Sartorial Splendor

IN DAYS gone by, even Dartmouth students cultivated an air of offhand elegance, as opposed to what might be called the calculated raunchiness of more recent years. Different from the urbanity affected by collegians at Yale, Harvard, or Princeton, it was more the country-gentleman look of outdoorsmen in from field and stream, off to the slopes or back invigorated for a cup of hot buttered rum and fellowship by the fire. Fashionable but never foppish, natty but not dandified, it smacked of wood-smoke and autumn leaves, clear days on the trail or good powder on Tuckerman's. At right, three dapper fraternity men of 1902 sport slicked-down hair, high turtlenecks, and cuffs turned up a la mode. Pipes, puffed self-consciously, made splendid accessories for the image of the rural gentry taking their ease, below from left, in 1871, in 1927, and in the mid-19505.

Above, the way we might have yearned to be, but weren't, froman advertisement in the December 1921 Jack-O-Lantern. Atright, the way we were: impressing the girls with our savoir faire,and they were, carefully coiffed and tres chic in Bermudashorts in the '50s or long-haired and mini-skirted a decade later.

Above, the way we might have yearned to be, but weren't, froman advertisement in the December 1921 Jack-O-Lantern. Atright, the way we were: impressing the girls with our savoir faire,and they were, carefully coiffed and tres chic in Bermudashorts in the '50s or long-haired and mini-skirted a decade later.

Above, the way we might have yearned to be, but weren't, froman advertisement in the December 1921 Jack-O-Lantern. Atright, the way we were: impressing the girls with our savoir faire,and they were, carefully coiffed and tres chic in Bermudashorts in the '50s or long-haired and mini-skirted a decade later.