Harvard Square Haberdashers Brand Students as Afraid To Wear Latest Styles -- Princeton and Yale Named Leaders

According to the general concensus of opinion of the haberdashers on the Square, Harvard men lack the courage to venture forth in Old Dame Fashion's latest. This, it was agreed, accounted for the supremacy of Princeton and Yale over Harvard when it comes to setting the styles. Harvard is not style conscious, the Knights of the Garter conceded, and her sons scoff at the new and seemingly "race-trackish" models in clothes, only to adhere to them a year or so later.

The great fashion books of the country play up the slightest innovation at New Haven and Princeton, while what the men of Cambridge are wearing is neither interesting nor original. And who can wonder at this, when a hundred odd undergraduates, representing a cross-section of the University, chose such a dilapidated and absolutely worthless hat as rests upon its plush cushion in Boston as the Master Hat of Harvard, the result of a recent publicity stunt of a local humorous publication? The layman of the street, and his wife, stare at the apparition in its pose of state, and with a burst of derisive laughter say, "Oh! So that's what Harvard is like, is it?" Does this speak well of the College?

"Back in 1924", one Keeper of the Sock declared, "Harvard men were easily distinguishable by their dress, but now you cannot tell a student from a down-and-out gentleman of the side-door Pullmans. Even the best among them will pay $50 for a suit and $10 for a hat, only to turn around and spoil it all with a $50 cravat and $3 shoes. The majority, it seems to me, don't bother with the expensive clothes, but buy the cheap ones, and second hand at that!" This latter assertion was authentically confirmed.

The sons of Eli and Nassan, however, hold a decided advantage over the Harvardians, for they are not only nearer to New York, the fashion center of the East, but also have had no supposedly humorous publicity campaigns to emphasize the acme of vulgarity in their respective institutions. But the local Bearers of the Braces all agree that Harvard men need only one thing to regain their lost leadership in collegiate styles, and that is the courage to wear the latest fashions when they first come out.