Frenchman Becomes a Trad After Reading American Ivy-Style Blogs

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Just how far-reaching is this Americana, heritage, trad(itional) trend we're seeing everywhere in fashion Stateside? It's traveled overseas—and not just to Japan—and has infiltrated the notoriously difficult-to-infiltrate French fashion psyche.

Meet Francis Cazal, a copywriter based out of Paris and Frankfurt, who over the last year has transformed himself into an Ivy League dead-ringer—a sartorial switcheroo heavily influenced by all the trad and ivy-style menswear blogs:

I was searching the Internet and eventually found the trad blogs. Ivy-Style and Heavy Tweed Jacket were the first ones, then The Ivy league Look and The Trad, and then I discovered the TV show “Mad Men.” I started buying American-style clothes when I saw “Bullit.” The combination of turtleneck, tweed jacket and desert boots is worn so well by Steve McQueen. My first eBay item was a Harris Tweed sportcoat, since I already had chinos, desert boots and a turtleneck. So it started like that.

In Europe, Cazal says, "Preppy is becoming more popular here, but it’s the colorful preppy style from “Making The Grade,” not the kind with LL Bean boots, Irish sweater and layered oxford and polo."

Certainly French people react to it, and I’m not sure it’s always a positive reaction, especially if you keep in mind that you look overdressed to many French people if you are just wear a navy blazer with gold buttons or, a tie with tennis rackets. And I’m 25, so it can be surprising for my age.

But I’ve seen a real difference between France and Germany. Germans seem to be unsurprised by what I wear. There are a lot of banks in Frankfurt and you see well dressed men in suits everywhere in the streets. Older people seem to be more interested in what I’m wearing, but I don’t understand why when you take into account that American trad style is not a question of age.

· Franco-American: how blogs turned a Frenchman trad [Ivy Style]
· Greensleeves to a Ground [Official Site]