Dead Souls Bookshop

I found my Romeo in Dunedin's Dead Souls Bookshop- I am ready to denounce my betrothed and wed this beauty of a bookshop. I finally nabbed a reprint of Emily Post's Etiquette and that great unread NY society classic The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton. The operator wrapped my books in paper then a plastic carry bag as he was concerned about the contents sweating (after asking if I were walking far). Ms Emily Post would have surely approved!! 

Rodd & Gunn Queenstown

Is this the most Prep store design ever?! they literally put a boat in the store

 

Prep-a-Porter: Karen Walker flower and stone headband

 

If flower crowns give you cliche Coachella/festival vibes, I forgive you, as I have avoided them for this very reason. No hate at all- I love them! it's just that it was a totally overgrown trend. They were everywhere, both bloomin' beautiful and overtly artificial- they were the 2010s version of the 2000s Von Dutch cap. 

I find it freeing to use crosshairs when choosing accessories and clothing- if my view was framed, it would certainly be framed in madras. I look at items, using this eye, and assess them as they fit my intended aesthetic. I think through the filter of True Prep, with a little fraying at the edges. 

Is this faux flora headpiece prep? as a special occasion feature then surely but not with your old Springsteen t shirt. As much as I love the mix of high street and designer fashions, lauded by lumineries such as gorgeous Kate Middleton and Michelle Obama, I see when a piece is too regal to mix with the great unwashed (not to tarnish rock god Bruce). It isn't fashioned from rare gems or precious metals, no, but it is the suggestion of such which forces it to be prima donna.  It is the big girl's version of the plastic Christmas stocking tiara and we should wear it with as much joy. Orphan Annie becomes Princess of Monaco with only some paste jewels and alloy metals.

This piece is a stand-alone stunner. Coco Chanel's famous take-one-piece-off and elegance-is-refusal statements underlie my attitude to accessorising. This headband sings and other additions would just distract from its Adele-like soar. To add is to take away. 

 

Preppy and imperfect

Prepdom projects an image of slender athletic brunettes with ready-for-lacrosse sartorial ease. It is easy to be intimidated by willowy WASPS and nary-a-hair-out-of-place perfecto petites. 

Being plus size, preppy labels don't want me as a consumer, as I think they see my size as unsophisticated. Yes, I can buy the accessories but I do feel slightly uneasy about supporting a business which doesn't support me. 

This paucity of product sees a chink in my armoire so you can imagine my glee when Lilly Pulitzer for Target came out with extended sizing. I couldn't get anything from the website as it was busier than its playful patterns. I managed to get a lovely Lilly off Ebay, months later, in all its pink and green glory!

First lady follicles elude me: I'm more Janice Joplin than Jackie Kennedy. I abhor getting my hair cut so I usually wear a lazy ponytail or bun. A snazzy bow, headband, or tartan ribbon, may attend but this is a casual event: strays welcome. When the mood strikes me I get a bob but as soon as this is long enough, comfort demands a hairtie. 

WASPS and Weetbix

One could be mistaken that prep/preppy is a wholly American phenomena.

The Official Preppy Handbook (OPH) does little to dissuade this argument. The book is steeped in specifics, and offers few examples of prep occuring elsewhere.

This is where True Prep (TP), the legacy to OPH, finds its legs. It even broaches racial identity, with a section on the African American love for Oak Bluffs. OPH's Muffy would have choked on her Hermes scarf before discussing something so unseemly. But, that, is exactly why TP was so necessary. The old guard, caricatured in OPH, have had to acknowledge, rather like England's aristocracy post WW2, that "new" people may bring life to an old way of life.

There is still a lot to be done, in terms of prep awareness, internationally. Hence this blog. There are anomalies like the continued popularity of Japanese Take Ivy (photography of US campuses by Japanese photographers/authors, 1965), which was/is hugely popular in Japan and then released in US in 2010. Also, Masafumi Monden discusses the Japanese take on US Ivy league style in Ivy Style (multiple authors, Fashion Institute of Technology New York and Yale University Press, 2012).

However, I am in New Zealand, and there is little to no acknowledgement of prepdom here. NZ is a young country and has a history of self-conscious feet finding. This weightlessness has anchored somewhat in the last decade. However, we are still watching the moves of other cultures, awkwardly copying the dances of elsewhere.

