The Preppy Handbook... Returns!

This thing came out somewhere around my second year of college. Pretty much everyone I went to school with dressed this way (including me), and I was clueless about the Eastern culture that gave this look it's birth. I just thought of it as "dressing like an econ student."
Without the idiotic popped collars.

Whether you're a preppie or not depends on whether you are dressing up (not preppie) or dressing down (preppie). If you're popping your collar you're probably just an (expletive deleted).

Hmmm. Is it even possible to still get a polo, with an alligator?

Those who read and enjoyed the Preppy Handbook would also enjoy Paul Fussell's "Class," which came out around the same time. It's an absolutely lacerating look at social class in America, and TPH is mentioned frequently -- among other points, Fussell warns that a middle-class person or a prole dressed in "preppy" attire isn't actually fooling anyone. The Upper Orders have ways of recognizing their own that go far beyond clothes.

LizzieMaine said:

Those who read and enjoyed the Preppy Handbook would also enjoy Paul Fussell's "Class," which came out around the same time. It's an absolutely lacerating look at social class in America, and TPH is mentioned frequently -- among other points, Fussell warns that a middle-class person or a prole dressed in "preppy" attire isn't actually fooling anyone. The Upper Orders have ways of recognizing their own that go far beyond clothes.

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Interesting book, but somewhat dated.

I felt like I was reading about aliens until I got to the last chapter.

JimWagner said:

Interesting book, but somewhat dated.

I felt like I was reading about aliens until I got to the last chapter.

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I think in the thirty years since the book was written Fussell's "X Class" has actually become the new "Upper Middle Class." The faceless suburbans have been replaced by the More-Bohemian-Than-Thou/Stuff White People Like crowd. They're just as defined by their consumption, but they make sure it's all organic.

LizzieMaine said:

I think in the thirty years since the book was written Fussell's "X Class" has actually become the new "Upper Middle Class." The faceless suburbans have been replaced by the More-Bohemian-Than-Thou/Stuff White People Like crowd. They're just as defined by their consumption, but they make sure it's all organic.

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Oh well, I guess I'm back to being an alien. [huh]

I think there's a another class, but I'm not sure where to place them. I'm talking about computer and techie geeks of all types who basically aren't interested very much in possessions other than techno toys. They're probably really proles, but without hardly any of the interests that the book talks about. Some make it big, but most earn middle to upper middle class salaries.

You couldn't really call what we buy "conspicuous consumption" because for the most part it's hidden away in our homes and you'll likely never see the inside of them.

The other classes are completely clueless about what the computer geeks really do or how they do it. And the computer geeks could care less about any of the other classes or their interests.

Status in this world has more to do with how close you work to the bare metal than what car you drive or what you wear. Most of us have more raw computing power in our homes than the largest corporations did 30 years ago. (My latest notebook computer is several orders of magnitude more powerful than the first mainframe I worked on and one of maybe a half dozen computers in daily use here.)

We don't go to country clubs. We socialize with our friends and even family on the internet.

We don't dress to impress. Couldn't care less about designer labels.

Many of us have other hobbies that also involve hardware of some sort or another. If it's music, then we'll have multiple musical instruments and can probably tell you all kinds of things about those instruments you could care less about unless you're one of us. If we're into shooting then we'll own quite a few guns that we've tinkered with and probably reload our own ammo. But probably aren't members of the NRA.

Some of us are into fly fishing. The difference between us and the typical upper crust or upper middle class fly fisherman is that we tie our own flies and don't find it necessary to buy $5000 fly rods and reels. We do it for the technical challenge, not for status. That money's better spent on more computer equipment.

If we're here in the FL it's probably because we like hats for some reason and stumbled in here because there are some very knowledgeable people here. Look under the hat of someone posting here about hat esoterica (not fashion) and you'll probably find a computer geek

And there are really a lot of us out here.

The thread is 3 years old and I still don't get it. So here is my new theory:

What is the difference between ironic Hipster clothes and Preppy? ("Go-to-hell-pants", Madras sportcoats worn with pastel short shorts...)
Both are ugly, white upper/middle class orientied and pseudo rebellious in a very obnoxious way. Duuuh.

Hah, If I can find it at home I'll take a picture. I owned a semi-Madras looking sport coat. It was a Stanley Blacker plaid sportcoat regularly $140 marked down to $25.00. It matched EVERY solid color known to man. Great coat. I wore it to work one day (I bought it for Halloween), and one of the 30 year olds fell under his deck.

Later

Flat Foot Floey said:

The thread is 3 years old and I still don't get it.

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look at the boring 'collegiate' stuff that Brooks Brothers and Ralph Lauren sell (not the vintage lines like RRL)... that's preppy. i must admit i rarely see anyone in the UK who dresses like that, and if i do it's probably around the Bond street area of London. it's a US Ivy League (or want-to-look-like-Ivy-League) thing.

Take it easy fellows, it's just how a whole swarth of New England dresses. Around here, it's classic. No one even thinks about it. It's just our culture.

herringbonekid said:

i rarely see anyone in the UK who dresses like that, and if i do it's probably around the Bond street area of London. it's a US Ivy League (or want-to-look-like-Ivy-League) thing.

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You'll see a lot of the preppy/Ivy look in Paris , probably more than on all the Ivy League campuses combined.

... add Munich to that (many law and economy students at least) - though they are hard to tell apart from "hipsters" (apart from being shaved and lacking "witty" t-shirts).

I have been wearing oxford button downs, blue blazers and Weejuns since the early days of high school. That is just the way we all dressed. Still wear the same thing today--but not exclusively. In college it wasn't just the white kids who wore the "uniform," the black students wore the same thing. It wasn't anything we studied, it was just the way it was. Didn't even think about it. Never knew there was controversy about it until reading some of this thread.

Ha I remember the term preppy being used a lot in the eighties especially in John Hughes movies. I didn't realise there's a book. Thanks for the book recommendation.