A reader question:
I have been enjoying the roundtables quite a bit, and I have one for you and the community, if you think it is appropriate. I remember not too long ago when people were identifying their style as "trad," short for traditional, but I don't see it used by people to describe themselves as much anymore. Of course, it could easily be going strong and I am just missing it. Maybe people on SWNE have a better perspective on where trad is today than I do.
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One of the key tenets of trad was to never look like you were in costume. The look was meant to be traditional but not stand out as odd. With the complete abandonment of the suit that came with Covid that is no longer possible.
ReplyDeleteI could never pin down trad or preppy, or maybe I just found those notions off putting. Ivy was easy. I like the insight of Anonymous at 9:27 AM.
ReplyDeleteYou could never pin down preppy? And you are a reader of this blog?
Delete@Sartresky, I was very amused by your comment. I'm from accross the pond but being a regular reader of this blog I think even I could pin down "preppy" !
DeleteI think the term "trad" is an internet term from recent years. For most of my life, how I dressed was how many people online came to call trad - an OCBD shirt, khakis, boat shoes, penny loafers, desert boots, wool crew neck sweater in colder months, polo, seersucker, and linen shirts and khaki shorts in warmer months along with some sort of, what we used to call, 'sneakers' and/or tennis shoes. It is, I believe, a style strongly related to the northeast and older, established families from that region and, perhaps, even more associated with the Ivy League colleges of the 40's-60's (and later for students from older families).
ReplyDeleteJust my thoughts.
When suits were common (in my earlier years), the sack suit, blue blazers, and tweed jackets were the business wear that people like me wore in my small financial world (California in the 70's and 80's). I still mostly wear the same casual wear but have added jeans to my pants wardrobe, along with khaki and olive drab outdoorsy shirts, a few houndstooth flannel and solid cotton chamois shirts. Those are sort of an outdoorsy Idaho thing in some circles. "Trad"? Who knows or cares anymore? Based on how much of America dresses now, any of us wearing any of the style of clothing I mentioned are certainly traditional compared to most!
The description you offered in your first paragraph is what we (my family) just called "what you wear"! We might have stretched it to the descriptive phrase of "old school" if pressed. But I don't remember any of us referring to how we dressed as any specific kind of style. As kids, because we wore uniforms to school, we had "school clothes" and "clothes" unless referring to specific sports gear. (Keep it simple.)
DeleteWhat Anon 8:41 says matches my experience, which dates from the Fifties through the Sixties, although it was changing rapidly by the end of that period.
DeleteDo I care much about the changes? Not really. Others are going to do whatever they wish to and I'm no style cop. For me, I've settled on a slightly less formal style of dress for everyday wear than would have been acceptible to my father's generation. So it goes.
I suppose it's worth mentioning that most actual preppies and trads would run a mile from referring to themselves as either of those to things.
ReplyDeleteMhm ... agreed. Dissecting the elements of a certain "ilk" tends to become cringeworthy as well as self-incriminating.
DeleteI don't agree. During the late '70s/early '80s many preppies reveled in that designation and dressed accordingly.
DeleteWhat a silly thing to say.
DeleteTell that to Ali McGraw in "Love Story" ;o)
DeleteAgreed. The term itself implies more than a bit of cosplay.
ReplyDeleteAnd why I ask, are you here? Are you trolling?
DeleteI’m here and have been here for over a decade. I grew up in a world where this was all there was. It was just life. And I don’t find it much at all now. I find it extremely enjoyable to see the clothes and lifestyle (parts of it)that I knew my entire life.
DeleteI’m the seventh generation in my family to graduate from a New England prep school (Andover /Groton ) and to have gone to either a small New England college ( Colby/ Williams )or an Ivy.
@Anon 3:54 - as you likely know (and hopefully don't care), there are so many like you who visit this site for similar reasons. The question about whether you're here to troll, presumably because they disagree, strikes me as irrelevant and odd. For my part, I'm going to continue to enjoy the images and dialogue that are 99% of the exchanges on this wonderful place of respite.
DeleteMy understanding is that it's East coast WASP with a nod to the 1950s. The idea, I think, is to look slightly out of step with the times but pretend you don't notice that you're out of step.
ReplyDeleteThis is easy.
ReplyDeleteThe term “Trad” has just been replaced by the word “Slob.” Let me explain.
This downward collapse in taste started back in the 1970s with the appearance of the abominable (and hilarious) “Leisure Suit.” And then the later institution of “Casual Fridays” put the nail in Trad’s coffin. Today seeing a well-dressed person (Trad) is so rare as to be freakish. People simply don’t describe themselves as Trad anymore because they aren’t. Most have lost the artform over time. And, unfortunately, the majority of the present populace have eagerly joined the ranks of the new sartorial Slobdom (see Dress, Don’t know how, or care to).
