From the birth of collegiate style at Princeton University in New Jersey all the way to the 1965 publication of Take Ivy, a seminal Japanese photobook by Teruyoshi Hayashida that took the spoils of Ivy League fashion beyond the confines of the US, “preppy” style has historically been associated with a particular way of life: one that’s deeply aspirational, an incubator of laid-back cool, a sense of belonging to a clique that you wouldn’t, or couldn’t, otherwise be a part of.
This is exactly what brands like Abercrombie & Fitch, Hollister and Jack Wills were selling to a specific sub-section of middle-class teens in southern England, circa 2012. And those teens bought into it – the steamy, black-and-white beachside campaigns featuring inexplicably hot models for Hollister and A&F; the vaguely Etonian, drunk-in-your-mum’s‑mansion shoots for Jack Wills. Wearing them felt like being a part of something larger, cooler, richer than yourself.
Ultimately, these feelings turned out to be entangled with an illusion of wealth rather than the real deal, upholding traditional beauty standards that had nothing to do with the UK’s (or the US’s, for that matter) population at large and were, a lot of the time, toxic. Specifically, A&F’s downfall was chronicled in the 2022 Netflix documentary White Hot, where its discriminatory and outright racist working practices were exposed.
In 2006, the brand’s CEO, Mike Jeffries, was even quoted as saying: “A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.” If this makes preppy style sound like a relic from a bygone era, don’t be fooled – although the kind of prep fashion that’s been rearing its head on recent catwalks, in the shadow of Miu Miu’s viral SS22 collection of sliced-up school uniforms in October 2021, is one of a different flavour entirely.
In January, the AW23 men’s collections indulged in their fair share of collegiate style. MSGM sent out invites made to look like a school admissions form, setting the tone for loose-fitting, pinstripe trousers, school-shirt collars, ties and knitted sweaters straight out of second period. There were knee-high socks, too, and varsity hoodies and jackets slapped with “Dreamers University” in calligraphy fonts.
Over at Dsquared2, “prep” came a little more unconventionally: denim baseball caps, super-tight lace-up track tops and beige low-rise trousers worn with tartan jackson hats and cropped knitwear that recalled Ralph Lauren’s cult bear jumpers. Like the rebellious kid in class tearing up the proverbial textbook.
Together, MSGM and Dsquared2 have tapped into preppy themes and subverted them entirely, changing the rules of a style that has long been considered restrictive, haughty and, yes, exclusionary.
