True Prep
Page 14
Housing Works. 122 Montague St., Brooklyn Heights (718) 237-0521
Long Island
Junior League of Long Island Thrift Shop. 1395 Old Northern Blvd., Roslyn (516) 484-0485
Manhattan
Amarcord. 252 Lafayette St. (212) 431-4161
Edith Machinest. 104 Rivington St. (212) 979-9992
Ellen. 122 Ludlow St. (212) 471-0080
Encore. 1132 Madison Ave. (212) 879-2850
The Family Jewels. 130 W. 23rd St. (212) 633-6020
Housing Works. 130 Crosby St. (646) 786-1200
Housing Works. 245 West 10th St. (212) 352-1618
Housing Works. 306 Columbus Ave. (212) 579-7566
Housing Works. 143 West 17th St. (718) 838-5050
Ina Men. 262 Mott St. (212) 334-2210
Laurel Canyon Vintage. 63 Thompson St. (212) 343-1658
Michael’s. 1041 Madison Ave. (212) 737-7273
Patina. 451 Broome St. (212) 625-3375
What Comes Around Goes Around. 351 West Broadway (212) 343-9303
And Do Make Note: Lighthouse International, formerly known as the Lighthouse for the Blind, sponsors what fashion insiders consider the ultimate sample sale, called the POSH sale, now in its thirty-seventh year. Held over four days in New York every spring, POSH sells both new and “almost new” high-fashion clothing and accessories at about 80 percent off. Fancy people shop there by going to the preview sale, tickets for which sell for $175. Otherwise, admission is $10 per day. (The part of socialite Nan Kempner’s wardrobe that didn’t go to the Fashion Institute of the Metropolitan Museum is rumored to have ended up at a POSH sale.) POSH Palm Beach has happened every February since 2007.
NORTH CAROLINA
Chapel Hill
The Clothing Warehouse. 109 E. Franklin St. #101 (919) 933-9926
OHIO
Columbus
One More Time. 1521 W. Fifth Ave. (614) 486-0031
OREGON
Portland
My Girlfriend’s Closet. 4443 NE Fremont St. (503) 281-4459
PENNSYLVANIA
Ardmore
Junior League of Philadelphia Thrift Shop. 25 W. Lancaster Ave. (610) 896-8828
RHODE ISLAND
Newport
Closet Revival. 30 Broadway (401) 845-0592
SOUTH CAROLINA
Charleston
Butterfly Consignments. 482 King St. (843) 577-8404
Greenville
The Clothing Warehouse. 123 N. Main St. (864) 467-1238
TENNESSEE
Memphis
Junior League of Memphis Thrift Shop. 3586 Summer Ave. (901) 327-4777
VIRGINIA
Falls Church
Unique Thrift Store. 2950 Gallows Road (703) 992-6560
Reston
Vogue to Vintage. 11414 Washington Plaza W. (703) 787-5700
WASHINGTON
Bellevue
Your Sister’s Closet. 11810 NE Eighth St. (425) 223-2100
Seattle
Alexandra’s Designer Consignment Boutique. 412 Olive Way (206) 623-1214
Crossroads Trading Company. 325 Broadway Ave. East (206) 328-5867
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Georgetown
Annie Cream Cheese. 3279 M St. NW (202) 298-5555
Second Time Around. 3289 M St. NW (202) 333-2355
Secondhand Rose of Georgetown. 1516 Wisconsin Ave. NW (202) 337-3378
Who designed the trench coat? No one is quite sure whether it was Mr. Burberry or Mr. Aquascutum (actually, John Emary). Both invented water-repellent materials: Burberry named his gabardine; Emary’s was a “shower-proof” wool, and he renamed his tailor shop Aquascutum, Latin for “watershield.” This much is certain: The jacket Burberry designed for soldiers in the Boer War in South Africa at the very end of the 1800s was nicknamed a “Burberry.” By World War One, they were quite the thing. Mr. Burberry’s first trench coats were made for British officers, when wool serge was unavailable. The coats were not required uniform, but were so durable in the trenches that officers would pay for them out of their own pockets. Between 1914 and 1918, perhaps half a million Burberrys were worn by officers. Aqua-scutum outfitted World War One as well. By 1918, Harper’s Bazaar was recommending them for stylish women. Given their English provenance and their unisex, sturdy appeal, preppies claim the trench as our own. The D-rings, loops, and funny flaps (originally for map holders, grenades, and water bottles) only add to their preppiness. Now, of course, everyone makes a trench, at all prices and in all kinds of fabrics. There’s a trench coat for everyone.
