In 1982, Lisa Birnbach’s “Preppy Handbook” codified the look and lifestyle of prep from Lilly Pulitzer to Lacoste to L.L. Bean, selling more than 2.3 million copies.
Many of the book’s sartorial secrets have stood the test of time, which is the point, including Sperry Top-Siders, khakis and Bermuda bags.
But a new wave of prep is also taking over the runways and the streets, with designers twisting the old standards for a new generation all too happy to wear collegiate codes and country club looks detached from the societal signaling.
“Today, customers don’t necessarily want or need to fit into a neat little category. You can wear some great, fun, authentic ‘preppy’ pieces, but style them in your own, unexpected way,” said Jack Carlson, creative director and founder of twisted prep label Rowing Blazers, adding that the key to nailing cool prep is to not necessarily to wear the look from head-to-toe.
Street style at Paris Fashion Week fall 2024.
Kuba Dabrowski/WWD
A designer with a PhD in archaeology, Carlson said he’s always studying history, and has seen success in mixing tradition and irreverence — putting a “tongue-in-cheek spin on” classic sweaters, and rugby and polo shirts with classic fabrications, details and construction techniques, such as his nostalgia-tinged women’s capsule inspired by Princess Diana. Collaborations have heightened this idea, such as Rowing Blazer’s collaborative Harry’s New York Bar and tie-dye Grateful Dead rugbys, and sporting team embroidered trousers and corduroy baseball caps with ’47.
While “preppy” originated as its own form of rebellion on elite college campuses, the word’s connotations have changed over the years, sometime being more pretentious than intended, he said. “More recently, brands like Rowing Blazers, Noah, and Aimé Leon Dore have helped to make it…