While giving her acceptance speech at this year's Academy
Awards, Best Actress-winner Gwyneth Paltrow was a blubbery
mess. What was particularly galling about the slight thespian's
sobbing performance was that she carried on like that in a
Ralph Lauren dress.
Still, Gwyneth's carrying on was no distraction from the
real message: Ralph rules.
Indeed, not since the the 1980 publication of The Official
Preppy Handbook has Ralph Lauren--and his preppy brethren
who manufacture Izod, Tretorn and Southwick suits--been
more at the fore of consumers' collective consciousness.
Not only is the preppy look popping up on national and
even Portland fashion fronts, but familiar preppy characteristics--simplicity,
quality, wholesomeness--are being appropriated by advertisers
and headline writers as well.
Preppy is back. But did it ever really go away?
This query is probably unanswerable, for part of the appeal
of preppiness has always been its unannounced steadiness,
its reticence to shout about itself. In that way, its return
to prominence is a welcome change from the bodice-busting,
look-at-me tawdriness exhibited in a '90s world costumed
by Aaron Spelling.
One possible answer is that in fashion, as in many industries,
style is cyclical. "New" looks are constantly cropping up
in response to "old" ones. Thus, the revival of preppiness
is merely a reaction to the scruffy, unkempt looks we've
whizzed through since the mid-'80s: punk, grunge, slacker.
But this idea assumes preppies are even tuned in to fashion
hype. In fact, those now slipping into a pair of straight-legged
white trousers or pulling on a knit shirt with the unassumingly
hip alligator stitched to the breast are probably unaware
that they are part of a movement that dares not speak its
name.
"I think many of our customers would say we're probably
a preppy store, and I don't discourage that," says John
Helmer III. In 1982, much in the way the preppy look is
handed down from parent to child, he acquired his clothing
store from his father. John Helmer Jr. had purchased the
store (named John Helmer, naturally) from John Senior in
1955. "Many of our customers are also anti-brand, anti-label,"
says Helmer, "so I don't promote us as a preppy store."
This middle-of-the-road positioning has allowed a shop
first opened as a haberdashery in 1921 to survive in a business
overrun by myriad companies seeking to cash in on a fashion-mad
world.
Selling hats, oxford shirts, bow ties, leisure wear, and
soft-shouldered, three-button sport coats made by Hickey-Freeman,
Corbin and Southwick, John Helmer has seen its sales increase
steadily over the past few years. Southwick, the outfitter
that has clothed such icons of America as Fred Astaire,
Clark Gable and Cary Grant, as well as presidents Reagan,
Carter, Clinton and Bush, is a particularly successful line
at JH.
"Preppy is an accepted look," Helmer says simply.
The look has been accepted by enough people that this month
Polo Ralph Lauren opened a 45,000-square-foot flagship store
in London. That store, at 1 New Bond Street, arrives on
the heels of the company's new 25,000-square-foot showroom
that opened in February in Milan. On March 1 Polo announced
plans to buy the Canadian-based retailer Club Monaco Incorporated
for $52.5 million.
As Ralph's mallet strikes, the fashion world takes notice.
Confirming Helmer's belief that Southerners are even more
steadfastly preppy than the notorious East Coast Ivies,
W magazine's January issue included a pictorial called
"Homecoming," featuring "sorority style, prom queens and
kings, cool cheerleaders and great letter sweaters...deep
in the heart of Texas." The first page of the spread pictures
a corn-fed blonde, dressed in a light blue silk Ralph Lauren
dress, pearls and a plain Club Monaco cardigan, glowing
in homecoming-queen delirium.
Sports Illustrated claimed on its Feb. 22 cover
that Duke's men's basketball players are "Preppies No More."
Using the phrase to distance this year's team of urban hipsters
from previous teams of mainly white-collar athlete-nerds,
SI entered the media fray of preppy consciousness.
Not to be left out, in March The New Yorker took
measure of Gatsbian clothiers Brooks Brothers. Enumerating
the ways in which the once-grandfatherly manufacturer is
repositioning itself (not the least of which is by opening
a new store at fashion's epicenter: the corner of Fifth
Avenue and 53rd Street), the magazine wrote of "the old
preppy favorite" going "after a new look." The Brooks Brothers
idea of a revamped look? Shirts in colors other than blue
and white.
There are further signs that a substantial preppy movement
is just beginning to swell. Also in March, a story in Elle
heralded the recent triumph of wholesomeness, lightness
and sincerity over irony, affect and cynicism. Citing everything
from the healthy exuberance of the Gap's "Khakis Swing"
ads to the increasing popularity of soft pinks and blues
among designers, Elle observed that even Hollywood
is experiencing a pendulum shift. Models and starlets are
moving away from colder (waif) and disheveled (slacker)
looks toward a modest climate wherein it is OK to be well
adjusted.
The book A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue
and the film Never Been Kissed are products of this
climate. In keeping with this trend, Max Fischer, the hero
of the recent movie Rushmore, is rarely seen without
his trusty blue blazer, white oxford, tie and khakis.
In a March story on the state of jeans manufacturer Levi's,
The New York Times Magazine cornered trendsetting
15- to 24-year-olds at the mall and discovered the ultimate
bellwether: The baggy "gangster look" is disappearing in
favor of, you guessed it, a more tailored, preppy style.
Helmer, for one, thinks preppy's return to prominence represents
a collective plea for simplicity in a frenetic age. "You
look at the stock market going crazy, and you see people
more willing to take chances," the 42-year-old with boyish
good looks says. "But then there's a nervousness there.
People aren't sure how long it can last, so they're inclined
to go back to a more stable look."
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Willamette Week | originally
published May 12, 1999
|