It’s French, chic, and CRAZEEE expensive. But it’s also understated. It’s Hermès, and this time around, it must be recognized for its longstanding attraction to preppies around the world. We don’t love it for the prices or for its snob appeal. Men love the ties because within the tightly designed patterns are whimsical animals. And the leather pieces—especially the wallets, agendas, and little this-and-thats—come in every possible color you can imagine.
Hawkins cannot decide on what today’s investment will be: Happily, it will come in its well-constructed thick orange box, which she will reuse for lost buttons. Should it be a scarf? She already has half a dozen. The wallet is great. Maybe a clutch? Maybe another tie for Tommy? He has quite the collection, but he goes weak for little monkeys.
Proust had his madeleine. Kane had Rosebud. Jessica Mindich has her Kingswood Oxford School (West Hartford, Connecticut) class ring. “With the fleeting nature of memories, I look at my jewelry box as a place for my souvenirs: my class ring, my sorority pin, my grandmother’s pearls.” And she saw that the high-school kids in her neighborhood weren’t wearing their school rings. Too expensive.
Now Jessica makes silver or enamel charms of school crests and shields, and she threads them onto cotton cords. She sells them wholesale to private schools (often through the parents) and colleges. The institutions then sell them for whatever price they like to raise money for a cause. That’s why her company is named Jewelry for a Cause.
A young man from Northern California named Taylor Llewellyn was raised by easterners outside of Oakland. They urged him to go east for college. He chose Colgate, a hotbed of cool preppies, and like everyone else there, he “had a blast.” Properly indoctrinated, he was engaged in private equity in Washington, D.C.
But Llewellyn had a dream: to bring “hand-stitched needlepoint belts that wouldn’t break the bank” to people all across America. It was a specific dream, to be sure. In October 2007 he quit his job and went to China, armed with the four needlepoint belts in his closet. One day, while walking to a trade fair in Guangzhou, eating a dumpling from a street vendor, Llewellyn thought, “I’m either great, or I’ve lost it. What the hell am I doing?”
As he met manufacturers, he whipped the belt off his waist and snipped it into ten segments, to give to ten “sourcing” companies. “They replicated them perfectly.” Was he worried that this wouldn’t work, and he’d be out some money and his cherished belt?
“The risk of not doing it was worse than the fear of it failing.”
Cut to spring 2010. Llewellyn’s company, Tucker Blair (family names, both), is turning a profit on “hand-stitched needlepoint belts” and flip-flops, headbands, key fobs, and dog collars “that don’t break the bank.” They are sold on his Web site, through sales reps at college campuses, and at Sperry stores. The young man from California is twenty-eight.
So many loafers, so little time. And just when you think you’ve seen (and bought) the ne plus ultra of slip-on footwear, a new variation on a theme comes out that you need. Here are a few we like. There are plenty of others scattered about in the book for the observant among you.
Women’s loafers started out as smaller, narrower versions of men’s shoes. Now some come in unusual materials and even with heels and pointed toes. They are a so-called “sensible shoe” but with a dash of sex appeal.
Anderson Flatto has it all: a degree from Trinity College, several trips to Europe under his belt (inc
luding a junior semester abroad; don’t ask), and a 2008 Audi A4 Cabriolet convertible. Andy’s got nice parents, a decent sister, and signing privileges at his parents’ club. But what he has—really has—is the wardrobe. This is our idea of having it all: the perfect clothes for every occasion, from the car wash to Pammy’s debutante ball.
Spring or fall, Anderson’s ready for action in his per- fect, unchangeable ensemble. Whether he’s twenty-two or eighty-two, he will look just right: a little stodgy in his youth, and quite boyish in his dotage.
