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Black Ivy: A Revolt in Style
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.
From the most avant-garde jazz musicians, visual artists and poets to the most unassuming architects, philosophers and writers, Black Ivy looks at 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'll see some famous, infamous and not so famous figures in black culture, and how they re-invented 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, among others - 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.
It's a story about clothes but it's also a story about freedom - both individual and collective. It's a story about a generation of people challenging the status quo, struggling for racial equality and civil rights. For the first time ever, we explore the major role this particular style of clothing played during this period of aspiration and upheaval and what these clothes said about the people who wore them.
Boasting the work of some of America's finest photographers and imagemakers, this must-have tome is a celebration of how, regardless of the odds, great style always wins.
From the most avant-garde jazz musicians, visual artists and poets to the most unassuming architects, philosophers and writers, Black Ivy looks at 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'll see some famous, infamous and not so famous figures in black culture, and how they re-invented 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, among others - 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.
It's a story about clothes but it's also a story about freedom - both individual and collective. It's a story about a generation of people challenging the status quo, struggling for racial equality and civil rights. For the first time ever, we explore the major role this particular style of clothing played during this period of aspiration and upheaval and what these clothes said about the people who wore them.
Boasting the work of some of America's finest photographers and imagemakers, this must-have tome is a celebration of how, regardless of the odds, great style always wins.
224 pages, Hardcover
Published December 7, 2021
27 people are currently reading
1689 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
March 29, 2022
I enjoyed the photography/ I enjoyed the snippets of biography for each luminary, and even the pics showing what the average man wore. Part of me, though, is bugged by a couple of things.
In short, the patina of fawning that pervades the book is flattering and slightly disturbing. These men were style icons, paragons of cool...but dealt with segregation and mistreatment. The vibe is "those poor darkies. But look! They look so COOL!"
And, I would have enjoyed more about the clothes themselves. The author touches on buying the same clothes for himself in order to approach that level of cool and style, but what made them cooler than he? The answer might...be a bit too "political" for a work like this.
Photography is outstanding, and even though the prevalence of B&W photos rob s of a sense of color style, overall a great coffee table book.
In short, the patina of fawning that pervades the book is flattering and slightly disturbing. These men were style icons, paragons of cool...but dealt with segregation and mistreatment. The vibe is "those poor darkies. But look! They look so COOL!"
And, I would have enjoyed more about the clothes themselves. The author touches on buying the same clothes for himself in order to approach that level of cool and style, but what made them cooler than he? The answer might...be a bit too "political" for a work like this.
Photography is outstanding, and even though the prevalence of B&W photos rob s of a sense of color style, overall a great coffee table book.
July 23, 2023
The typo (?) that says Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid are basketball players took me by surprise, but great fashion book otherwise.
Read
August 27, 2023Can't really give what's primarily a photo book a star rating, but I did love what Black Ivy had to share.
Incredible images and insight into the reclamation and personalization of affluent style for some of the leading black figures of the 20th century. When I see Eric Dolphy consume a page in a chunky shawl cardigan and thickly knit cap, what can I say, I shoot up in my seat and just eat it up.
It makes me love clothes and their expressive power even more. Gotta get myself a Madras popover with a swinging unlined collar roll asap.
Incredible images and insight into the reclamation and personalization of affluent style for some of the leading black figures of the 20th century. When I see Eric Dolphy consume a page in a chunky shawl cardigan and thickly knit cap, what can I say, I shoot up in my seat and just eat it up.
It makes me love clothes and their expressive power even more. Gotta get myself a Madras popover with a swinging unlined collar roll asap.
September 7, 2024
Beautiful photographs, very readable. This is the kind of book you want to keep on your table and flip through whenever you have a spare moment. My only critique is the total lack of mention of Black women wearing this style, if only even to acknowledge that it was outside the scope of the author’s treatment. Other than that, I loved this book.
January 20, 2025
My expectations for this book were high. I was excited about learning the ins and outs of the Black Ivy style, look at some nice pictures of people wearing Black Ivy, and learning something about how Black Ivyists used their clothing choices to express themselves, undeterred by how others might react (I am not Black myself, but this attitude may apply to other stylistic choices as well).
Unfortunately, the only one of these expectations that was met were the pictures. I need to preface the later criticisms by saying that the images presented in the book are interesting and high-quality. If you‘re just interested in the pictures, then this book ticks all the boxes.
I personally found the text accompanying the pictures relatively lackluster. Most pages could be described as a nice picture of an important Black figure from the 50s or 60s, and a short text describing who they are and a brief summary of their life. On the topic of clothing, the description mostly resembles something like: ”Sidney Poitier sports a sleek denim bomber jacket expertly layered over a tab-collared shirt. His black slacks and matching brogued derbies round off the look.“
For the complete novice, I can see how this may be helpful to know the names of the clothing items, but apart from that, it does not provide any additional information.
