Welcome to a New Era of Preppy Style
The "old money aesthetic" on TikTok. The Miu Miu micro mini that swept the internet. The rebirth of J.Crew. The sudden, urgent desirability of khakis and rugby shirts. If you're a dedicated follower of fashion, you may have noticed all of these signs, all suggesting one thing: preppy style is back.
It's not a trend, exactly—trends come and go, but something as foundational to American style as a cableknit sweater or a popped collar is never going to disappear forever. But it does feel someone turned up the volume on the influence of traditional Ivy League fashion, both on the runway and in pop culture. Prep has been around for so long that the references these days contain layers upon layers: a look might remind you of Blair Waldorf or Mick Jagger or Fonzworth Bentley or Princess Diana or Chloe Sevigny or Donna Tartt, or somehow all of them together, maybe crammed in a little sailboat off the coast of Newport at sunset with a picnic basket full of gin and tonics.
What feels particularly new about this iteration is that it seems to have lost a lot of the exclusionary qualities of the original. It's not the dress code of a closed-off world anymore, but a costume that anyone can try on. Below, Harper's Bazaar considers the New Prep from all angles, looking at its presence on the runway, its debt to Black culture, its startling new sexiness, and much more.
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