SPRING: Topping the look is his bottle-green oiled-cloth Beaufort jacket from Barbour. It’s hovering nicely over a Henri Lloyd vest and a classic button-down oxford cloth shirt from Brooks Brothers. A CK Bradley embroidered belt holds up Flatto’s wide-wale red cords, embroidered with whales from J. McLaughlin. Sperry Top-Siders complete the look. As always, he’s wearing his Taft school ring and the Rolex he got for graduation from Trinity. (Don’t mind telling you, it was touch-and-go for a while.)
FALL: Whether it’s Homecoming weekend or any other weekend, Andy’s classic Brooks Brothers duffel coat is the perfect casual topper. He can wear this one for the next twenty years. (He probably will not, he’s not a slave to fashion.) While looking for Reed and Jasper in the tailgating area, Andy wears his Norwegian sweater from L.L.Bean with panache. Corduroy trousers with fox heads (J. McLaughlin) scream fall, and his Wellies by Hunter are smart for the mud. (Flatto’s carrying his overnight bag made of an old sail—Re-Sails—in case he has to blow his particular Popsicle stand a night early.)
Tom Davis, at Your Service.
When Tom Davis was a teenager, he was a member of the Merchandise Club at the High School of Commerce on the West Side of Manhattan. Drafted after graduation, he got out of his Georgia MASH unit in 1967. Upon discovering that the president of the Merchandise Club had become an assistant buyer at Brooks Brothers, Tom called him, and he got an appointment with the head of personnel on a Thursday.
“She said, ‘Would you like to start today?’ but I didn’t think I was so well dressed, so I asked her if I could start on Monday.” He pauses. “I came to Brooks Brothers on November 27, 1967, a Monday.” By 1976 Davis had been promoted to the main floor, where he stayed until 2009, when the made-to-measure shirts—his area of specialty since the ’90s—moved back up to five. He still works there full-time.
In those years, Tom sold shirts to David Rockefeller, Richard Widmark, William F. Buckley Jr., and his brother Senator James Buckley. As a child, John-John Kennedy would come in with his Aunt Lee Radziwill. It is well known that Gianni Agnelli bought his shirts from Brooks Brothers in New York, but it was said that he wore his shirts once and then disposed of them. Davis set the record straight. “Mr. Agnelli was a practical man. He didn’t wear them once, but he didn’t like to travel with luggage, so he’d order many shirts at a time to send to his various houses. He’d buy two dozen or more at a time, only in white, beige, and blue.” How did he customize them? “He didn’t. He bought them right off the table. Pima oxford cloth button-down shirts. No monograms. Never.”
Davis is particular about what he wears, but he denies being a clotheshorse. “I don’t have closets full of clothes. I buy out of need, and the clothes last. The last suit I bought was in 1993. The store would lose money on me,” he says, grinning.
Thom Browne, Tweaking Tradition.
Thom Browne, the fourth of seven children raised in Allentown, Pennsylvania, by two lawyers, grew up wearing hand-me-downs, mostly from Brooks Brothers and L.L.Bean. He didn’t lead a life in which fashion was the predictable outcome. After studying business at Notre Dame, he had no idea what to do. It was while pursuing acting in Los Angeles that he began buying himself suits at vintage shops and cutting them down to a shrunken (almost Pee Wee Herman–esque silhouette) size: trousers are 38 inches long from the top of the waistband, and the hem falls 2 inches above the top of his shoe; jackets nip in at the waist and fall to the tops of his hips. “I wanted it to look cool.”
In 2002, when Browne started dressing his way, the L.A. dress code was jeans and T-shirts, on everyone. “Suits weren’t done. They connoted old men.”
A stint as a designer of menswear for Club Monaco was short-lived, as Browne’s ideas did not sell. As he continued to refit old suits for himself, Browne met Rocco, his old-fashioned Italian-trained tailor. “I learned everything from him.” The pair designed a few samples, which they showed to the men’s store of Bergdorf Goodman. Bergdorf scooped up the whole line, as did the legendary Paris store, Colette.
When Browne was a runner-up for the CFDA Fund awards in 2006, Anna Wintour asked him what he’d be interested in doing besides designing his own “fashion-forward” line. “I thought to do a collection for Brooks Brothers—where I had grown up—would be cool. It’s the iconic American brand.” Wintour made the connection, and Black Fleece, the men’s and women’s lines created by Thom Browne exclusively for “B Squared,” was created.
