From the most avant-garde jazz musicians, visual artists and poets to architects, philosophers and writers, 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 Oxford button-downs, the hand-stitched loafer, the soft shoulder three button jacket, and the perennial military repp tie — these otherwise conventional clothes are instilled with an approach so revolutionary that you’ll never be able to see them in the same way again.

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. Black Ivy explores, for the first time ever, 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.

Here you’ll see some famous, infamous, and not-so-famous figures in Black culture such as Miles Davis, James Baldwin, Malcom X , Amiri Baraka, Charles White, John Coltrane, and Sidney Poitier. You’ll see just how they claim and redefine Ivy Style — the dominant look of the time.

Boasting the work of some of America's finest photographers and image-makers, this must-have tome is a celebration of how, regardless of the odds, great style always wins.

9.06 x 1.57 x 11.02 in

Hardback cover

No. of pages: 223