We don't need to be Jackie Kennedy, lying across an Adirondack chair. We can take New England clam chowder and throw a hearty bunch of paua in it. A fusion of faraway and familiar is the only way forward. We don't need to surrender to seersuckered Southampton, we can drink to Boston Brahmins and bathe outside our baches (NZ summer houses) with antipodean abandon. We are enough....and, yes, we can be preppy!

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The Kiwi prep house

Hows does a preppy kiwi dress their home? in a distant version of how an American preppy dresses their house. 

Every preppy Kiwi will have these things in the family (re parents') house:

1. A Dick Frizzell print and/or Graham Sydney print
2. Dad's old Swandri bushshirt
3. Random fishing paraphenalia
4. A 1975  NZ commonwealth games tea towel
5. Ancient Tupperware from when mum and her friends had parties
6. Clunky pottery from the 1970s
7. Everything by the Finn brothers
8. Any furnishings from Citta Design, Coast, Wallace Cotton, and Country Road.
9. A poster that mum bought as a fundraiser for the hospice
10. Happy Hens pottery
11. Shelves that dad built that are slightly off
12. Red banded gumboots (wellington boots) with cobwebs and possible spiders
13. A pencil holder you made at intermediate (middle school) in the shape of a heart or dinosaur.
14. Cecily tea towels that mum thinks are "fun" with jokes about calories or alcohol on them ("sometimes I even cook with it!"). 
15. Horrible soap that was won  in the school raffle but it "needs to be used up"
16. A picture of the kids with a koala from a childhood trip to Australia- dad has a Hypercolor tee shirt on and you are wearing Zinc sunscreen in a culturally insensitive fashion
17. Janet Frame, Owen Marshall, and Brian Turner books.
18. Scottish stuff from a trip/ OE ("overseas experience," traditionally taken following high school or university) back to the "old country"
19. The Yates gardening guide, 1991 edition with "Merry Xmas '91" written inside
20. Christmas themed platter for mum's pavlova
21. The best of Dave Dobbyn (pretty much our national songsmith)
22. Rattan nesting tables
23. One of those rag rugs
24. Lots of stuff from Trade Aid

 



A Dick Frizzell design eco bag- this print hangs somewhere in every Kiwi prep's home

Prep in Print

 
"Old School" by Tobias Wolff (Bloomsbury, 2003) is about a prep school student who plagiarises a short story in order to meet a literary hero. It is easily my favourite novel as the writing is so finely woven- the silky sentences soothe the angsty teen in inside. I remember trying to get backstage to meet rock stars, as a teen, as a Morrissey obsessed 27 year old. The narrator's need to meet Robert Frost echoed my own outstretched hand, trying in vain to touch Moz.

 

"Prep" by Curtis Sittenfeld (Random House, 2005) is about an ordinary middle class girl at an elite New England prep school. As a Kiwi, it was fun to play voyeur and experience this rarefied WASPy world from the perspective of Lee. 

 

"The Rector of Justin" by Louis Auchincloss (Mariner Books, 2002 (first published in 1964)) is, as the title states, the lifestory of a rector at said fictitious prep school but told through six narrators. A cousin of Jackie K, Auchincloss was part of the world he wrote about, hence his authenticity. His style can be dry, and the religious references don't interest me, but the different points of view intrigue me. 

 

The matriarch in "Maine" by Courtney Sullivan (Vintage, 2011) leads a simple life- church, gardening, and reading. Her daughters, however, seem to be just waiting for her to die. She lives in a lovely cottage, in a great Maine location, and don't her daughters know it?! The characters are lively and the family dynamics ring true. 

Preppy at the Periphery

Living at the bottom of the map, with only hints to prepdom (retailwise), poses problems procuring prep paraphenalia. 

Even mainstays, such as Vera Bradley and LL Bean are a stretch. Forget about Kiel James Patrick, Jack Rogers, Lilly Pulitzer, and Vineyard Vines. The shipping costs, if they will ship (not using an intermediary shipper), offend my preppy purse. 

Ralph Lauren, a parody of prep nowadays, is low-hanging fruit. The ubiquitous polos, most likely bootleg, hang sadly in charity shops. The too loud logos and garish colours are a cartoonish version of prep. Not to dismiss vintage or classic RL! I have a gorgeous blackwatch tartan bucket bag that I sourced from Invercargill on Trademe (akin to Ebay). 

 

I had a stroke of luck when I came across a Vineyard Vines tote on a local Facebook trading  page!! of course the seller was unaware of the brand. $10 very well spent!! 

