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There seems to be a lot of people who find preppiness unflattering. Also, some people express mild disgust if they find out that you're attracted to men/women who are preppy.
I don't really understand the hate. The style is non-threatening, clean-cut, attractive, classic, and in some places common.
Some people may find it pretentious or symbolic of the upper crust. It's just a look, no need to make value judgments about it. It beats wearing oversized pants down below your rear, but maybe that's just me....
Wow, I've never heard of the preppy style being "controversial"! To me, it's basically a "classic" look that transcends trends.
I'm not wealthy, but I've dressed preppy for a long time. What's wrong with being neat and decently groomed and wearing clothes that don't go out of style? Perhaps people with multiple facial piercings and lots of tattoos might sneer at people who present as preppy, but in reality, I know lots of people I'd describe as "preppy" who also have a tattoo or a non-ear piercing.
I meant controversial as in something that's loved or hated, and seldomly neutral. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of folks who love preppiness. But there's many that hate it, too. And it's not always the thuggish or alternative people, I know many people with the girl/boy next door look who find preppiness distasteful.
But since the preppy style is really "neutral" (completely non-trendy) how could people have an extreme position on something so normal and neutral? I like my preppy style, but I wouldn't say I "love" it. And I can see people not dressing preppy, but I couldn't see how they could "hate" it, because even though they aren't preppy per se, they probably have a lot of pieces that actually are preppy.
That's why I brought up tattooed or pierced people, since I figured that perhaps they, in the extreme, might be the ones who are anti-preppy. Even urban "thugs" wear a LOT of preppy pieces (a lot of "sporty"=preppy).
I don't get who the "girl/boy next door" people would be, if not preppy. That sounds like exactly the people who WOULD be preppy.
Maybe there are also varying definitions of what people consider "preppy."
I wear mostly preppy things, but not garish colors. There is the extreme over-the-top preppy, like with the bright plaid pants, fluorescent pink with mint green, or men's pants with little ducks or martinis all over them. That's more trendy than preppy, like what J Crew has turned into (for men at least). A lot of people are now referring to that as "preppy." But preppy is NOT about standing out in a crowd.
Classic preppy would be classic pieces, like khakis, blazers, polo shirts, crisp button-downs, docksiders, minimal makeup, very basic, classic hairstyles. With true "preppy" you could take an outfit from 1979 and put it in 1999 or 2009 and it would not look outdated.
I think people associate it with being boring, conservative, closed-minded, pretentious, WASPy, all these things. I personally like some aspects of the style myself, but I can see how it can be somewhat boring too.
I dressed preppy throughout much of junior high and high school. I wasn't wealthy or pretentious, but I got tired of wearing just what everyone else wore. I went from a trendy phase (flares, bellbottoms, etc.) to briefly trying a hip-hop phase (baggy pants, sweats, etc.) even considering a gothic phase (wideleg pants, dark colors, black nail polish, etc.) before deciding preppy was an unassuming, comfortable style that suited me. My style, apart from Tommy Hilfiger, US Polo Assn. (which I know isn't Ralph Lauren) was generic: a regular v-neck or crew-neck tops with a white collared dress shirt. I can't imagine that or just basic blouses being pretentious on their own merit.
The negative connotations must have less to do with the actual preppy style, but certain brand names with recognizable logos that are often associated with said style (i.e. Ralph Lauren, Brooks Brothers, and Lacoste), though RL is so commonplace, among many Average Joes and Plain Janes.
There seems to be a lot of people who find preppiness unflattering. Also, some people express mild disgust if they find out that you're attracted to men/women who are preppy.
I don't really understand the hate. The style is non-threatening, clean-cut, attractive, classic, and in some places common.
What are your opinions?
You are right that people seem to have a passionate dislike of what they label "preppy". When there is a passionate dislike of something, you can bet there are emotions behind it. People don't just go around downing others or things they don't like with passion. When a person genuinely just doesn't like and isn't interested in something, they don't even think about it and are just indifferent. So I've always thought it was some combination of feelings of jealousy, envy, exclusion, and rejection (real or perceived) that cause people to claim to passionately dislike what they call "preppy". In high school, those labeled "preppy" and similarly "popular" are usually the most socially healthy kids who are involved in plenty of extracurricular activities, especially sports. These kids have a form of "entitlement" that is objectively positive, meaning they feel like "this is our school, our chance to learn, grow, and is just where we are in our life, so we're going to take advantage of this opportunity before us and make the best of it!". In other words they have team spirit. In contrast, the kids who aren't like that tend to be varying levels of miserable and tend to have more time on their hands - hence they partake in downing and expressing supposed disgust of those they label "preppy" or "popular" or "jocks" or whatever it might be. Ultimately I think it's a defense mechanism the miserable kids I described need to make the confident kids the bad guys so they can think to themselves "I wouldn't want to be friends with the popular kids or be popular anyway, because they are all jerks, stuck up, conceited, cocky, slutty....(ad nauseum)". It's not all that different in college, where some folks are still miserable and will behave the same way toward sorority and fraternity types or anybody who fits their "popular" or "preppy" stereotype. So ultimately I think the style "preppy" is associated with all of this and hence that's why it's disliked with a passion. It's not just about aesthetics of the style, but the people it's associated with.
I tend to think your idea for this thread might have sprung from that other thread where the sort of phenomenon you're describing was sort of played out by a particular poster:
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