True Prep

by Lisa Birnbach

  In the posh showroom Carlisle maintains in Midtown Manhattan, consultants can meet their customers to show them the line in situ—and clients can bring their older pieces in to see what goes with what. Prices for jackets range from $395 to $695, and pants and skirts cost $195 to $250. Nothing goes on sale, and e-commerce isn’t possible, because then Carlisle would compete with its ladies.

  Today there are between 3,000 and 4,000 Carlisle (and its sister brand, PER SE) consultants who receive samples four times per year.

  Lisa Fine, the co-owner of IRVING & FINE, says that as she travels the country checking on her trunk shows, she visits stores where everything is always the same wherever you go. The daughter of Hattiesburg, Mississippi’s largest local retailer, Fine has seen the economic model of shopping change from stores like her daddy’s to the shopping mall, and to the discount store. Her trunk shows are held in people’s homes in cities and resort communities. Irving & Fine manufactures beautiful Indian and Indian-inspired tunics and blouses. Prices range from $150 for a cotton block-printed tunic to $1,600 for a one-of-a-kind Ikat tunic she bought in Uzbekistan and had handembroidered in India.

  The social component is a draw at Irving & Fine’s shows. For one thing, Fine and her partner, Carolina Irving, often invite other designers to join them. Outside of New York, where she holds two shows a year, drinks and nibbles are offered, because “people are more comfortable that way.” Instant gratification is here: “We like cash and carry. You don’t have to worry about orders, and you don’t have to worry about stores paying you.”

  SOME TRUNK SHOW SOURCES.

  CARLISLE COLLECTION

  ELIZABETH GAGE

  I PEZZI DIPINTI

  IRVING & FINE

  KULE

  LEONTINE LINENS

  PAPO D’ANJO

  Shepherd Paul Murray, left, born in 1971, and his brother Ian Charles Murray, four years younger, grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut. They both graduated from The Brunswick School, the boys’ day school there. Their childhoods (with another brother) sound idyllic—school terms in Greenwich, and for a change of pace, summers on the Vineyard. (Same people; no air-conditioning.) After they graduated from Skidmore and Lafayette, respectively, they joined the great commute, traveling between Connecticut and Grand Central Station every day to work at careers that never thrilled them.

  In 1998, Shep quit his job at Young & Rubicam within minutes of Ian quitting his job in travel PR at Evins Communications. They wanted to sell ties. Taking cash advances on credit cards (think: indie film), the Murray brothers ordered yards and yards of custom-printed silk, designed by an art-director buddy. By July 3, 1998, they had 800 ties, which they showed to a few retailers on Martha’s Vineyard. The next day, July 4, 1998—considered “day one” of Vineyard Vines—they began selling their ties out of their Jeep for $65 apiece. Their first account, The Fligors in Edgartown, sold them for $60 each. All the ties were sold out within a few weeks. It looked like the brothers’ hunch was correct.

  The boys reordered, paid off their debts, and in 2001 they passed the $1 million mark in sales. Now, though the Murrays almost never wear ties themselves, they have approximately 430 patterns and colors on offer.

  Hanging with them at their Stamford headquarters or over lunch in downtown Greenwich, you think: I know these guys. I really know them. They are the two brothers who grew up on your block, or were a grade ahead or behind you in school, or rode the same bus, took the same tennis clinic, or played on your brother’s hockey team. They are familiar, easy-going, sometimes finish each other’s sentences, enjoy what they do, and are replicating their upbringing for the next generation of Murrays.

  It is indisputable that overexposure to the sun will cause premature aging, and worse. (Hold on! What could be worse?) At the same time it is inconceivable that preppies would live entirely indoors or remember their sunscreen and follow the prescribed rules for skin care. That just doesn’t sound like us.

  Call us casual; call us cavalier. But we just love the sun: Lead us to a chaise on a sunny day, and we’re happy. As children we were shooed outside the minute the sun appeared. And as outdoor creatures, we will develop a suntan while skiing (that’s us in the Rockies over spring break), playing tennis (we play every week), golfing (ditto), sailing (that’s us waving from our sloop off Barbados), or gardening (but not our hands; we are wearing gloves). It can’t be helped. Not to mention that the sun provides lovely doses of vitamin D—essential to our collective well-being. (Sun deprivation is a grave problem. We’re serious! People get depressed, and in northern climes where the sun shines for only half the year, that can lead to homicidal and suicidal impulses, and worse.)

