American Trad

American Trad (also known as AmerTrad or simply Trad in the United States) is a men's clothing style that was influenced by early Brooks Brothers clothes and its amalgam of Anglo-American style; as well as by the natural-shouldered Ivy League clothing style of the 1920s to 1960s. For this reason, American Trad is sometimes considered akin to the preppy look.

Eschewing blatant display of excess and fickle fashion, the American Trad style includes elements such as the three-button rolled to two ("3/2" for short) sack fit blazers and suits, plain front trousers, button-down Oxford cloth shirts, silk ties, and loafers made by Alden, Allen-Edmonds, Bass (the Weejun) and other American shoe manufacturers. A look similar to American Trad appears in Italian films of 1950s and 1960s, and within the British mod subculture of the same period.

Having been assimilated into mainstream American style, the American Trad look has continued into the 2000s, more or less intact. J. Press, a men's clothier from New Haven, Connecticut, exemplifies this style, and its clothing style has changed little since 1902. Stores such as O'Connell's in Buffalo, New York, and Cable Car Clothiers of San Francisco, California are examples of the few stores that continue to exclusively offer clothing in the American Trad style.

Although American Trad is associated with New England mainstream WASP culture, notable adherents have included authors and journalists such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, John O'Hara, Ralph Ellison, the early Jack Kerouac, George Frazier, and George Plimpton. The look was also adopted by outsiders, jazz musicians such as Miles Davis and Chet Baker, who bought their clothes from The Andover Shop in Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts.