12 July 2017

Tim Koch has an embarrassing confession.

Regular readers will have gathered that one of my interests outside of rowing is men’s classic clothing. It is always slightly embarrassing for a man to admit that he gives an above average amount of thought to what he wears as it perhaps suggests shallowness. I prefer to think that it shows consideration for those who have to look at me, though, in reality, I suspect that in modern times anyone who is not wearing some sort of jeans/t-shirt/pseudo-athletic gear combination just causes confusion as to their motives or their destination.

No one, however, can be immune from the world they live in, and if most of that world has decided to be badly dressed, compromises are necessary. I find that the style of dress that originated on post-Second World War American east coast campuses and known as ‘Ivy League’ is a pleasing middle ground between tracksuit and lounge suit, and I follow a website devoted to it called “Ivy Style”. It is edited by New York-based journalist, Christian Chensvold, and it is both well written and interesting, not least because, like Hear The Boat Sing, it includes features on the historical, artistic, literately, social, cultural and political aspects of its chosen subject, however tenuous. Anyone interested in popular culture should enjoy the site, whatever their level of interest in clothing. I recently contributed an article on men’s dress at Henley Royal Regatta and it can be read now on the Ivy Style website.