attention fashionistas!

RE: Oxblood loafers. My objection is mainly the style. I'm anti-preppy when it comes to clothes. I generally like classic styles, but not the preppy sub-category of classic looks.

For dressy styles, I like to wear stuff that looks vaguely 1960s British/mod in the colder months...during the warmer months, I like Italian- and Latin-inspired styles for dressed-up looks.

As far as the color, I'm unadventurous when it comes to shoe color. Black or brown, preferably black. Because I don't have much money to spend on clothes, I like for everything I own to be versatile so that it can match with lots of other things I have in my (very limited) wardrobe.

 

Maybe that's where you mom gets her inspiration for the effete small-town community theater music director thing.

(Sorry, WI, I couldn't let it pass)

 

Ah, then. We're opposites. I tend toward old-school prep, not the current (wrong) definition of such.

 

Not that I'm planning a makeover, but I'm curious...what's the difference between the real deal and the bullshit version of prep?

 

No offense taken. I know my tastes aren't typical...
winter...

summer...

 

Fixed. I hate Tripod. The damn image always shows up at first.

 

My niece said to me a few years ago that she "hates preppies." I said, but I'm one. She said, no you aren't! Her definition of preppies is the snotty mallrats at her public school who use clothing as way to separate themselves from other kids and proclaim they are "better." Actual preppies, those who attend a traditional prep school (as I did on scholarship), are attempting to achieve minimal, letter-of-the-law compliance with school rules by wearing traditional, comfortable, adaptable clothes but in frayed, wrinkled condition. One is an attempt at elitism, the other is the reverse. J.Crew almost has it right with the faux beat-to-shit attire it's offering, but its stuff is too form-fitting (although a lot of the ties are spot-on). True old school prep is almost blousey oxford cotton buttondown-collar shirts, somewhat baggy but no-pleats khakis, blazer with natural shoulders and no darts (no waist suppression) and beat loafers that are sometimes taped together.

My school didn't allow jeans or sneakers in a classroom until my senior year. If the assistant headmaster caught you not wearing a belt, he would snag you by a beltloop and make you go get one. So, yeah, minimal compliance. "Whattaya mean? I'm wearing a (frayed, rumpled) dress shirt. I'm not wearing jeans (wrinkled khakis with holes in them). I have on 'real shoes' (kept together with some white tape you got at the gym)."

Lasts into adulthood. You can dress up the khakis with a blazer, you can take off the blazer to dress down, and you fit in almost anywhere. The ties are 2.75 inches to 3.25 wide and you never change them no matter what width the rest of the world adopts. It's about trying to be comfortable even when you have to "dress up." Even the suits have little to no padding in the shoulders.

 

Well, I can respect the hell out of that ethic. Sounds like a good balance of comfort and style. When I say I'm anti-preppy, what I really mean is that I don't like pink-and-green golf shirts or argyle sweaters.