''You didn't see traders in Brooks Brothers,'' says Gregory Luther, 30, a vice president at J.P. Morgan. ''I associate Brooks Brothers with accountants.''
to conferring respectability on Dacron- and cotton-blend dress shirts in the 1950's. (
Brooks Brothers is already poised for the coming vogue in English-influenced clothing, as softer Savile Row suits replace strident striped shirts and strong shoulders as the ''power look.'' among financial movers and shakers. ''In a financial area, you tend to dress like your superiors,'
The store had always offered suits with a five-inch
rop. (Translated from tailors' jargon,
a drop is the difference between chest and waist measurements.)
ou never would have thought Brooks Brothers would have leather.''
fact that true Indian madras, which is made with vegetable dyes that bleed, fades over time gives it that special thing people like better on their clothes than on themselves: patina.
Actually, your grandfather's madras would be cool,'' he amended. ''It's your father's that you don't want
, grew his company to the beat of hip hop music, portraying larger-than-life versions of what he calls "all-American preppy classics."
A bit of Old England, American style, came as V-necked, cabled cricket sweaters and crested decoration. Colors, checks, plaid pants and even backpacks were all super-sized.
or the glamour threaded with nostalgia (thank you, Scott Fitzgerald
Today, though, I think the unself-consciousness that used to distinguish the preppy world is gone.
And then, suddenly, in the 1980's, everybody looked like the guy on the train to New Haven. Imagine how they'd feel at West Point if all the tourists were in uniform too: cadets might begin to wonder about uncomfortable things like claims to legitimacy.
Cable-knit sweaters went mass-market
"Preppy" became a style choice like Goth, a high-school cafeteria category
s a design motif on clothes intended for grown men?
uddenly, in the 1980's, everybody looked like the guy on the train to New Haven.
but in the 1980's the preppy uniform became just clothes
Cable-knit sweaters went mass-market.
nd allowed Casual Friday to exist.
a high-school cafeteria category
f nothing else, the preppy lifestyle got expensive: private school tuition, handsome real estate, a couple of club memberships and you're deep into millionaire country. You don't just happen, these days, to make or have that kind of mon