  What’s a sporty Lilly Pulitzer–wearing college graduate to do?

  It is a fact of modern life that a suntan helps you radiate well-being and health. To use an overused word du jour, we have a conundrum. Slather on your sunscreen when you arrive at the beach, and thereafter remember to re-apply … if you can. (It’s hard. We empathize.) Or wear a hat in the middle of a sunny summer day. Or sit under an umbrella or a canopy.

  Since most people have “some color” by midsummer, your hue won’t make too much of an impression. A tan in the winter months is more memorable, because it means you’ve been traveling and most likely on holiday (or recently returned from a stint as a beach vendor in New Zealand).

  The twenty-first century has brought the increased efficacy of self-tanners. Some of them merge with your skin’s chemistry to make you look tan, not orange. There are sprays and creams that can start you off or prevent your natural tan from fading too fast. But there has been a proliferation of dangerous tanning salons. Too-deep fake tans achieved through tanning beds never look real and are seriously dangerous. (Your local news runs stories about the perils of tanning salon addiction. Check back here for rehab.)

  By the time they hit their sixties, if they have avoided melanoma, preppy men and women have adjusted to their sun spots and wrinkles. They regard them as souvenirs of summers well spent. Their freckles remind them of their own mummies and daddies, in the days when bad news was a day without sun.

  In the new old-world department, add the Book Book to your virtual shopping list. Introduced on January 21, 2010, it is a laptop case that looks from the outside like an antiquarian book, and from the inside like a … laptop case. Andrew Green designed it for TwelveSouth, the company he operates with his wife, Leigh Ann, which makes accessories for Apple. Based in preppy mecca Charleston, South Carolina, TwelveSouth can barely keep up with the demand for the classic cover, which sells for $79.99. “I enjoy the juxtaposition of something old containing the most modern technology.” So do we.

  Your ship has come in. You want something (or you want to buy your wife something) that is substantial but not vulgar, daytime and not too sparkly, but not one of those things you see on everyone else at lunch. Definitely not.

  Someone you read about and whose style you admire—was it Mona Bismarck?—was a fan of Fulco Santostefano della Cerda. Or you may have heard of his other name, the Duca di Verdura.

  Born in Palermo, Sicily, in March of 1898, Fulco grew up at the Villa di Niscemi as the cosseted and adored son surrounded by animals that he loved and a 4,000-volume library. He started school at age eleven. Accustomed to being addressed by his titles, when the teachers called him Fulco, he often forgot to respond.

  As a young, fun-loving man in his early twenties, Fulco spent every summer in Venice, where European and American society came to play. Two of his playmates, Cole and Linda Porter, urged him to move to Paris, where he could take his artistic talents more seriously, though dukes weren’t expected to work. In 1927, he joined the world of the already successful Coco Chanel, who first popularized the look of mixing precious and fake jewelry. It was Verdura who designed many of Chanel’s iconic jewels, like her white cuffs with the Maltese cross. He sailed to America in 1934, and by 1939 he had established his shop in Manhattan. His unusual settings and designs included shells, seaho
rses, bees, swans—a nod to his love of animals and the sea. He was a pioneer in the use of multicolored stones, both gems and semiprecious all together.

  One of his biographers said of Verdura that he was “determined to downplay the glitz—flashy gems were to him like wearing ‘checks around one’s neck.’ A friend said, ‘The important point about Fulco is that … his jewelry, like him, was totally unpretentious.’ ”

  No new designs are sold at the luxe, jewel box–like Verdura salon high up in a deco office building on Fifth Avenue. Everything comes from his archives, yet everything somehow looks original, fresh, and compelling. Even the diamonds are set with wit.

