The Well-Clad Undergrad

With The aim of publishing a realistic guide to the complete collegiate wardrobe, we consulted the available sources of information, discovered nothing but spotty reportage and the armchair predictions of "authorities." Whereupon we seized an opportunity uniquely ours. Playboy maintains a corps of campus representatives, some 300 young men at leading colleges and universities, who keep us in constant touch with the campus scene. Through these campus reps we launched a national two-part field survey. For Part I, we devised an exhaustive questionnaire with which we sent our reps to survey their fellow classmen's wardrobes, thus determining what clothing today's collegian owns and what he plans to purchase. Part II entailed a separate questionnaire with which Playboy reps interviewed 163 managers of major campus men's wear stores on what collegians buy. The results -- charted on the following pages -- constitute the first factual report on today's college wardrobe and thus a practical buying guide for the man who would be dressed with the best on his campus.

Well-Clad Undergrad (continued)

Behind the Statistics pictorialized on these pages are some fascinating data on college attitudes toward dress. Nationally, we learned, collegians are far more interested in appearance than previous reports might lead one to believe. Our survey showed that even on campuses where casualness is the vogue, it is a very studied casualness indeed, with its own rigid rules of order.

We learned, for example, that in state schools -- which are virtually all coed -- there is an almost belligerently casual casualness of garb on campus. This is the conformity of non-conformity, a symbolic statement by the men that they'll be damned if they'll dress especially for the girls -- and, of course, the girls prove to be romantically responsive to jeans and sneakers.

We learned that, conversely, in the smaller and older men's colleges the approved attire is almost defensively conservative, exhibiting the kind of masculine esprit that leads a lone British sportsman to dress for dinner in the veldt.

Nationally speaking, the Ivy tradition for campus wear diminishes as one moves outward from its hard core in the Ivy League colleges. But for off-campus wear, for dress-up occasions and special dates, it's the Ivy influence coast to coast. In this sense, there are no real regional differences; there are climatic variations, but they're all within the Ivy sphere: if the climate is warm, the men wear less clothing; if it's cold, they wear more -- but it's almost all Ivy dominated when the men want to look their best. There are other climatically dictated variations from the national norm: at Dartmouth and Middlebury, for instance, ski jackets enjoy wide acceptance; in the far West there are forms of "westernized" garb with light flourishes straight out of Hollywood; some schools in semi-tropical resort areas show a marked beach-wear influence in campus casual clothes, with Bermudas predominating over slacks. And there are strictly local fads to ponder. But fads they are: from a fashion viewpoint, from the practical viewpoint of the correct collegiate wardrobe, Ivy still dominates the campus scene. And this is interesting to note, for it was the young college men who established Ivy as a national mode of masculine attire, and it is college men who are resisting attempts to woo them to Italianate and draped Continental fashions, despite their acceptance by some of their older brothers.

Lest we've given the impression that we think all collegians are monotonously conformist and slavishly similar, we'd like to quote here some observations (continued on page 70) Well-Clad Undergrad (continued from page 34) culled from the copious notes and commentary that accompanied the stacks of filled-out questionnaires which flowed into our offices from Playboy reps across the nation. These show that, though Ivy is the arbiter and criterion, group individuality does exist -- which is not surprising, since young men are innovators and are jealous of their right to be different, but still enjoy membership (and the sartorial badges of membership) in their own groupings. Note, however, that the eminence of Ivy seems undisputed, despite its ebb and flow from campus to campus.

From a student at the University of Colorado: "The style here is possibly more stereotyped Ivy than anywhere else in the West -- we're sort of an Ivy outpost, I guess."

But, from another Western college: "Jeans and T-shirts rate over Ivy here. Some think we're the victims of a cultural time lag, others say it's our way of showing our independent resistance to the Ivy League."

From a mid-South state college: "You can tell the fraternity men more easily by their clothes than by their fraternity pins: strictly Ivy. But the other men make up for it by sporting sloppy non-Ivy outfits."

