Were the 80s the golden age of preppy?
With the release of The Official Preppy Handbook in 1980 prep hit the mainstream, with preppy fashion, lifestyle and characters becoming popular. In this video were exploring why preppy became so popular in the 80s and how to dress like a true 80s preppie (pop those polo shirt collars baby!)
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Timestamps:
00:00 The 80s “Preppie”
1:24 Reaganite Mindset
2:04 Yuppies
2:47 Influence of Film & TV
3:52 Preppy Villains
4:33 The Official Preppy Handbook
6:15 How to Dress Like a Preppie
What to WATCH NEXT:
Stylish male characters from film & tv
The SLOANE RANGER look
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Why the 80s were the golden age of PREPPY
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“Go To Hell” Pants, and semi annual vacations in Bermuda… I’m now at that stage of the Prep Lifestyle.
My college years. I always thought these clothes were very neat, well made, and were classic pieces they you could still be worn today. We had so many separates, that they did not fit in dorm closets! I always loved seersucker.
Among other things (several other issues, actually) you’re putting the cart before the horse. As someone who was alive then, bought the book for a laugh, graduated from a “country club” college in the early 90s, you’ve got the trajectory wrong. Lisa Birnbach’s book was written in 1980, and published in 1981, meaning she wrote it before the “Go-go 80s” Reagan vibe ever started. John Hughes movies were a wholly different cultural icon/archetypal signal in the 80s. The handbook was a satirical look at the lifestyle and habits of old money that went to independent schools, often boarding schools. There is no John Hughes movie that does anything with that. You’re conflating a LOT of cultural touchstones that were happening parallel-ly, but only vaguely ever overlapped. Correlation is not causation.
The term ‘preppie’ comes from the private schools for the children of the wealthy, where they allegedly dress like that. The style became popular when I was in high school, from 1980 to 1982. I remember guys wearing Sperry Topsiders without socks, which is pretty funny in retrospect, because I live in Texas, where there’s not a lot of water for boating and such! Polo shirts and Bass shoes were also popular for both boys and girls. I had some of those items, but I thought the preppie look was too boring and snobbish to dress in all the time. It’s a beautiful look, though, and it never goes out of style. The main thing is to dress conservatively; you don’t want to really be obvious or stand out too much. And if your clothes and accessories look like they were handed down from a rich relative, so much the better. Some traditional preppie brands are Keds, Bass, Ralph Lauren, Land’s End, L. L. Bean, and Lacoste. But anybody who has elegance and good grooming can be a preppie!
Preppy style is not exclusive to WASPs. Black men and women have been wearing these clothes for 150+ years. My fraternity, founded in 1906, Black students at Howard, Morehouse, Spelman and other HBCU students wore collegiate style clothing. Look at MLK, Ali, Miles Davis and you’ll see some Black prep icons. I went to an all Black male prep school and we all wore Ralph Lauren, Izod-Lacoste, JCrew and Country Road. Even on TV, Carlton on Fresh Prince of Bel Air was an iconic Black prep.