Browne’s signature is “taking classics and making them provocative,” a favorite word. Browne himself wears only his Thom Browne– brand suits. He wears no jeans, and only wingtips, sockless until the weather gets cold.
And Black Fleece? It’s somewhere in between what Brooks Brothers has always done and what Browne does for his own line. Luxurious fabrics, quirky details, and something that pushes it over the edge. Don’t wear it if you don’t want to be noticed.
Preppies realize society’s need for enterprise. They go to college with the idea of a career—or should we say, their parents’ idea of a career—planted firmly in their minds. This is why so many of them attend law school. They also understand their need for income. One gets a bad reputation if derelict with one’s club dues. As the twenty-first century unfurls, herewith a vital list of jobs that are prep-proof, others that are defunct, and some that will always help preppies maintain their rightful positions in their world.
Alumni Director. For the good of your school.
Development Officer. Ditto.
Dog Walker Entrepreneur. Accommodates Lake Forest, Rollins, and drop-outs.
Party Planner/Publicist. The perfect job for girls who won’t be working after they get engaged.
Nursery-School Assistant Teacher. But not over the age of thirty.
Contributing Editor, Vogue. Consuela’s mother works for Anna.
Senator. For policy wonks.
Entrepreneur (Serial). One day, one of your ideas will take off.
Ne’er-do-well. Uncle Tony.
Caterer. Use Mummy’s recipe for chicken pot pies as your signature.
Decorator. Who doesn’t love chintz?
Residential Real-Estate Broker. Sell Bradford a lovely house; marry Bradford and decorate your new house.
Golf Pro. Self-evident.
Art Restorer. Very good for part-time artists.
Divorcée. ’Nuff said.
Anchorman or -Woman. Remember to remove your makeup when you meet friends after work for drinks.
Curator. Requires many trips to Europe.
Au Pair. How Princess Diana got her start.
President. Good perks; bad hours.
Vineyard Owner. Ultimate career move.
Tennis Pro. Will keep you fit through your thirties and forties.
CIA Operative. Yalies, in particular.
Decorative Painter. Learn how to make anything faux bois.
Ski Bum. Self-evident.
FORMER CAREERS WE WON’T BE SEEING AGAIN SOON.
Assistant Editor. It’s called the Recession, Greer.
Media Escort. No more book tours; therefore, no more escorts.
Fund-raising. Should rebound by 2015.
Investment Banker Trainee. Might rebound by 2020.
Travel Agent. Expedia.
PREPS NEED NOT APPLY.
Doctor. Presumes caring about strangers; exception: orthopedic surgeon (see).
Research Doctor. Atrophies your God-given social skills.
Computer Scientist. No.
>
CPA. Really no.
Missionary. See “Doctor.”
Sex Worker. See “when pigs fly.”
Any job requiring the question “Any fries with that?” Only at the club during the summer before junior year. Of high school.
Governor. Possibility of sex scandal too great.
Engineer. Choo-choo or the other kind.
Fact-checker. Facts, shmacts.
Manny. NOKD.
Meteorologist. Too science-y.
1. To wet bar.
2. Wooden tennis racquet belonging to an American player during the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Really.
3. Cute flat-screen TV. Keeps it on CNBC, mostly.
4. Daddy’s desk chair is on wheels so he can swivel when he gets bored.
5. Daddy’s collection of hats he bought in former Eastern European Socialist countries.
6. Nice chintz fabric that Mummy had left over from the breakfast-room banquette.
7. Daddy. He’s talking to his Italian tailor, ordering his bespoke bathrobe. (Hand gesture gives that away.)
8. Daddy’s desk: reproduction period English desk from Mill House in Connecticut.
9. In & Out Box, purchased at Bentleys in London. Probably came from a clerk’s (pronounced “clark’s”) office, “not landed gentry desk material.” Until now.
10. 1948 Ford Woody wagon. Gift. Almost as cool as Daddy’s real-life 1940 vintage Woody.
11. Model of a late-1930s Pan Am Clipper.