From Virginia: "I'd say we're more formal, in an Ivy-tweedy way, than most Eastern Ivy colleges.... There is great pride in personal appearance."

At Reed College, in Oregon. a school noted for its high academic standing. "We go in for Bohemian individuality, beards are common, clothing ranges from nondescript casual to outlandishly original."

By contrast, at the University of the South, in Tennessee, "You must wear jacket and tie at all times except to sports events (or for sleeping) and if you're a high-ranking upperclassman, you will wear academic robes to class."

From a small, conservative college not much farther south: "All the men are up in arms about restrictions on Bermudas."

And from a small Eastern school: "Extreme Ivy is on the way out, but honest, conservative Ivy is stronger than ever. We believe it is here to stay and is not just a long-term fad."

And so it goes. On one campus you achieve cachet by wearing pink Oxford buttondowns by Brooks -- but they have to be frayed conspicuously at collar and cuffs to show that they're old, of course. Michigan, Wisconsin and Northwestern are solid Ivy encampments, as are a few of the larger West Coast colleges, thus proving by exception our statement that the Ivy influence diminishes proportionately with distance from the Eastern Seaboard fountainhead.

To us, however, the most compelling and interesting fact to be learned from a synthesis of all the comments and questionnaires is the spelling out -- the formulation -- of the college men's attitude toward Ivy and non-Ivy fashions. They buy Ivy in both senses of the word. But, for them, Ivy is not a slavish following of a fad dreamed up by Yale or Harvard. It is not the tightly tapered peg-leg trouser, infinitesimal lapel and ludicrous proliferation of straps and buckles which this generation's equivalent of zoot suiters mistakenly label Ivy. (In fact, though honest Ivy is collegiately correct, there are detectable misgivings about the word itself -- as though it were becoming a debased coinage.) Good Ivy -- we'll use the word until a better comes along -- means today no more and no less than good, conservative dress, which evolved -- on and off the nation's campuses -- many long years ago. It was the college men who -- during the postwar fad for padded shoulders, wide lapels, drape shapes and hand-painted wide ties, which were then being widely touted as the "new look" for men -- led us back to the good conservative dress which had always been popular in Eastern schools. Hence, of course, the name "Ivy."

And so, subject to local fads and climatic differences, our charted recommendations for a college wardrobe are a fair picture of what the undergraduate will need to be adequately and appropriately clad. As for the fads, they're seldom more than adjuncts to the Ivy wardrobe and not-too-costly ones at that. Considerations of climate should introduce the same common-sense variations from the temperate standard that affect all clothing selection. Geography will influence the college wardrobe in the ways we've indicated: a Yale man, for instance, might do well to have a number of caps and at least two hats, one for dress and one for sport -- whereas at Southern California, one hat for dates in town might well do the trick.

A final word. Our campus survey suggests to us that not even in the business world is attire more significant in establishing social acceptance than in college. That's why we invited the college men of America to supply the information on which this article and its recommendations are based.

Playmates Lisa Winters, Linda Vargas and Janet Pilgrim look on approvingly through the shop window of Playboy's Ivy Center, while a lucky collegian considers autumn garb (suits, in this instance) from the Center's selection of forthcoming fashions supplied by leading tailors.

Above: Linda and janet help in the selection of one of the three sports jackets which playboy's nation wide survey of collegiate wardrobes indicates the suitably supplied collegian will own.

Below: All three girls are obviously smitten with the new vertical stripings of another, less conventional, jacket.

Lisa's modeling of a husky pullover makes it difficult to resist.

Above: The correctly accoutered collegian selects a campus outercoat which is not only ideal for cooler climes but--judging by the praiseful posture of the girls--renders him well-nigh irresistible.

Below: His other garb assembled in the variety and quantity charted on these pages, the well-clad collegian turns his attention to haberdashery, an important aspect of his wardrobe, since it affords greater range for expressing individual good taste than do other elements of attire. Open admiration accompanies his choice of ties.