Gant history: the back of an Ivy oxford button-down shirt with locker loop and box pleat beside the collar roll seen from the front

Gant History: The New Haven Factory Behind the Ivy Shirt

September 12, 2026 SEOUL TRAD

Most Gant history starts in 1949, with a label. Ours starts twenty years earlier, in a factory that sewed other people’s names into the collar. Brooks Brothers gave the oxford button-down its front in 1896; a family of New Haven contractors gave it its back.

This Gant history covers the factory, the campus store, and the sale that moved everything to Sweden. It also covers the three details on the back that still mark an Ivy shirt. We’ll show them on a shirt made in Korea and worn in Seoul today.

Before the label: sewing for Brooks Brothers

Bernard Gantmacher arrived in New York from Ukraine before the First World War. He found work sewing shirt collars in a garment factory. He married Rebecca Rose, a button and buttonhole specialist at the same company.

After his war service the couple started the Par-Ex Shirt Company with a partner, Morris Shapiro. Par-Ex didn’t sell shirts under its own name. It made them for Brooks Brothers, J. Press and Manhattan — the labels a customer actually saw.

Honestly, that’s the most useful fact in this whole story. The people who later defined the Ivy shirt spent two decades making the Brooks Brothers version first.

In 1927 the company moved to 20 Wooster Street in New Haven, Connecticut. The draw was labor: a large Italian immigrant community and a garment trade to employ it. Shirt factories clustered in the industrial blocks off State Street.

Gant history begins in New Haven: the New Haven Green seen from Chapel and Temple Streets, circa 1900 to 1915, Detroit Publishing Company photograph — New Haven Green from Chapel and Temple Streets, c. 1900–1915. Detroit Publishing Co., Library of Congress, no known restrictions. Two decades after this photograph, the Gantmachers’ factory opened a few blocks east on Wooster Street.

1949: the Gant label, and why New Haven

The sons changed the business. Elliot and Marty Gantmacher pushed their father to stop contracting and sell under a family name. In April 1949 the Gant label was launched, and the brothers later took Gant as their surname.

Timing mattered as much as the name. New Haven in the early 1950s wasn’t just Yale’s town — it was a shirt town. Gant, Sero and Tanger all ran factories in the same district, turning out oxford button-downs by the thousand every day.

1960s Gant Shirtmakers magazine advertisement: an ink sketch of a man in a striped button-down shirt and tie, headed Striped Button Down, with a list of stockists and the address Gant Shirtmakers, 162 James Street, New Haven, Conn. — A 1960s Gant Shirtmakers ad. The last line gives the address: 162 James Street, New Haven — one of several factory addresses the company used in the city. Above it, the stockists, from Paul Stuart in New York to Lion in San Diego. Scan via Pinterest.

Then the national press arrived. On November 22, 1954, LIFE announced that the Ivy League look was leaving the East Coast and heading across the country. New Haven’s J. Press sat at the center of the story.

Brand sources say the company renamed itself Gant of New Haven the same year — a sign of how much the city’s name was suddenly worth. Collectors date labels by that wording: “Gant of New Haven” until 1959, “Gant Shirtmakers” after. Every Gant history marks 1955 as the handover, when Bernard died and the brothers took over outright.

Two vintage Gant shirt labels side by side: a white GANT SHIRTMAKERS label with a red script G monogram inside the collar of a red and blue plaid shirt, next to a dark woven label reading the men's store bloomingdale's gant inside a pink oxford shirt with a white collar — Two labels, two owners. Left, the “Gant Shirtmakers” label of the 1960s on a Durable Press plaid — the wording collectors use to date a shirt after 1959. Right, a lowercase “gant” made for Bloomingdale’s men’s store in the 1970s, after the sale to Consolidated Foods. Seller photos via eBay.

A line of men in navy blazers and tweed jackets, button-down shirts, ties and khaki chinos in front of a brick campus building, Renacts Take Ivy campaign, Korea 2023 — The look LIFE said was heading across America in 1954 — navy blazers, button-down collars, khakis — restaged on a Korean campus for the 2023 Renacts Take Ivy campaign. The New Haven side of the story is in our Yale Ivy style timeline.

The Yale Co-op shirt

Every campus brand needs a campus store. For Gant it was the Yale Co-op, the university’s cooperative store, which stocked the shirts early and soon couldn’t keep them on the shelves. Students wore them home and carried the habit to other campuses.

By the 1960s the relationship was exclusive. Gant made the Yale Co-op shirt specifically for the store, a button-down oxford sold under the Co-op’s own name. Yale still calls the Co-op the place where the Ivy League look emerged.

A 1966 Co-op ad sold the shirt on “the casual roll of the collar” and priced it at $7.00. Not the label, not the cloth: the roll.

Woven label inside a green oxford cloth shirt reading YALE CO-OP in blue and GANT CAMPUS STORE in red — The Yale Co-op label: “Yale Co-op” in blue, “Gant Campus Store” in red. This one is from Gant’s 2011 reissue, which reproduced the 1960s label to the letter. Originals carry a neck size instead of an S–XL tag. Seller photo via eBay.