It would have also been nice for someone to proofread the book, since Charlotte is not in South Carolina and Colin Kaepernick is not a famous basketball player. Obviously, such mistakes can happen, but the number of them made me wonder about the level of attention to detail. The writing style itself was rather average and contained a couple of grammatical errors.
Lastly, the book ends with a picture of an old Lee advertising poster. No conclusion to round off the book and to give the reader something to think about.
I would have liked Jason Jules and Graham Marsh to give more of their own opinions, and perhaps interview someone about their personal experiences wearing Black Ivy style in the 50s and 60s. It‘s nice to learn about the people in the pictures as well, but I did not expect this to be the main focus of a book about style.
Also, why focus only on famous people? I‘m sure there would have been many tailors, craftspeople and other witnesses that could have contributed a lot to the book.
TL;DR: Nice pictures, not a lot to be learned unfortunately.
Unfortunately, the only one of these expectations that was met were the pictures. I need to preface the later criticisms by saying that the images presented in the book are interesting and high-quality. If you‘re just interested in the pictures, then this book ticks all the boxes.
I personally found the text accompanying the pictures relatively lackluster. Most pages could be described as a nice picture of an important Black figure from the 50s or 60s, and a short text describing who they are and a brief summary of their life. On the topic of clothing, the description mostly resembles something like: ”Sidney Poitier sports a sleek denim bomber jacket expertly layered over a tab-collared shirt. His black slacks and matching brogued derbies round off the look.“
For the complete novice, I can see how this may be helpful to know the names of the clothing items, but apart from that, it does not provide any additional information.
It would have also been nice for someone to proofread the book, since Charlotte is not in South Carolina and Colin Kaepernick is not a famous basketball player. Obviously, such mistakes can happen, but the number of them made me wonder about the level of attention to detail. The writing style itself was rather average and contained a couple of grammatical errors.
Lastly, the book ends with a picture of an old Lee advertising poster. No conclusion to round off the book and to give the reader something to think about.
I would have liked Jason Jules and Graham Marsh to give more of their own opinions, and perhaps interview someone about their personal experiences wearing Black Ivy style in the 50s and 60s. It‘s nice to learn about the people in the pictures as well, but I did not expect this to be the main focus of a book about style.
Also, why focus only on famous people? I‘m sure there would have been many tailors, craftspeople and other witnesses that could have contributed a lot to the book.
TL;DR: Nice pictures, not a lot to be learned unfortunately.
July 29, 2024
A great compilation of great men of the past wearing some great clothes. Covers large selection of people at the cost of some individual detail. Women are surprisingly sidelined.
July 31, 2022
Suave and aesthetically beautiful, but lacking informational depth.
“Style is about the freedom to be oneself, to authentically express oneself, and in doing so reject limitations imposed by others. A consciousness of style, in essence, emerges when one asserts one's right to self-definition and the right to take control of one's own Identity.”
“Style is about the freedom to be oneself, to authentically express oneself, and in doing so reject limitations imposed by others. A consciousness of style, in essence, emerges when one asserts one's right to self-definition and the right to take control of one's own Identity.”
March 14, 2023
Some very beautiful photographs, but the accompanying text illuminate very little about this fashion movement.
September 25, 2025
Take one look at a picture from the March on Washington, and it’s easy to tell that that revolt was one done in style. Everyone is looking sharp. The same goes for the jazz masters of the late 50s and early 60s. Those musicians, like their Civil Rights contemporaries, are revolting against conventions of the era. And they’re doing it in style. It is much more difficult, however, to argue that among those and other groups of Black leaders, thinkers, musicians, artists, and athletes of the 1950s-1970s, a true “revolt in style” was taking place. That’s what Jason Jules and Graham Marsh set out to demonstrate in Black Ivy, and they don’t ultimately succeed in doing so.
I thought I’d really like this book. I love the fantastic cover design, I really dig Jason Jules’s personal style, and I like the broader Ivy look, even if it’s not how I dress myself. Jules’s writing, in this case—I haven’t read anything else of his—just doesn’t land. He and Marsh claim Black people in the 1950s-70s adopted the existing Ivy style not out of conformity but as a strategic way to get other members of society to see them as equals. The authors also claim Black people set out to subvert this style and make it their own. Maybe this is true—I hope it is—but you’d need to do more than display photographs with mostly superficial captions to make this case.
