The Case for Preppy Clothes

Pulling off a cerulean polo shirt - my new favorite superpower

Sometime in high school I became very vocal about my distaste for polo shirts. Some might find this surprising, as I am also very vocal about my love for androgyny. But are polos TRULY androgynous? No! It is a very hard look for most women to pull off. Unless you look like Alexa Chung or a model in a tastefully-shot fragrance commercial, a polo is not going to work for you. Sorry. (I admit - part of this stems from connotations of Abercrombie cologne, and my Pavlovian flight response to it).

So, I started hating on polo shirts. This rage quickly seeped into all preppy clothes. I felt like as a borderline chubby teenager that wasn't really allowed to wear makeup I could never look good in a button-up or a tasteful cardigan, and my 16-year-old angst made me want to wear acid wash skinny jeans and band t-shirts anyways. Much to my mother's dismay I traded in my argyle and cable knit for the glorious edge of Forever 21. Preppy was basic, I was not.

Then, something beautiful happened.

I have chills.

Like everyone else, I started watching Gossip Girl. The Constance uniforms slayed me! There was something so nuanced (and seditious) about their accessorization.The smallest alterations developed their characters in dramatic ways. Serena's tie was worn loosely - free spirit. Chuck's signature scarf - BOLD. Blair's headbands - Queen B! And as for Jenny (later seasons, post emancipation scandal) - the fact that an anti-Oligarchical Brooklyn girl begrudgingly attended an UES prep school while totally owning her plaid skirts and blazers is the most tongue-in-cheek power move I have ever seen. These people essentially wore the exact same outfits, but their small tweaks allowed their appearance to serve as a striking reminder of class consciousness.

Orbiting around iconicity and semiotics, this is the essence of truly preppy clothing. For example, last week the very FRENCH sommelier at a wine tasting I attended was wearing a bright yellow Lacoste polo. Had he been wearing a Tommy Hilfiger or, God forbid, a Vineyard Vines shirt, I would have had an entirely different perception of him.

Moreover, as Ezra Koenig wrote in his seminal "PREP-osterous" on his legendary blog, "Internet Vibes,"

The ICONICITY of the Lacoste alligator is both appealing and repelling. On one hand it is beautifully simple and weird. On the other hand, it lends itself to CONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION (which is a state of mind and NOT an absolute action). In recent years, Lacoste has made sweaters and t-shirts in which the alligator is monstrously enlarged to cover one's entire chest. This amounts to a crass FETISHIZATION. Unsurprisingly, RALPH LAUREN (né Lipschitz) has done the same thing with his POLO LOGO. I've always been kind of out with Polo although I've recently come around to it. There is something MASTERFULLY SUBVERSIVE about a Jewish man from the Bronx starting THE preppy clothes company and picking a logo as over-the-top as a polo player on a horse. Ralphie must have been smiling as he designed it.

This blog post is part of a series for an application entry to be selected as a representative of UofSC at NYFW.