Preppy red pants originated in Nantucket. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nantucket_Reds
@oldfort Woo-hoo! Now I’m upper-class too. I bought driving moccasins and keep them in the trunk for long commutes when I’m in heels. (They were on sale from Lands’ End, but we won’t mention that.)
D2 thinks new Sperry (colored) are stylish. White sneakers are in vogue.
Coming from poor white roots, we didn’t wear shoes that would fall off if we were being chased by the police. Bright colors were easy to spot if you were hiding in the bushes. Most of my childhood friends have been in jail at least once.
I still evaluate shoes by how well I could run in them if I had to.
@doschicos thank you for the link to the YouTube videos. Hysterical. As a child of the 80’s in LA this is all too real for me. Still giggling.
So we are talking shoes now? :x I’m in!
“I still evaluate shoes by how well I could run in them if I had to.”
Same here. You should see me trying Louboutins at Nordstrom. B-) I take them for a run around the department. The look on the SA’s faces is precious. If I can not do a 50-yard dash in a pair of shoes, they are off my shopping list.
I like my shoes to be apocalypse ready. I am also on the Walking Dead thread.
Someone will remember the book with quote about a woman whose husband dies, leaves her destitute with a small child, and she has no shoes she can really walk in, only fancy shoes. It was by a male writer, probably southern. I’m racking (wracking??) my brain.
I toured a ton of northeast schools with my son and the dress on campus for girls was baggy pj bottoms, uggs and a sweatshirt (this was late winter/early spring.) the guys had on jeans, sweatshirts and sneakers. Some of these schools were on the “preppy” side (HWS, Skidmore etc.) and some were not (Clark, Hampshire, Rochester, etc.) All the kids on all the campuses looked the same to us. This was in 2009/2010.
re: leggings with riding boots. Very popular look a couple of years ago. I think most now wear booties with leggings. I haven’t worn my riding boots with leggings in a few years.
S wears topsiders and he is a sailor - but that is not what they wear on their feet when they are racing. I am also pretty sure he has a pink button down in his closet. But he is definitely not preppy.
@Magnetron I grew up poor in NYC. I also don’t wear shoes I can’t run away in, but it wasn’t the police I was worried about.
Funnily enough, I actually live in “the Hamptons” now. My goth/punk D17 works on a boat in summer. She wears Doc Martens to school, but - you guessed it!- boat shoes, on the boat. 
My best friend from college crewed on the fastest (at the time) sailboat on Cape Cod. He had deck shoes - no issues. for legit use.
Preppy in my day was penny loafers and popped collars. Striped jeans, two-toned jeans, and gelled hair. Guess jeans with the leather accents around the pockets. Parachute pants and Capezios.
papagallo
I don’t think they exist any more.
.
bass weejuns, frye boots
When I was in my early 20s, a friend borrowed a pair of my frye boots. Her 32 yr old daughter wears them today. They held up pretty well. 
too bad she didn’t borrow the matching saddle bag to pass on to her daughter.
Heh…I know where you’re both coming from.
I still am wary of wearing bright colors or bright colored/white shoes/sneakers for similar reasons while growing up during the tail end of the high crime era in what was a working-class area of NYC.
That and the remnant of socialization from older neighbors and kids that bright colored clothes were were equivalent of painting a huge “mug me/beat me up” sign on yourself.
That…and darker clothes/shoes are far less high maintenance. 
@musicprnt NYU is a neat university but insanely expensive. It also is notorious for “gapping” students applying for financial aid. Unlike colleges that meet demonstrated need, it practices preferential packaging and so gives financial on the basis of how highly they rate your application.
I’ve known several women who received no financial aid from NYU other than loans, but almost free rides from Barnard. Granted, Barnard is far more difficult to get into, but my point is that NYU is simply beyond the reach of many students.
@cobrat NYU still is largely a “rich kids school”. It has frequently been named as one of the “worst buys” in higher education. I’ve lost count of the number of students who were admitted and then offered FA that consisted of loans, loans and more loans.
@MotherofDragons Your comment is aimed at me, since I started this thread. I was going to remove the “elite” label but included it because I found that many students visited “elite” colleges only to wonder why they were so classified. As for my “agenda”, I’m a former Adcom member from Brown. I think Brown is a fantastic university, and that the Ivies offer outstanding educations.
If you read my posts instead of taking gratuitous potshots at them, you will see that my point has been that students should’t be crushed not to get into one of these universities since for many students they aren’t right and when they visit them, they don’t like them. Many people posting on this thread would seem to agree.
Seems you don’t know my feelings on the matter after all.
Just how long ago, widget?
I left in January 2013. I now serve as an external reader.
Your comment that you were there when they went need blind made it seem longer ago.
@lookingforward I’m not involved in admissions in any formal way any longer and so cannot speak authoritatively. Readers are not admissions officers and so all opinions are my alone. Indeed, I’m now a “consumer”, my nieces and cousins being high school students…
In the interests of full disclosure, my tour of Brown was pretty awful. It was overcast and drizzly and I left with a gloomy impression (similar to the one I had after visiting Penn). Guess that’s what happens when you visit universities in the NE in November! After I was admitted, I went to a reception and loved it. The rest is history…
@lookingforward Apropos your comment about “need blind” admissions, I, too, have read all stories about the extent to which the wall separating admissions and financial aid is truly opaque. I wouldn’t want to hazard to speculate on that.