One big issue here is that what’s considered Ivy now and what would’ve been considered Ivy back in the midcentury are different things. Because of the range of personal styles that exist in the 21st century, and because we’re so damn casual now, what we refer to as contemporary Ivy style is quite identifiable—It really stands out. It’s fairly easy to contrast Ivy from other broadly cohesive/defined ways of dressing (like punk, mod, sporty, hippie, etc.) and from largely non-cohesive/unintentional ways of dressing (sweats & a t-shirt and other “non styles”). The midcentury, however, was just more formal in general. Men wore suits to baseball games. Men wore suits on airplanes. Men wore leisure suits at home. Everyone, at least in urban areas, was just better dressed. It was also just a much more conservative and conventional time in general and especially as far as fashion was concerned. My understanding is that the difference between the “Ivy” of the day and the more ubiquitous forms of menswear and academic wear would’ve been the difference between specific brands, trademarks, and quality of fabrics, as well as some geographic variation (probably not too many boat shoes outside of New England). But nearly every man in the city wore a collared shirt when he left the house, and the range of options for shirts, blazers, and ties would’ve been relatively limited. This book seems to equate all formal and semi-formalwear with “Ivy.” Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk wore Ivy. MLK Jr. wore Ivy. Amiri Baraka and Malcolm X wore Ivy. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wore Ivy. Hell, there doesn’t seem to be a prominent Black man from the 1960s that wasn’t a “Black Ivyist,” according to Jules and Marsh.
I’m not saying there was no intentionality or strategy behind the styles Black men wore at the time, but making a case for a “revolt in style” would require clearly demonstrating a contrast between Black Ivy and the other Ivy of the day (white Ivy?), as well as a contrast between the fashion of “Black Ivyists” and the fashion popular among Black people at the time. You can’t just say that Black Ivy was “distinct from Ivy but always related to it,” you have to really show that distinction.
Finally, there are some factual errors. I noticed Jules mentions “Charlotte, South Carolina” rather than Charlotte, North Carolina (pg. 110). I also noticed Colin Kaepernick referred to as a basketball player rather than a football player (pg. 181). These are small errors, but I think they’re indicative of a larger inattention to detail.
Again, I really thought I’d like this book. And I think I would like a more careful, longer, more in-depth version of it. As it is, there's a lot to be desired.
I thought I’d really like this book. I love the fantastic cover design, I really dig Jason Jules’s personal style, and I like the broader Ivy look, even if it’s not how I dress myself. Jules’s writing, in this case—I haven’t read anything else of his—just doesn’t land. He and Marsh claim Black people in the 1950s-70s adopted the existing Ivy style not out of conformity but as a strategic way to get other members of society to see them as equals. The authors also claim Black people set out to subvert this style and make it their own. Maybe this is true—I hope it is—but you’d need to do more than display photographs with mostly superficial captions to make this case.
One big issue here is that what’s considered Ivy now and what would’ve been considered Ivy back in the midcentury are different things. Because of the range of personal styles that exist in the 21st century, and because we’re so damn casual now, what we refer to as contemporary Ivy style is quite identifiable—It really stands out. It’s fairly easy to contrast Ivy from other broadly cohesive/defined ways of dressing (like punk, mod, sporty, hippie, etc.) and from largely non-cohesive/unintentional ways of dressing (sweats & a t-shirt and other “non styles”). The midcentury, however, was just more formal in general. Men wore suits to baseball games. Men wore suits on airplanes. Men wore leisure suits at home. Everyone, at least in urban areas, was just better dressed. It was also just a much more conservative and conventional time in general and especially as far as fashion was concerned. My understanding is that the difference between the “Ivy” of the day and the more ubiquitous forms of menswear and academic wear would’ve been the difference between specific brands, trademarks, and quality of fabrics, as well as some geographic variation (probably not too many boat shoes outside of New England). But nearly every man in the city wore a collared shirt when he left the house, and the range of options for shirts, blazers, and ties would’ve been relatively limited. This book seems to equate all formal and semi-formalwear with “Ivy.” Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk wore Ivy. MLK Jr. wore Ivy. Amiri Baraka and Malcolm X wore Ivy. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wore Ivy. Hell, there doesn’t seem to be a prominent Black man from the 1960s that wasn’t a “Black Ivyist,” according to Jules and Marsh.
I’m not saying there was no intentionality or strategy behind the styles Black men wore at the time, but making a case for a “revolt in style” would require clearly demonstrating a contrast between Black Ivy and the other Ivy of the day (white Ivy?), as well as a contrast between the fashion of “Black Ivyists” and the fashion popular among Black people at the time. You can’t just say that Black Ivy was “distinct from Ivy but always related to it,” you have to really show that distinction.
