Why do people hate on the preppy look?

Please correct me if I'm wrong -- when I think of "preppy", I think of





If correct, I love the look -- provided it is worn in the proper context. Otherwise, it comes across hopelessly fake and "wannabe".

I would consider JFK preppy. Not just the way he dressed but also his lifestyle.

Pfft. J.F.K. was such a Nazi.



dustin_hisle1 said:

I would consider JFK preppy. Not just the way he dressed but also his lifestyle.

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100% agreed, and that's what I mean by context (though that may not be the best word for it). That look appeals to me a lot and I wish I could pull it off, but it certainly doesn't jive with me and would look awkward as hell on me...



dustin_hisle1 said:

You guys seem like uptight old men. Not trying to be rude. I just asked a simple question. "What is wrong with the preppy look?" Also, just because I said I came from money doesn't make me a douche bag. Who are you to have the right to judge me?

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I was weaned on john hughes movies... preppies are evil according to him. that's what's wrong with the preppy look.

Because not all of us come from white, upper-middle class families nor do we want to look like we're trying to be someone who wants to look like they do. I came from an immigrant family, my father was a carpenter, I would look ridiculous wearing a pastel sweater around my shoulders.



Fuuma said:

You guys seem like uptight old jews. Not trying to be rude. I just asked a simple question. "What is wrong with the Nazi look?" Also, just because I said I came from pure Aryan blood doesn't make me a deutsch bag. Who are you to have the right to judge me?

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i'm dying here

The irony of Fuuma hating on entitled rich white kids is just funny.



dustin_hisle1 said:

I would consider JFK preppy. Not just the way he dressed but also his lifestyle.

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Profound observation and statement.

Best thread ever.

what are you dudes talking about. You don't have to be a WASP to dress preppy. Fahion/style has always had groups, tribes, classes, ethnicities, that freely borrowed clothing and codes of dress and changed and reinterpreted the meaning, signifiers and added something new and made it their own. The mashup in fashion has been happening since time eternal. Back in England coming out of the middle ages aristocracy started forbidding "commoners" to dress like them because they were scared of what the association signified. The whole skin movement was originally "inspired" by Jamaican rude boy style. In the US, Bebop cats incorporated Ivy League dress in the 50's and owned it. Elvis incorporated Black style at the beginning of his career that's why he was labeled dangerous and they tried to censor him. Hippies changed the meaning of military garb by wearing it in peaceful anti-war protests , Lolifes fetishized Ralph Lauren and on and on and on. It's on you wear the clothes and inject the meaning that you want to convey, the clothes don't wear you.

This thread is the worst

The way you dress communicates with people

Thus if you dress like a douche, or want to appear to be douche like, you will communicate to people, that you are a douche



johnH123 said:

The irony of Fuuma hating on entitled rich white kids is just funny.

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You're a moron, I'm hating on a look for reasons I've already explained but probably went way above your head considering you're a mouthbreather. The nazi parodies were merely offered to demonstrate that an appeal to your past and childhood was no argument for a look and its associations.

I love how everyone assumes prep is a white (**cough cough** racist **cough cough**) thing. I think some of the guys doing it best aren't even white. http://streetetiquette.com/2010/09/23/the-black-ivy-2/

The prep looks in that picture are combined with a healthy dose of streetwear, though. None of those guys look like the clean-cut preps that people in this thread are obviously talking about.

Also, the origins of preppy style are undeniably white. You seem to have issues understanding context.



Uncontrol said:

The prep looks in that picture are combined with a healthy dose of streetwear, though. None of those guys look like the clean-cut preps that people in this thread are obviously talking about.

Also, the origins of preppy style are undeniably white. You seem to have issues understanding context.

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I wonder if you clicked through that whole slideshow. Some of them are mixed with streetwear. Some of them aren't, and are, in fact, very clean cut. I think both work, and both look like prep to me. Perhaps I'm uninformed about the taxonomy of prep.

I also have no problem understanding context. Actually, my point was that prep was only being considered in a white, northeastern, JFK sort of context—the stereotypical view of it—when in fact it's much more widespread than that now. If you just want to talk about that WASP (well, WASC in JFK's case) context that's fine, but then you're having a discussion about what prep was 60 years ago and not what it means today, which seems to be what we're talking about. For that matter, if you'd clicked all the way through the slideshow, you would have seen the vintage pics of black preps, which shows that prep hasn't been exclusively white for a long time now. When people talk about it as a white thing, they're just plain wrong.