In 2019 Yale brought the shirt back through Vineyard Vines. It’s sold at the Barnes & Noble on Broadway that took over the Co-op’s old building. Gant history, it turns out, is still on sale in New Haven.

The company also kept a shop of its own at the corner of Elm and York Streets, directly across from campus. It outlasted the factories by four decades and closed in 2021.

White oxford cloth button-down shirt tucked into khaki chinos with a navy and gold repp tie and penny loafers, worn in a hanok courtyard in Seoul — The Co-op formula, seventy years on: white oxford button-down, repp tie, khaki chinos, penny loafers. Renacts Ivy OCBD Shirt, photographed in Seoul.

Three details on the back

Turn a proper Ivy oxford around and you’ll find three things a plain dress shirt doesn’t have. None are on the front, which is why most people never notice them. All three are why this Gant history is worth telling.

Back of a light blue oxford cloth button-down shirt laid flat, showing the yoke, the back-collar button, the locker loop and the center box pleat — The whole back at once: yoke, back-collar button, locker loop, box pleat. Renacts RNCT Oxford Button Down Shirt in blue.

Close-up of the back of a light blue oxford button-down shirt: the yoke seam, the locker loop hanging from it and the box pleat below, with the back-collar button at the top edge — Closer: the button at the collar band, the loop at the yoke seam, the pleat running down from it. Renacts RNCT Oxford Button Down Shirt in blue.

The back-collar button. A third button sits at the center back of the collar band. It keeps the collar standing and stops the tie from riding up over it.

The brand credits Elliot Gant with a button tab that held the tie inside the collar roll. It also credits him with a 1963 Esquire Fashion Design Award for the idea. Both claims come from Gant and its retailers, so treat them as brand-reported.

Macro view of the back-collar button on a light blue oxford button-down shirt: a single button at the center back of the collar band above the yoke seam — The third button. Front collar points get two; the back gets one. Renacts RNCT Oxford Button Down Shirt in blue.

The locker loop. A short loop of fabric hangs from the yoke seam, so a student could hang the shirt on a locker hook without a hanger. That’s the entire function — gym-room hardware that ended up on a dress shirt.

The box pleat. A single pleat runs down the center back below the yoke, folded so the extra cloth sits in one flat panel. It gives the shoulders room when you reach forward; side pleats do the same job less elegantly.

Here’s the thing: Gant didn’t patent any of this. Other New Haven makers used the same details.

What Gant did was put all three on one shirt, sell it at the Yale Co-op and ship it to a hundred department stores. By the 1960s a shirt without them looked wrong.

Two 1960s Gant Shirtmakers magazine advertisements side by side, each a grid of four photographs: one for an Oxford Tattersall shirt with a falcon, headed Not for the timid, and one for an Ascot Striped Oxford, headed Striking; in both, the first panel shows the back of the collar with its single button — Gant’s own ads made the point for them. Two 1960s campaigns: “Not for the timid” for an Oxford Tattersall, and “Striking” (1966) for an Ascot Striped Oxford. Both open on the back of the collar and its third button. The 1966 copy also names the fit: the tapered “Hugger” body. Scans via Pinterest.

Front view of a striped oxford button-down collar with a black knit tie sitting inside the collar roll, held by a tie bar — What the back-collar button is for, seen from the front: the knit tie sits inside the collar roll instead of pushing the collar out. Renacts Ivy OCBD Shirt in grey stripe.

A Gant history timeline: from 500 workers to Stockholm

Growth came fast. Gant signed a contract with the Hart Schaffner Marx Retail Group covering more than a hundred stores, including Wallach’s. In 1955 it opened a factory at 130 Haven Street.

By the mid-1960s it had built a new plant at 40 Sargent Drive on Long Wharf, with a warehouse run on IBM computers. Around 500 people worked in Gant’s New Haven factories by the end. The Gant history timeline below is what happened next.

1960s Gant Shirtmakers advertisement for The Hugger Tapered Shirt: an ink sketch of a man in a button-down shirt and dark tie lighting a cigar, above a two-column list of stockists from Paul Stuart in New York to Rich's in Atlanta — “The Hugger,” Gant’s tapered fit, in a 1960s ad. The stockist list underneath is the growth story in ten lines: New York, Providence, Los Angeles, Nashville, Tulsa, Cleveland, Buffalo, State College, Atlanta, Boulder. Scan via Pinterest.

Year	What happened
1927	Par-Ex Shirt Company moves to 20 Wooster Street, New Haven
1949	The Gant label is launched
1955	Bernard Gantmacher dies; Elliot and Marty take over. Haven Street factory opens
1959	Label changes from “Gant of New Haven” to “Gant Shirtmakers” (per collectors’ label guides)
1968	Sold to Consolidated Foods. The brothers stay on
1971 / 1974	First sportswear line; Rugger label launched
1979	Becomes a subsidiary of The Palm Beach Company. New Haven production ends — about 500 garment jobs
1980	Pyramid Sportswear of Sweden licensed to make and sell Gant in Europe
1995	Phillips-Van Heusen buys the US brand out of Crystal Brands’ bankruptcy
1999	PVH sells Gant to Pyramid Sportswear for $71 million
2008	Maus Frères of Switzerland acquires Gant; delisted from the Stockholm exchange
2021	The Elm and York Street shop in New Haven closes

Read that table twice and one thing jumps out. The shirt survived every owner.