Finally, there are some factual errors. I noticed Jules mentions “Charlotte, South Carolina” rather than Charlotte, North Carolina (pg. 110). I also noticed Colin Kaepernick referred to as a basketball player rather than a football player (pg. 181). These are small errors, but I think they’re indicative of a larger inattention to detail.
Again, I really thought I’d like this book. And I think I would like a more careful, longer, more in-depth version of it. As it is, there's a lot to be desired.
December 31, 2023
A gorgeous, wonderful coffee-table book that digs into midcentury America to fully explore that adage of clothing as cultural communication. Essays by Jules raise how Ivy was used as a sign of respectability, but also a rebellion, a shorthand, a revolutionary twist. Marsh adds lovely little historical fashion and detail notes and together it makes a wonderful document.
Jules is one of the most stylish men around shown through his Instagram garmsville, and Marsh’s essays on style populate the lovely Kamakura website referenced in Ametora which I read and loved earlier this year. Two great eyes with a ton of history between them.
Following academics and writers, civil rights activists, jazz musicians, the book stretches Ivy to show just how far clothes can go. Just how much they mean. The photographs are gorgeous, the surfacing of people now more obscure, it’s just a full-on celebration. Wonderful.
http://lawrencedebbs.home.blog/2023/1...
Jules is one of the most stylish men around shown through his Instagram garmsville, and Marsh’s essays on style populate the lovely Kamakura website referenced in Ametora which I read and loved earlier this year. Two great eyes with a ton of history between them.
Following academics and writers, civil rights activists, jazz musicians, the book stretches Ivy to show just how far clothes can go. Just how much they mean. The photographs are gorgeous, the surfacing of people now more obscure, it’s just a full-on celebration. Wonderful.
http://lawrencedebbs.home.blog/2023/1...
June 17, 2023
Jules' thesis is that before dashikis and military wear became cutting edge in the 1970s, black leaders favored conventional white styles — ties, quality suits, Burberry coats, etc. He argues this was less conformity than challenge, an outward expression of the belief that they were the equal to whites with just as much class and style.
It's an interesting idea but the bulk of the book is photos of prominent black figures (Sidney Poitier, James Baldwin, Gordon Parks, MLK) in suits (or whatever they wore) with some comments on their fashion choices. Maybe it's my own lack of fashion sense, but this didn't grab me at all. Ayana Bird's "Hair Story" did a much better job mixing fashion and race.
It's an interesting idea but the bulk of the book is photos of prominent black figures (Sidney Poitier, James Baldwin, Gordon Parks, MLK) in suits (or whatever they wore) with some comments on their fashion choices. Maybe it's my own lack of fashion sense, but this didn't grab me at all. Ayana Bird's "Hair Story" did a much better job mixing fashion and race.
December 8, 2025
Gorgeous coffee table book about 1950s and 1960s fashion for Black men. Featuring a range of men, from musicians to activists, I was not expecting the Watts riot to show up but that was a nice touch. I would have liked a little more from the editorials to contextualize what this means for today, like the ways these fashions are both romanticized and weaponized a la respectability politics. But overall, this was well worth paging through.
October 4, 2024
Miles Davis and John Coltrane come across as the best dressed here, though maybe b/c Jason Jules doesn't include any photos of himself. Anyway, I think a lot of guys would do well to just take seriously OCBDs.
June 8, 2022
It's great, I just wanted more. Feels like it ended too early.
January 9, 2023
The photos in this book were amazing as a collection however I would have liked more exploration as to why this was a revolt in style.
March 5, 2023
I would read 500 more pages about this if given the chance.
March 5, 2023
Fantastic photography makes this a pleasure to leaf through even if it doesn’t makes any attempts on a deeper cultural analysis.
June 1, 2023
A beautiful layout about our history with fashion and makes me desperately want to update my wardrobe.
June 21, 2023
Primarily a picture book, as you'd want it to be, it's nonetheless full of smart commentary tracking the impact of history, the civil rights movement, sports and culture, on fashion. Excellent.
October 10, 2023
Really cool concept with beautiful pictures but missed an opportunity to do more research and drive home the impact Black Ivy style had on public perception.
January 21, 2024
These are my dream men
July 21, 2024
Beautiful photos, well written and done with style.
October 18, 2024
Immaculate vibes
April 12, 2025
Beautiful book; would love to own this
Read
May 20, 2025Could perhaps have used more narrative, but it's a great photo book, capturing the more subversive ways that traditional Ivy styles could be worn.
February 5, 2025
such amazing photography, found out about it through a converse one star conversation yt video with tyler the creator, amazing book will be keeping forever
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews