. Here, dressed for sartotrial battle and peaceful protest, he wears a tab collar shirt, stripped tie and blazer.

  • Charles White in his studio in 1965

    Artist Charles White was friends with the likes of Nina Simone, Sydney Poitier and Harry Belafonte. His drawing-based work graced many of their homes. “Pictured here, his short-sleeve, button-down popover shirt, off-white Levi’s, white socks and sneakers are still relevant and wearable today,” says Graham Marsh.

  • Taking a knee

    Martin Luther King and other activists take a knee for a moment’s prayer before going to jail in Selma’ Alabama, 1965, after they were arrested on charges of parading without a permit. More than 250 were arrested as they marched to the Dallas County courthouse. Ivy League clothing was an intentional counterpoint to the revolutionary agenda and the dangers the civil rights activists faced every day. It’s this form of peaceful protest that would later inspire football quarterback Colin Keapernik.

  • Sidney Poitier in the 1967 British classic To Sir With Love

    Poitier wears the Black Ivy look uniform of patch pocket blazer, flannel trousers, military style tie and button down shirt.

  • Hanging out in Watts, Los Angeles, California, 1966

    Photographer Bill Ray returned to LA suburb Watts, a year after the violent riots of 1965 for Life Magazine and in doing so documents one of the city’s gangs wearing Black Ivy in fine style. Playing with proportions, mixing the classic Ivy League wardrobe with workwear is as cool today as it was then.

  • Sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos, cut from the US Olympic team in Mexico City after a demonstration on the victory stand, arrive in Los Angeles, 1968

    Tommie Smith hints at the final days of the Black Ivy look and the civil rights dream. Beneath his classic Ivy jacket with its raised seam and patch pockets he wears beads and a rollneck sweater, stylistic symbols of the Black Power movement and the next phase of African America’s road to freedom.

  • Rev Channing Phillips, the first African American ever to be nominated for president, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, 1968

    Before Barack Obama, there was Channing Phillips. Wearing a three-button seersucker jacket and button-down shirt – still essential element of the Ivy League wardrobe – is pictured here during his historic, Democratic presidential nomination.

  • Miles Davis, birth of cool

    Miles Davis not only captured the mood of the times he often directed it. When he began to wear Ivy League clothing – something noted not only by musicians and fans but in the media, too – he played one of the most important roles in the birth of the movement. Here he is pushing the Ivy limits in typical Black Ivy style wearing a terry cloth pop-over button shirt and shades.

  • Leroi Jones, one of the original Beat poets, a home in Newark, 1958

    Activist, poet, playwright and jazz critic Leroi Jones (later Amiri Baraka) takes the classic Ivy combo of chambray shirt, chinos and chukka boots and gives it that all-important Black Ivy twist adding to it a white T-shirt and a fair amount of wear to his chinos. Style is nothing without subversion. He was named Poet Laureate of New Jersey in 2000 and came under harsh criticism for his September 11 poem titled, Somebody Blew Up America.

  • Noah Purifoy, Chicago Sun Times, 1968

    One America’s most important and influential modern artists Noah Purifoy was the master of found art and assemblage sculpture. His personal style also a case study in Black Ivy chic – wearing a button-down shirt, five-pocket pants, Venetian loafers and just in case you had any doubt, the way his socks complement his shirt tells you none of this is by chance.

  • Ebony, May 1965

    Ebony Magazine documented the civil rights movement of the time and captured the Black Ivy style of its leading figures. Martin Luther King (second from right) wears the typically understated business suit of the Ivy elite and matches it with work boots, in many ways symbolic of the African America poor he represented.
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Jenniffer Sheldon

Update: 2024-02-03

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