It’s not exactly accurate to say that preppy style is back, because it never really left—every guy has dipped a loafer-clad toe into those East Coast waters at one point or another. But at the Paris menswear shows this past June, the Ivy League look was ubiquitous, thanks, in part, to splashy debut collections from both Jonathan Anderson at Dior and Michael Rider at Celine. By the time the fashion crowd migrated to New York in September, everybody wanted to look a little preppier. The takeaway, at least for GQ staffers? It’s time to prep ourselves again.
Done right, preppy style isn’t a trend: it’s an evergreen look that eschews flash-in-the-pan fads in favor of simple, well-made staples—an Oxford shirt, say, or pleated chinos—styled with idiosyncratic flair. A lot of it comes down to how those pieces are worn together, but it also hinges on a certain attention to detail to avoid veering into corny pastiche: the width of those chinos, the collar of that Oxford shirt, the texture of a tie. Thankfully, that’s where we come in.
