<p>wow... too many labels (on clothing or otherwise) being thrown around here. This whole thread is silly, so I really don't understand why some are being criticized for their opinions. But I suppose "if you don't have anything nice to say..."</p>
<p>to be fair, 'popped' collars on polos go back to rene lacoste himself, who had his original pique tennis shirts made so that the collars would keep out the sun and draw moisture away from the skin.</p>
<p>...if you don't have anything nice to say, post it on CC.</p>
<p>I heard Lacoste was just trying to hide a hickey that Katherine Hepburn gave him.</p>
<p>some golfers started out by popping their collars to avoid sunburn on their necks. golfers-->rich people-->upper class-->people want to be upper class-looking->people pop their collars, regardless of their own classes.</p>
<p>the rich people <->preppy association is not very strong today because there are many more rich people than preps. Real preps frown on displays of wealth. An 8 year old Volvo or Cherokee is preppy, but a new Benz or Lexus isn't.</p>
<p>The prep look and ethos is a sort of disapearing northeastern American white anglo aesthetic that's kind of dressy by today's standards, somewhat uptight and fashionably old-fashioned. Polo, Hilfinger and A&F have made fortune selling that look to the middle and upeer-middle classes. It has its equivalents in many western European countries.</p>
<p>So when referring to colleges, is it mainly dress that makes Wesleyan less preppy than someplace like Amherst, or is it much more?</p>
<p>Preppy is NOT American Eagle, Hollister, Abercrombie, Structure, etc. Any brands like this and anyone who wears this just as far from preppy as FUBU is.</p>
<p>Believe it or not, preppy is more of a lifestyle. It is defined by the town you live in, what you wear, where you go to school, where you vacation, and who you hang out with.</p>
<p>Preppy is more of an east coast and southern attitude. Many on the west coast may have trouble understanding this.</p>
<p>Preppies drive SUV's like jeeps and live in wealthy communities outside of major cities. The major sports in their town are lacrosse and soccer.</p>
<p>Preps wear clothes from J. Crew, Vineyard Vines, some Polo, J Press, Andover Shop, Patagonia, Birkenstock, murray's, and other specialty shops. They wear t-shirts from restaurants, schools, and events such as sailing.</p>
<p>Preps go to private school or boarding school. However they can be seen at their local high school if they live in the type of town described above.</p>
<p>Preps vacation mostly on the east coast and usually go to the beach. Mostly everyone knows they go to Nantucket/Martha's Vineyard/Cape Cod, Kennebunkport, some connecticut beaches, Maryland beaches, outer banks, etc.</p>
<p>Preppy boys have shaggy hair, those in the maryland area know it as the balti. They mostly keep shaking the hair out of their eyes. Preppy girls don't have very long hair. I also notice they don't wear a lot of makeup.</p>
<p>Preps mostly hang out with their own kind and I have found most are republicans.</p>
<p>You may think I am extreme, but I live in the area I have described above so I know and live with many preppy people. I do not think I follow the preppy "lifestyle" but I do wear the clothes described above.</p>
<p>Quick note on the origin of the "pop-collar." I have been told by many who vacation regulary in the cape cod area that it came from those who would go sailing in the cape or in Nantucket sound. Anyone who has been to this area knows how windy it can be. So those on the boat would wear a polo shirt with a sweater over it. However they were still cold so they popped the collar to keep their neck warm. This spread to New England boarding schools and it moved from there.</p>
<p>you know what, outside the NE preppy generally means something different. So that is where the AE idea comes from. It's not wrong, just true for a different section of the population. Granted, we're talking about primarily east-coast schools here. But still nobody answered my above question as it pertains to colleges...</p>
<p>Ecape asks,</p>
<br>
<p>So when referring to colleges, is it mainly dress that makes Wesleyan less preppy than someplace like Amherst, or is it much more?<</p>
<br>
<p>It's a little bit more; there is a kind of liberal/progressive thread that goes back at least as far as when Woodrow Wilson taught History there in the late 1880s that gave Wesleyan a kind of democratic (with a small "d") patina at a time when other LACs were still known as "rich men's schools". And it always seemed to draw more than its share of reformers and iconoclasts, people like Wilbert Snow (a friend and contemporary of Robert Frost) who dabbled in Democratic (with a big "D") politics in the 1930s and forties while teaching English. He succeeded to the unexpired term of a Republican Governor of Connecticut who left office suddenly and thus became one of the first Democrats to hold the office in many years. Snow jokingly referred to it as "12 days of the banana republic." People like that tended to give Wesleyan its colorful reputation</p>