  Deciding on the exact amount of jewelry that can be worn at any time is an important chore. Lots and lots of things have to be considered: Is this something you wear all the time no matter what (the friendship bracelet handmade for you by Cissy, your wedding band, your family crest pinkie ring, your good-luck horseshoe charm Daddy gave you when his filly won)? Is this something you need to wear because you’re about to see the person who gave it to you (Aunt Lucy’s pearls, the engagement ring your fiancé gave you, those hoop earrings from your best friend, the paper-clip necklace made by Byron Jr., your son)? If you have even the teensiest fear that you are overdoing it, then you probably are. Trust that impulse. Take off one thing. (A pair of earrings counts as one thing. Especially if your ears are pierced more than once.) And though we love sparkly things as much as the next magpie, gilding the lily is not refined. You can always wear your new Cathy Waterman earrings to the next session of your book club.

  On Day Diamonds.

  We are sighing here in Central Command over the dilemma about diamonds. Surely we are not alone in our concern about the sudden increase in rocks and—ahem—“boulders” over the last fifteen years. When engagement rings (or the new trend, engagement rings 2.0, 3.0, etc.—the new and enlarged diamonds that arrive with big anniversaries or birthdays) are too enormous, they become distracting. When new brides of old husbands enter the 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 iterations, it is annoying to see rings that turn out to be much larger than those of their predecessors. Not to mention in bad taste. A fine compromise is the diamond wedding band. This goes everywhere without calling too much attention to itself, a long-held preppy tenet. If you keep your diamond band clean, it will sparkle. Black diamonds, newly popular in the twenty-first century, are subtle enough for daytime as well. Wear diamond studs during the day, too … if they are under one carat each. Wear bigger ones at night if you like.

  Watchmakers now put diamonds around the bezel on all kinds of watches, even those made of steel. A leather strap is truly preppier than a metal one, but don’t tell that to the overwhelming numbers of preps who wear or rather live in their Rolexes. (Diamonds on Rolexes are less prep than diamonds on Cartier or Bedat or Pateks. You have questions; we have answers.)

  Pearls.

  These gifts of the sea are right anytime.

  It’s going to be a looong lunch hour today. Whee! It’s the first warm day of the year, and it’s torture to stay indoors when it’s delicious outside: not humid, a tiny strain of crispness in the air. Oh, just say it: It’s a great hair day, too.

  Life downtown changes when spring briefly alights. We wear fewer layers and have more energy. All the guys sit outside now to stare at girls, though they pretend they’re just getting some fresh air. They don’t fool anyone for a second, but it’s motivational, and so the heels are higher and the posture straighter.

  We should meet out here again for coffee around four. Maybe an errand or two? Doesn’t someone need something from the post office?

  And later, how about meeting at that place with the tables? You know which one? Yes, the one with green-striped umbrellas.

  See you there.

  Swing into any of the vintage shops we’ve recommended to you (see opposite), and look at the jewelry counters. By and large, costume jewelry. Hattie Carnegie, Miriam Haskell, and Kenneth Jay Lane have always been popular and collectible. Why? Because if it looks as good as the real thing and costs much less, why bother buying the real thing?

  Wear it until it tarnishes, and then you can redonate your faux jewels to the thrift shops whence they came. You might even get a tax deduction.

  Our tunic is wearing an extraordinary selection of costume jewelry. It was Coco Chanel herself who first made fakes chic, and there are some impressive copies of important jewels here. Quite a lot of David Webb, we see. We spy with our little eyes something like Barbara Bush’s pearls. Jackie Kennedy was a fan and a customer of KJL, who provided these pieces, and she remains our singular style leader to this day.

  WE JUST WANT TO GO ON RECORD: We knew about and appreciated vintage a long time ago—in fact, before it was rechristened vintage and was just plain used. We learned, through trial and error (and an embarrassing yearbook picture we’d rather not discuss anymore), that vintage Bakelite pins look great on school blazers, there’s a reason gaucho pants are obsolete and faded chamois “cowboy” jackets—if you can carry off the fringe—are fab. Herewith, a country-wide listing of great places to check out to incorporate vintage looks with your basic uniform. These shops have had their tires kicked by Ivy Baer Sherman (Friends Seminary, Barnard College), editor in chief of Vintage Magazine.