 

I swallowed my distaste and paid $90 shipping (yes $90!!!) to get my beloved Jack Rogers sandals. A preppy essential, I ordered them with the aim of wearing them for my Rarotongan wedding but ended up wearing well-worn Sperry jandals instead (dressing was a rushed affair). The price of shipping, which wasn't fast btw, was offensive but I just had to have them!!!

 

My Lilly- secured at last!! US shoppers thought they had it hard- I had no shot at getting through website when Lilly for Target launched. Gotta love Ebay!

 

Frizzell- Picasso with a preppy polish

 

I hugely admire artist Dick Frizzell, love his sartorial style, and this (indirectly) led me to preppyness.

Brandishing boat shoes, stripey tops, and all manner of nautical motif- Dick may not sit comfortably with a word like preppy but his aesthetic lends itself to the descriptor. 

A painter, chiefly, Dick celebrates pop culture, elevating roadstall signage and comic book heroes to masterpiece status. 

2003 saw him in a bespoke beach house, modelled akin to Martha Stewart's Cape Cod getaway. Strewn across his sofas, his seaside-motiffed cushions (a collab with Esther Diamond now defunct) painted a preppy picture. Creamy with a encompassing verandah, the fulltime summer house opened to an oceanfront. 

In recent years, Dick designed an apparel range for Mr Vintage. This included a navy tee with a pattern of red anchors- similar to the tiny lighthouses found on J. McLaughlin's pants.

Dick, with his penchant for Sperry and Breton stripes, could be described as a preppy pacific Picasso!! 

Finding preppy in pavlova paradise

Preppiness has no overt presence in NZ- no pink and green monograms or polo players but there are definitely stores which reflect this aesthetic style. 

Rodd & Gunn menswear is wall to wall fisherman knits, locally-made leathergoods, and boat shoes. Like Ralph Lauren, there is as much attention to the image as the product. Baskets, akin to Nantucket baskets, and fishing rods adorn the cabin-like interior. Also, in the vein of RL, some of the stores are "lifestyle lodges." I visited a RL store in Manhattan Dec '14 and I expect that R&G are going in this direction. A "Lifestyle Lodge" had just opened, in Dunedin, just two stores away from Country Road which is quite fitting! 

 

 

Country Road (Dunedin) below:

 

Australian brand Country Road is to Australasia what J Crew is to America. Styles are simple, modern and decidedly classic. Trends are inserted tastefully, such as metallics, but this is not Forever 21. Every Australasian girl knows the value of a CR tote/gym barrel bag. Like Vera Bradley, the bags  come out in various patterns and are easily washable and durable. Like LL Bean, the are simple in shape and this doesn't alter much. 

Canterbury of New Zealand is noted for it's rugby shirts especially the "ugly" rugby shirts which are a pastiche of stripes and colours, like the madras of American prepdom. The zip ankle trackpants filled high school coridoors in the 90s, with the signature CCC (Canterbury Clothing Company) 

down the leg, much like an Antipodean Juicy Couture (unprep). These pants have died in popularity in recent years- perhaps this is due to

the move away from large visable logos (evident in 90s Tommy Hilfiger and RL). 

Leading couture designers in NZ are Karen Walker, Trelise Cooper, World, and Nom D. There may be the occasional reference to prep but it would be very farfetched to define these houses as preppy. 

Preppy...eh?!

Kiwis often don't know what preppy culture is!

The basic answer could be "The Kennedys" or rich people from the east coast of the United States. Of course, this is incredibly general, and not necessarily true, but it is an entry point to understanding.

Most people see it as a fashion style featuring headbands, pearls, and polos- basically the rich kids in 80s movies. Clothing certainly plays a large role, as in any culture, but preppiness extends far beyond John Hughes tropes and Animal House.

To be preppy is to value frugality, respect, and tact. There are questions you ask and questions you never would ask. What did you study at uni is a good question but give any discussion of money a width berth (even vaguely). 

It is about wrapping up in old blankets, left by your grandparents, rather than turning on the heater. 

It is wearing the pearls your aunt left you, not the latest Louis Vuitton IT item.

It is paying your dentist bill before splurging on gadgets.

It is a cracked iPhone screen, eeking it out until you finally get the screen fixed but no way are you going to replace it as it is "perfectly good" til it's dead.

It is about never outstaying your welcome and always jumping in to do the dishes.

It is leaving a personal, and witty, gift when you part somebody's house, after staying there. Left on their kitchen bench with a little card