<p>And later still there would be people like N.O. Brown, the Classics professor who winds up writing one of the seminal works of twentieth century letters, "Life Against Death", with its mixture of Marxist and Freudian analysis. Still later, there would be frequent visits by John Cage, the experimental musician. It all seemed to come to a head during the 1960s when a New Yorker cartoon would sum up Wesleyan's position as the Eastern Establishment's favorite progressive college:
<a href="http://img142.imageshack.us/my.php?image=newyorkercartoon0xz.jpg%5B/url%5D">http://img142.imageshack.us/my.php?image=newyorkercartoon0xz.jpg</a></p>
<p>I guess I could consider myself somewhat preppy, and I'm headed to the same school as Pirt, so I guess that's good.</p>
<p><popped collar=""> Not necessarily preppy. As displayed by my username, I'm a Three 6 Mafia fan, and their latest single starts with "Ever since I can remember, I've been poppin' ma collar..." my observation is that popping the collar is probably bigger among African-American city kids than white kiddos from suburbia now. I go to one of those good suburban high schools, which is fairly diverse actually, and I can attest that the popped polo is much more characteristic of Kanye West wannabes than Lacoste lacrosse players.</popped></p>
<p>Yeah, AE and AF suck. RL really is about the same as AF, and the great thing is that you can wear it for a year or more without it being outdated, and unlike "destroyed denim," you can actually wash it.</p>
<p>I think certain schools gain preppy images because that is what the students want. Prospective applicants apply because they prefer like minded individuals. There is a reason I applied to Vandy, W&L, Duke, etc. and not Oberlin, Carleton, Wesleyan, etc.</p>
<p>Hippies suck.</p>
<p>Well, I hate to break it to you, but, the fact that ppl seem to be all over the map as far as coming up with any real definition suggests that twenty years from now ppl will look back and realize that it's basically a fad and that preppy <-> hippy. :p</p>
<p>ecape, I spent a lot of time around Williams College, which is supposed to be very preppy. The thing that struck me was how gracefully athletic the place was. No matter how busy they were with their studies, they all seemed to have time to play tennis, squash, golf, lacrosse, hockey, or basketball. The same might be true at Wesleyan, but the sports would probably be ultimate frisbee, hackey sack, Pin the Tail on the Republican, and Capture (and burn) the Flag. And when they were done, they would probably spark up a bone, while at Williams they would hoist a couple Becks. I could be wrong, but that was my impression.</p>
<p>Becks?!?!?</p>
<p>"Preppy is more of an east coast and southern attitude. Many on the west coast may have trouble understanding this."</p>
<p>I guess that kind of describes what I was thinking when I was reading this thread. I grew up mostly in Northern California (though I lived in the northeast and the south as well), but most of the stuff in this thread just flew over my head. </p>
<p>I don't really care how people dress, what they do in their free time, etc. :P</p>
<p>Yeah, I mean I was just wanting this discussion, b/c I know some very progressive graduates and students at Bowdoin, which apparently has a preppy reputation. So I guess these stereotypes don't refer to every member of a school; I don't even know if they refer to /most/ members of a school. And maybe there's some correlation between how someone dresses and their politics, but there's not a terribly strong one... (refer to preppy-dressing radically socialist liberal Amherst boy I met, above)</p>
<p>Johnwesley, Preppy is timeless.</p>
<p>Will preppy be here twenty years from now? Just look twenty years ago. Preppy is here to stay. What won't be here is mall brands copying the preppy image.</p>
<p>"Johnwesley, Preppy is timeless"</p>
<p>Preppy only developed in the 1950s. That makes it about 10 years older than the hippy look, which is now more popular. Goth is older than both, having originated in the 1920s. Preppy isn't here to stay more than any other image. What precisely makes you so proud of your preppy image that you defend it as though it's something more than an image?</p>
<p>I noticed that in the movie "Dead Poets Society" nobody seemed to have button-down collars. Was that an accurate portrayal of the era or a mistake? (By the way, button-down collars supposedly originated when some polo player had buttons sewn onto his collars to keep them from flipping up in his face...eithier that or he was the anti-Kate Hepburn and had a nice neck and wanted it to be seen.)</p>
<p>Define goth? I think of it as kids with chains on their pants playing DDR at the mall arcade. Gothic style actual dates back to the 12th century, but I'm pretty sure that referred to architechture...</p>
<p>The preppy image is constantly being updated. Your observation about a film filled with anachronisms may or may not be a mistake.</p>
<p>I'm not proud, rather, I'm just saying it like I see it. This is the same way everyone on this site sells their college in every post they make.</p>