Or it’s the subtle display of select brands: the Ralph Lauren polo logo, the Lacoste alligator, or the Vineyard Vines’ whale. The mix of whites, tans, and pastels, with just a touch of navy.
#Preppy style movie
The difference – and what pushes them into the realm of ‘80s teen movie villain style – are the colours and combinations. Many of us who’ve never aspired to this lifestyle have at least a few of said items in our wardrobe.
Think polo shirts, a crisp button-down, V-neck sweaters, fleece quarter-zips, chinos, unstructured blazers, and loafers, boat shoes, or brown dress shoes. In a purely literal sense – no irony, no social commentary – basics make up a standard preppy wardrobe. Rather, you could call it “appreciation” in its loosest form: a foundation of irony, a barebones base from which to grow, and walls – figurative and literal, both with access to opportunity – getting chipped away. What’s resulting – seen from streetwear-leaning prep like Rowing Blazers and Noah to the riding club-hinting recent GmbH collections – no one would describe as admiration.
Bean-inspired gear veers sharply away from its source material. Instead, the plethora of rugby stripes, polo shirts, pastels, and L.L. But, “revival” here seems too simplistic, as if you’re taking the clothing associated with American old-money upper classes and ignoring all they stand for – the exclusion, the classism, and the faux we’ve-made-it bootstrapping. While it’s commonly found with a pinstripe, you’ll find many contemporary brands adopting it in block colours, trippier patterns and casualwear as well as suiting.What does it mean to revive a trend? Do you pick it up, attempt it as it was, and then breathe new life into it? Or do you take components – shapes, colours, and forms – and rework them, distorting and deconstructing them into something new? If you’re partial to the latter definition, then yes, you can say menswear’s in the midst of a preppy fashion revival. For a fabric whose roots were very much ingrained in the working class South, seersucker had, in a short space of time, become the choice of the rich and flamboyant (although that would again shift when jazz impresario Miles Davis wore seersucker on the cover of his live album At Newport 1958). By the 1940s, Princeton’s boys’ predilection for seersucker had lent it something of a sartorial halo, so much so that the Duke of Windsor wore a two-piece seersucker while on holiday in the Italian Riviera.ĭespite its slightly crumpled appearance, the suit was widely acknowledged as the pre-eminently tasteful summer fabric, sported by only the most discerning of stylish chaps. Seersucker was popular with Ivy League students in the 1920s and chief among them were Princeton’s preppy lot, who perhaps enjoyed the liberal connotations of that wrinkled, carefree finish. Its modernity then is all wrapped up in its diversity and versatility, giving us any number of ways to pull off the look. Gucci, too, has been exploring a maximalist approach to preppy style since Alessandro Michele took charge as Creative Director in 2015, further propelling the look to a global audience.
In a sense, it has always been modern, because it has incorporated elements of tailoring, vintage, and sportswear no matter what the decade, but more recently it has had a contemporary shot in the arm thanks to certain brands like Noah and Rowing Blazers who have introduced a more urban aesthetic to the melting pot. As one of the most referenced 20th-century menswear movements, it has popular culture to thank for much of its evolution over the decades, from JFK and Miles Davis in the 50s, to the Beastie Boys in the 90s and Tyler the Creator today. The fact that preppy style hasn’t significantly changed since the 50s tells you all you need to know about its timelessness. To get the look right, you need to dig into its origins to understand how all of the different elements tie together, so let’s get started… What is preppy style? Newer cult streetwear brands such as Aimé Leon Dore have further propelled the look that was once the reserve of middle class white guys to a diverse global audience. It has more recently been brought to the forefront of fashion followers thanks to the likes of Alessandro Michele at Gucci, who has interpreted his own maximalist version. Preppy style, characterised by a marriage of varsity nostalgia, casual tailoring and vintage-inspired sportswear, has at its core a playful if not slightly nerdy vibe that’s easy to style with most elements of a modern wardrobe. Who would have thought that an aesthetic with its origins in British college rowing clubs from the early 20th century would have evolved to become the style du jour in menswear? That is exactly where the modern preppy look came from, notwithstanding a hugely influential detour to the US east coast in the 50s and 60s.