The Long Wharf factory is a furniture store now, and the headquarters is in Stockholm. But the back-collar button, the locker loop and the box pleat are still on the product. Details outlive companies.

Striped oxford button-down shirt and black knit tie worn under a grey tweed jacket, collar roll visible above the lapels — The shirt outlived the factory. A striped oxford button-down under grey tweed — the same collar, sixty years and three owners later. Renacts, Seoul.

What Brooks settled, and what Gant settled

It helps to split the shirt in two. The front was settled in New York.

John E. Brooks saw English polo players with their collars pinned down in 1896. By 1900 Brooks Brothers was selling a soft collar with buttoned points — the collar roll, the unlined collar, the front placket. Our Brooks Brothers history covers that story.

The back was settled in New Haven, by the people who had sewn the Brooks version for two decades. So did Gant invent the OCBD? No — and half the shirt you’re wearing is still theirs.

Detail	Where it comes from	What it does
Buttoned collar points	Brooks Brothers, 1896–1900	Keeps the collar from flapping; creates the roll
Unlined soft collar	Brooks Brothers	Lets the collar roll instead of lying flat
Back-collar button	New Haven makers, popularized by Gant	Holds the collar up and the tie in
Locker loop	New Haven makers, popularized by Gant	Hangs the shirt on a hook
Box pleat	New Haven makers, popularized by Gant	Gives the shoulders room

For the front half in detail — collar length, cloth weight, why fused collars are the enemy — read our oxford button down shirt guide. This post is about the other half.

Front collar of a light blue oxford button-down shirt laid flat: buttoned collar points, the top of the placket and the woven label inside the collar band — Brooks Brothers’ half, laid flat: two buttoned points and a soft, unlined collar. Renacts RNCT Oxford Button Down Shirt in blue.

Light blue oxford cloth button-down collar rolling over a navy repp tie with a crest pattern, photographed in a hanok doorway in Seoul — The same half, worn: the buttoned points and the roll they create over a repp tie. Renacts Ivy OCBD Shirt in blue, Seoul.

The Ivy shirt in Seoul

Renacts makes its oxford shirts in Korea with the New Haven back intact: the button, the loop and the pleat you saw above. For its Ivy OCBD line, the product notes add a six-button front referencing late-1950s shirts, a curved yoke seam and side gussets. Buttons there are mother-of-pearl; the brand’s own pages list the rest.

What changes in Seoul is the context, not the shirt. The New Haven student wore his under a sack jacket on the way to a lecture. Here it goes with chinos and no jacket for most of the year, tucked in.

Sleeves get rolled once when the humidity arrives in July. The tuck question has one answer, and it hasn’t changed since 1949.

Light blue oxford button-down shirt tucked into tan chinos with a navy ball cap and penny loafers, leaning against a wood-paneled wall in Seoul — No jacket, no tie, still tucked. The campus shirt as it’s actually worn in Seoul. Renacts RNCT Oxford Button Down Shirt in blue.

I’ll be blunt about why this Gant history matters for a shirt you buy today. A back-collar button costs almost nothing to add and tells you the maker knows what the shirt is for. Check for it.

If the loop and the pleat are there too, someone read the same New Haven textbook we did.

Cream striped oxford button-down shirt worn open at the collar with sleeves rolled, in front of a stone wall in Seoul — Open collar, sleeves rolled, same architecture. Renacts Ivy OCBD Shirt in grey stripe, Seoul.

Gant history FAQ

Did Gant invent the oxford cloth button-down shirt?

No. Brooks Brothers introduced the buttoned soft collar between 1896 and 1900. Gant popularized the shirt on campus from 1949 and standardized the back details: back-collar button, locker loop and box pleat.

What is a locker loop for?

Hanging the shirt on a locker hook without a hanger. It’s a small fabric loop sewn into the yoke seam at the top of the box pleat.

Where does Gant history begin, New York or New Haven?

Both. The Gantmacher family’s factory started in New York and moved to New Haven in 1927. The Gant label itself was launched in New Haven in 1949.

Is Gant still an American company?

No. Production left New Haven in 1979, and Pyramid Sportswear of Sweden bought the brand in 1999. The Swiss group Maus Frères has owned it since 2008, with headquarters in Stockholm.

Which New Haven makers worked alongside Gant?

Sero and Tanger ran shirt factories in the same district, and J. Press sold the look from York Street. For the wider family of labels, see our American vintage brands guide and the Ivy style guide.

Sources: Gant (company), Wikipedia; Ivy Style, “Golden Years: Gant Shirtmakers of New Haven”; Daily Nutmeg, “Shirt Tales”; Yale News, June 2019; Ivy Style, “The Casual Roll: Gant x Yale, 1966”. Vintage advertisements and label photographs are reproduced at reduced size for historical commentary; sources are noted in each caption.

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