<p>To current Harvard Students and/or your parents:</p>
<p>Can you PLEASE share: Where did you buy your clothes for Harvard? When I visited another (rival?) college, I noticed a lot of students wearing very “preppy” clothes – ie: lots of colored and patterned oxford shirts, polos, plaid shorts, khakis, etc., and I wondered, are these clothes prevalent at Harvard?</p>
<p>And if so (or if not), just what stores do many of you buy your clothes for college from? Sincere thanks for any genuine replies.</p>
<p>yes they are. however, i really hope you don’t intend to buy these clothes just to look like you go there… if you know what i mean… you should just wear what you and your friends or whatever wear, instead of wearing preppy to stand out…</p>
<p>however, if you are attending harvard, there is a preppy standard to the clothing fashion.
many students shop in the style of jcrew, banana republic, etc.</p>
<p>i personally get my clothes mostly from jcrew (this is pricey however). an oxford shirt costs average 70-90 dollars. however, i am sure you can get cheaper prices elsewhere; jcrew is just my pick. check out their websites and im sure you will find the “harvard style” of clothes.</p>
<p>HSMom: you need to understand the lack of replies to your question. It’s not as if incoming HYP people get a “preppy” uniform. How is your situation (buying clothes for a 1st year collegian) any different than someone who is buying clothes for someone attending UMass or Cornell or Colgate or some similar climate setting?</p>
<p>I know you want to be helpful to your kid but your attributions of “Princeton” or “Harvard” clothes is over-analytical and misplaced. People wear what they want to wear. You’ve gotten some online suggestions that should more than suffice.</p>
<p>I agree with T26E4. Students at HYP are no different than students at UMich, UColorado or UCLA. Most buy their clothes from a retail store that can be found in any mall – stores such as: Aeropostale, American Apparel, American Eagle, Banana Republic, Gap, Macy’s, Old Navy, Abercrombie and Fitch, Hollister, J.Crew, Urban Outfitters, Century 21, etc. Kids wear what they want – not because they attend a certain school.</p>
<p>When my kids started paying for their own clothes, they started liking Kohl’s a lot more (vs. the stores listed by gibby). My (hipster) daughter has always liked higher-end vintage clothing stores, too.</p>
<p>Also, if you want preppy style, feel free to make the equivalent of the pilgrimage to Mecca, and go to Freeport ME . . . or just get your hands on the L.L. Bean catalog.</p>
<p>I dunno. I just looked at a few of the P viewbooks to see what triggered all this- and they all look like ordinary college kids to me. Mostly t-shirts and casual. Sure, some plaid shirts, but that’s popular now.</p>
<p>Umm…I’m fail to see how this description is any different from what you’d see in a JCrew catalogue. I’m also pretty sure most ‘big box’ clothing retailers sell ‘oxford shirts, polos, plaid shorts, khakis, etc.’ as well. Why is this such a mystery to the OP?</p>
<p>^^ Yes, I agree. Just checked out Princeton’s viewbook and the students are dressed like kids at any high school. I’d be interested to know what the OP saw that necessitated this thread.</p>
<p>T26E4 - I understand what you are saying, but the reason I specified Princeton or Harvard was mainly because I either visited those schools and/or saw several “Freshmen and Upperclassmen Albums” - some which showed literally HUNDREDS of kids sporting “preppy attire”, and while my own kids have worn an occasional polo shirt, the type of clothes I noticed were not a large part of their own collection of clothes, and I wondered 1) why I noticed SO many wearing ONLY these clothes (maybe it was a party that specified them?) and 2) I just wondered the best places to buy.</p>
<p>Really, I just thought it was an innocent question that some may be looking WAY into.</p>
<p>My wife will tell you that I’m not exactly the most style-aware or observant person – but my take on my time at an Harvard peer school as a student and afterward during campus visits was that anything goes – just like every other campus with a similar clime. Given the diversity of backgrounds, it’s not surprising. Comfort seem to override exacting impulses to portray a certain style. My only dismay was the lack of dresses worn – when I visited friends at Duke in March, I was shocked at the no. of coeds in dresses.</p>
<p>You shouldn’t be shocked. We do have much better weather in March here in North Carolina than up in Cambridge. My daughter is one of those who regularly wears dresses up in Cambridge, but most of the school year it is with tights and boots on underneath to fend off the elements.</p>
<p>Wow. If you think that the kids in that viewbook are dressed like “kids at any high school,” the high schools in your district must be run by Disney. Or Ralph Lauren.</p>
<p>It’s not quite that extreme, but those kids are very well dressed, with only a few exceptions. That was true 35 years ago, too – students at Princeton were always a lot more dressed-up than students at Brand X Elite Ivy.</p>
<p>T: I am shocked that “coeds” remains a category in your mind. </p>
<p>T is correct: At our college, a woman wearing a dress was either engaged in a musical performance (or on her way to it) or a faculty member. I don’t think I saw my girlfriend (now wife) in a dress until after she graduated. But I think times have changed everywhere.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what you’re looking at in the Princeton viewbook–seems pretty typical for northeast college campuses to me (hardly Ralph Lauren like). By comparison, check out the Yale viewbook <a href=“Welcome | Office of the University Printer”>Welcome | Office of the University Printer; where kids are wearing the same variety of styles.</p>
<p>To the OP, there are a few events at Princeton, Lawnparties and House Parties, where kids dress up like preppies. Most of them think it’s a big goof, but they have fun playing with the Princeton stereotype. If you happened to visit on or see pictures of those days, you’d think that everyone on campus was amazingly preppy. However, most other times, kids are pretty normally dressed. My son is there now and he bought his clothes at Gap, J. Crew, American Eagle and a bunch of outlet stores. I also bought him some brightly colored shorts at Banana Republic for Lawn Parties so that he would have something suitably preppy (I doubt that he’ll wear them again except for theme parties).</p>
<p>to midatlmom: Yes, it’s very likely that’s exactly what the pictures I saw were from (a “lawnparty”) - are these open to every student on the campus, or do they have to be “invited”? I guess that would explain the myriad of plaid and wild colored shorts (bright pink, green, etc.) and all the similar looking tops… </p>
<p>So maybe I should have asked, “where does everyone buy their clothes for Lawn parties?” Which midatlmom provided some answers to - thank you!</p>
<p>Yes, Lawnparties are open to everyone. There are concerts all day long, many at the various eating clubs, and kids go to whichever ones they’re interested in.</p>