The Ivy League look came about as a result of an odd confluence of factors, the Cold War not excluded, but it exists today for one reason: looking out of place and loving it. A number of trends have ebbed and flowed through campuses throughout the Northeast in recently years—and more problematically through the parts of the country that don't include the Ivy League—wherein kids are wearing coral-colored pants embroidered with little whales and cable knit everything else. Throw in a tweed jacket for guys or a cardigan (worn over-the-shoulders of course) for girls, and it's a trope.

This isn't the place to judge style or taste. But it's the perfect place to judge people. A curious blog found its way into our inbox recently—curious because we thought it was a joke for a solid 2 days—that's focused entirely and specifically on Ivy Style. Forget tips for women, though, because in the good old days, the Ivy League was only for the dudes, the dudes with the money. It's just like this posted poem song, "The Ivy League Look," from Princeton's Triangle Club written in 1957:

Corduroy slacks disgust me
Black leather jackets are vile
Long greasy hair and blue suede shoes
Transform my blood to bile.
If you want everyone to accept you
As a modern American male
You must dress the way the magazines say
They dress at Harvard and Yale

Now, it wouldn't be as interesting if the editors of this blog weren't totally serious. It also would be less hilarious if the founder of the blog hadn't graduated from the University of California-Fullerton. In fact, none of the very short list of editors ever attended an Ivy League school, but they all do live in Cambridge and spend a lot of time watching the Ivy League happen.

Read the poem song in full, see some pictures of fur coats and ugly jackets, or just get some pointers on how to dress after the jump.

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