<p>“goth”, the popular cultural aesthetic (music, clothes etc) only started in the early 80s. At the time it was part of “new wave”.</p>
<p>“Preppy” has been around for at least a century or two. It wasn’t just the main ethos at leading eastern schools in the 19th century, it was pretty much the only one. Preps will continue to exist in two decades, but their profile is constantly shrinking. Back in the 50s, their presence was strong even at Berkeley, but increasing diversity and the lack of preponderance in mass media has made their rank very thin.</p>
<p>Dracula was sort of Goth, yet in a lot of movies he had his collar popped. I think vampires will continue to be URMs if they insist on conflating fashions like that. I mean I think these days people are generally down with the whole blood-sucking thing, but to mix fashions so tastelessly is truly unforgivable. What’s next, Morticia Addams in capri pants and a cornflower-blue cable-knit crewneck?</p>
<p>Murasaki, the original, true-blue preps look down on those brands above that have commercialized and packaged the look for the masses. So you’re right basically.</p>
<p>Yeah, I think CalX is right. There’s something wrong with “elitism for the masses.”</p>
<p>Also, CalX, who was the third leg of the Dracula-Hepburn love triangle? My guess is that it must have been Lacoste, Howard Hughes, Spencer Tracy, or Wilmer Valderrama.</p>
<p>If you’re going to argue that preppy has been around longer than since the 1950s, you could definitely argue goth has been around for longer:</p>
<p>“In the early 19th century, an artistic movement called Romanticism arose. It was focused around fantastical themes, the ongoing struggle between good and evil, sensuality, and frequently death. From this movement arose a smaller movement, personified by writers like Byron and Shelley, that was increasingly morbid and decadent. This more morbid style came to be known as gothic, in part because of the appreciation of its leaders for the “Gothic” style of the Middle Ages.” <a href=“http://www.waningmoon.com/gothica/articles/6660021.shtml[/url]”>http://www.waningmoon.com/gothica/articles/6660021.shtml</a></p>
<p>Now can we please get back to discussing colleges? You guys are sort of causing me to become biased against preps, which was precisely what I was hoping to avoid in this thread…</p>
<p>It’s a bit more tenuous to connect Byron, Shelley, Chopin or Chateaubriand with The Cure, Sisters of Mercy or Trent Reznor. “Prep” on the other hand is uninterrupted for at least a century. “Goth” got some inspiration from the past, but it’s more of a shallow pop music-based movement.</p>
<p>tourguide: I think it’s professor plum, in the library, with the rope.</p>
<p>well, if you’re going to conflate prep with the whole idea of attending classes in formal attire, I might go for that. But, a hundred years ago women were still wearing billowing skirts that reached their ankles. And you could forget about wearing flip flops to class or that raggedy golfing shirt; that would have been as unthinkable as walking in with cleats. </p>
<p>A hundred years ago the only thing popping on a man’s neck was the single button which held the detachable collar he wore. </p>
<p>I would place the beginnings of what we call prep at The Jazz Era about twenty years later, coinciding with the invention of the less restrictive, more versatile women’s clothing. The supreme irony, GottaStayFlyy, is that the icons we most associate with that era, Coco Chanel, Hemingway, Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald – were almost all socialists.</p>
<p>Grunge is probably the oldest fashion, dating back millenia to caveman days. Nothing said Grunge better than wrapping a non-tanned bear skin around your waist, and wearing a hollowed-out badger on your head. But anthropologists have discovered evidence that some clans actually preferred black-and-white skunk pelts. A famous anthropologist at the U of Washington speculates that these “skunk people” were in fact the first Goths.</p>
<p>Brooks Bros invented the button-down shirt in 1896, but good point about the women’s having only started in the 20s.</p>
<p>The flip-flops to class habit was much more recent, only a decade or two. Remember the brouhaha over several members of the Norhwestern women’s team wearing them at their White House gala a few years ago?</p>
<p>TG446: according to the recent scholarly interpretation of the skunk pelts, it is a manifestation of early formal wear. Protopreps, as opposed to protogoths…</p>
<p>CalX, the question of skunk people being protopreps or protogoths is as fundamental to anthropology as the nature/nurture debate is to psychology. Since skunks were worn as everyday garb, not just for weddings and awards banquets, I’d have to go with protogoth. I mean even preps don’t wear tuxes all the time. Plus, it’s pretty hard to pop a skunk-pelt collar.</p>
<p>Well, I guess some progress has been made here. Next time someone tells me they take pride in dressing “classically, conservatively, or sophisticatedly” I’m going to tell them their style was invented by socialists. </p>
<p>I think style is always being reinvented -after all, the people I knew in hs who wore crewneck preppy sweaters generally did it in an ironic way, like they’d spike their hair as well. I guess a preppy attitude is more what people generally complain about. Maybe I’ve yet to meet a real new england prep. Even still, I’ve never felt threatened by anyone whose main goal in life was to be unoriginal and boring. oh well, I’m visiting Bowdoin this weekend, so I’ll see then if I get bad vibes.</p>
<p>Let’s just say, “no one likes a snob” whether they are coming at you from a left wing viewpoint, or a right wing one. Here’s hoping they play well with others up at Bowdoin. :)</p>
<p>CalX, thanks for agreeing with me. You’re much more flexible on this topic than on “Which Campus is Prettiest?” I did a little digging, and found that preps are thought to have originated in sub-Sahara Africa about 5000 years ago. A tribe called the Snooties started strapping lion skins around their waists–the first khakis.</p>