The image above – often referred to as ‘The Pink Heap’ after the nickname of the car – has been an inspiration for me for years. If I had a moodboard, it would be on my moodboard. I had it on a Tumblr page at one point, then a Pinterest board, and now it’s saved somewhere inaccessible on Instagram.
The reason it’s been such a perennial, I think, is that it expresses something core about what I like about Ivy style: that period-specific combination of laid back attitude and (by today’s standards) smarter clothing.
I wrote an article about this a couple of years ago called ‘What Ivy means to me’. That piece worked by showing images of what I don’t like about Ivy style, alongside ones of what I do. But most of the latter were of me, and somehow I missed this one.
I like that almost everyone here is wearing a collar – a shirt, an overshirt, a polo shirt – but doesn’t look formal. There are three great shetland sweaters – doubtless to keep off the cold sea breeze – yet it’s also warm enough for bare ankles and forearms.
Almost everything is tucked in. Loafers look casual and easy.
Much of it is what most people today would consider smart clothing, yet it’s worn in an easy (breezy) manner that makes it seem as simple as a T-shirt and flip-flops.
The use of colour is noteworthy. There are the two faded-red tops: one on the left with blue shorts and high-tops, the other on the right with stone-coloured chinos. The blue shetland on the blonde girl in the background is lovely, as are the two striped shirts.
I like, too, that there is an apparent gradation of clothes by age. The kids might be in a T-shirt or shorts, but the older guys are more likely to be wearing collars and loafers.
As we’ll see in a bit, men were dressing more casually too, but then the clothes seem to be graded by activity. This is not an age where men look like boys, or people wear the same thing to the beach as to dinner.
The photos were taken by Toni Frissell for an article in Sports Illustrated in 1957, covering the holiday scene in Nantucket (an island just off Cape Cod in Massachusetts).
The article is great, kicking off with a poem and then covering everything from the weather to Quaker history, activities from fishing to golf. The whole thing is available in the Sports Illustrated archive here, though without the images.
Fortunately, Frissell donated her whole collection to the US Library of Congress in 1970, and her photographs are free to view on the Library website – not just the ones in the magazine, but all the outtakes too. This is where we see the alternatives to that famous Pink Heap shot (above), and we get more of a documentary-style view of everything else going on in that place and time.
Of course, every time I see an image it’s the clothes that jump out. Like the boy above in torn canvas trousers, white T-shirt and dirty canvas shoes, plus a red shirt over the shoulders. Great look, very L’Etiquette.
The woman on the left is beautifully dressed too, and is an illustration of how good women often look in ‘men’s’ clothes like this, given the proportions of a small waist, bigger hips and billowing shirt. There are other, similar examples scattered around the archive.
Frissell’s photos often have something of the voyeur about them – such as the last image above. I like the tucked-in T-shirt with the boat shoes and socks on the middle boy, but you quickly realise the clothes are all variations on a theme, and each is just finding your own personal take.
My other favourite mini-set of images is of people fishing on the shore. The standard clothing here is shorts, shirts (tucked or untucked) and bare feet, but there is also a very stylish guy (above) in a navy smock, green chinos and yellow turtleneck.
And then, a little further on, we have what is perhaps a father and son, both in windbreakers or waterproofs, but both worn with a shirt (below).
As with that original article on Ivy style, there are several elements of the genre I don’t like, and one of them is the gimmicky side that comes through in loud prints and checks. I can see the appeal of a really faded madras shirt or perhaps even a jacket, but the shorts and trousers on the couple below just aren’t my style.
Loafers with sports socks on the dock, white oxford shirts tucked into faded blue shorts: I love the first image below as well, and almost all of these have some element I’d want to make use of this summer.
As we always say, the key to inspiration is not to completely copy looks – that both narrows your perspective and blocks out individual thought – but rather to take elements from them, such as the way two items work together, or a colour combination, or the silhouette.
Images like these are replete with inspiration in that way, and as a result I keep returning to them. Thank you Toni Frissell for documenting this time and place, and for putting all of it into the public domain.
Is there a particular set of images, of a certain time and place, that inspires you? If so let us all know – with links please!