  CALIFORNIA

  Beverly Hills

  Lily et Cie. 9044 Burton Way (310) 724-5757

  Los Altos

  Repeter Consignment. 308 State St. (650) 949-1323

  Los Angeles

  America Rag. 150 S. La Brea Ave. (323) 935-3154

  Decades. 82141⁄4 Melrose Ave. (323) 655-0223

  Jet Rag. 825 N. La Brea Ave. (323) 939-0528

  Resurrection. 8006 Melrose Ave. (323) 651-5516

  San Francisco

  Jr. League Next-to-New + Consignment Boutique. 2226 Fillmore St. (415) 567-1627

  Seconds to Go. 2252 Fillmore St. (415) 563-7806

  Town School Clothes Closet. 1850 Polk St. (415) 929-8019

  CONNECTICUT

  Darien

  Double Exposure. 1090 Post Road (203) 655-8799

  Green Farms

  Roundabout Designer Consignments. 170 Post Road West, Westport (203) 227-4334

  Greenwich

  Consign Designs. 115 Mason St. (203) 869-2165

  Second Time Around. 6 Greenwich Ave. (203) 422-2808

  New Canaan

  Thrift Shop of New Canaan. 2 Locust Ave. (203) 966-2361

  Southport

  Twice Is Nice. 3519 Post Road (203) 259-7627

  DELAWARE

  Wilmington

  Rags to Riches. Centreville Square, 5801-B Kennett Pike (302) 654-5997

  FLORIDA

  Gainesville

  Junior League of Gainesville Thrift Shop. 430-A N. Main St. (352) 376-3805

  Jacksonville

  The Clothing Warehouse. 1010 Park St. (904) 356-5003

  Palm Beach

  Classic Collections. 118 North County Road (561) 833-3633

  Fiore’s Fine Men’s Wear. 116 North County Road (561) 655-9965

  GEORGIA

  Atlanta

  The Clothing Warehouse. 420 Moreland Ave. (404) 524-5070

  East Point

  The Clothing Warehouse. 2824 Church St. (404) 766-3432

  Savannah

  The Clothing Warehouse. 217 W. Broughton St. (912) 233-2034

  ILLINOIS

  Barrington

  Double Exposure Elite Resale. 706 S. Northwest Highway (847) 756-2702

  Vintage Faire. 113 S. Hough St. (847) 842-9719

  Evanston

  Classy Closet. 701 Washington St. (847) 475-0355

  INDIANA

  Carmel/Zionsville

  Goodwill. 10491 Walnut Creek Drive, Suite 100 (317) 876-0096

  LOUISIANA

  New Orleans

  Junior League of New Orleans Thrift Shop. 4645 Freret St. (504) 891-1289

  MAINE

  Portland

  Good Cause Thrift Store. 16 Forest Ave. (207) 772-49
03

  Second Time Around. 28 Exchange St. (207) 761-7037

  MARYLAND

  Baltimore

  The Wise Penny. 5902 York Road (410) 435-5521

  Gaithersburg

  Chic to Chic. 15900 Luanne Dr. (301) 926-7700

  Rockville

  The Ritz Boutique. 5014 Nicholson Lane (301) 230-2167

  Takoma Park

  Polly Sue’s Vintage Shop. 6915 Laurel Ave. (301) 270-5511

  MASSACHUSETTS

  Boston

  Second Time Around. 176 Newbury St. (617) 247-3504

  Cambridge

  Second Time Around. 8 Eliot St. (617) 491-7185

  Marblehead

  Rags to Riches. 41 Atlantic Ave. (781) 631-3379

  Nantucket

  Consignment Shop. 62 Old South Road (508) 228-1408

  MICHIGAN

  Bloomfield Hills

  Treasure Trunk of Birmingham. 33277 Woodward Ave. (248) 645-5465

  Grosse Pointe

  Neighborhood Club Thrift Shop. 17150 Waterloo St. (313) 885-0773

  NEW JERSEY

  Princeton

  Nearly New. 234 Nassau St. (609) 924-5720

  Summit

  Junior League of Summit Thrift Shop. 37 DeForest Ave. (908) 273-7349

  NEW YORK

  Brooklyn

  Odd Twin. 164 5th Ave., Park Slope (718) 633-8946

  Beacon’s Closet. 88 N. 11th St., Williamsburg (718) 486-0816