I should make a distinction here between the “Traditional” Slobs, and the Neo-slobs. The former always dressed poorly even when doing so was out of vogue. This was mainly due to a lack of funds, either that or coming from an environment where everyone else dressed as badly as you (hence “trad” to them). Contrary to this, the Neo-slobs - which are so ubiquitous today - go out of their way to intentionally flaunt proper dress. They know better, but have rejected the attractive-looking Trad way. For example, you see Neo-slob billionaires disguising themselves as fake homeless people in their shabby Goodwill outfits. (This probably has something to do with the Alice-in-Wonderland notion of equity and equality where everyone is really the same (even when clearly, they are not).
Anyway, I think the word “Trad” is now an anachronism belonging to a much better time and place that no longer exists. A tragic shame.
Amazing summary lol The tech billionaires who wear amazon basics really drove a nail in the trad coffin.
DeleteWhat must it be like living in a mind that is so judgmental ?
DeleteI personally dress up more than almost everyone I know in my life. I do not judge those don’t.
Someone identified above as judgmental might when, it comes to dress, perhaps is simply observational. T-shirts cargo pants crocs tattoos…
DeleteAlas the horse left the barn a while ago.
Anonymous at 4:14 PM:
DeleteBut aren't you in fact judging me for being judgmental? Interesting ... kind of like a contradictory Zen Koan, don't you think?
If the "tech billionaires" wear amazon basics, does it mean we all should?
DeleteAmazon basics are perhaps good enough when walking the dog in the neighbourhood.
Agreed. People who judge others as judgmental are judgmental. They are also clueless.
DeletePerhaps people who say that others are judgmental are simply saying that those so-called judgmental people think that what they like is better than everything else. Whether it be clothing or morals or ways of living.
DeleteThe definition of these styles have evolved, but here is where I think they currently are. Ivy is O'Connells and J Press. Preppy is Ralph. Trad is the Andover Shop.
ReplyDeleteWorkplaces have become more casual on a day-to-day basis, but complete abandonment of suits? Amazon Basics in the workplace on a regular basis? That hasn't been my experience at all. Large banks, law firms, consulting firms haven't changed as much as people apparently think, and in significant meetings, most managers in big tech (except for the digital plantation owner who may not care) don't look like they just rolled in off the golf course.
ReplyDeleteIn all honesty ... for me Trad(d) is only one thing: a beautiful and chic street in Charleston and home to my Huguenot kinfolk ... and a stone's throw from the St. Cecilia's Ball.
ReplyDeleteAndover Shop.
ReplyDeleteClothing reflects the values of the people of their time. New England lifestyle was defined by people who valued common sense, practicality. The New England Heritage was reflected in the education of Private Schools and selected Universities and the clothes worn by the students. The practical and respectful clothing preceding the 1970's has been replaced by plastic, poorly designed creations reflecting the adrift generations of past fifty years.
ReplyDeleteTo say that a way of living or thinking or dressing or acting is acceptable or not acceptable that in itself is a judgment. And to simply point out that it is a judgment is in no way judging the Who has made those judgments? We all have tastes in every aspect of life. But, to say that those are acceptable or not easy in itself judgment. There’s no way around that. We all have a right to judge. My hats off to those who don’t.
ReplyDeleteUnless it is done in humor, would we say that to judge others as inferior in anyway is a Preppy trait ?
Delete"Judge Not lest Ye be Judged."
Delete---- The Gospel according to St. Robert
Here's my take. We can distinguish three things.
ReplyDelete1) The Thing Before Preppy (TTBP)
For those of us born in Muffy-country in days gone by, there was just "what you wore," as others said above. It was basically the same for everyone, lasting from about the 1940s to the 1990s. It was a slightly more formal version of what we see on this blog, although the women's clothes were more identifiably feminine. For women, dresses from Triminghams, Smith's, the Bermuda Shop, and maybe Lily Pulitzer in the summer. Wool skirts and trousers, floral blouses, and twin sets in the winter. Maybe a fisherman's sweater on the weekend. Formal dresses and understated jewels as needed.
For men, suits from Press and Brooks Brothers during the week, and on the weekend OCBDs, khakis, shetland sweaters, and polished leather lace-ups in the winter, and polo shirts, cotton trousers or shorts, and boat shoes in the summer. There were endless varieties, regional variations, and eccentricities, but that was basically it: one male and one female wardrobe that covered everyone from 5 to 95 years old from roughly 1940 to 2000.
2) Preppy
Preppy must not be confused with TTBP. Preppy is the commercialized and somewhat vulgarized self-conscious representation of the TTBP. It came to prominence in the 1980s and was a deliberate attempt to emulate the clothing and lifestyle of TTBP. But it was rather selective. Preppies might wear pink and green, for example, but they would not wear the same clothes for decades and forgo air conditioning as did people from the world of TTBP. Preppy meant adopting a style, whereas TTBP was not a style or even a lifestyle. It was just life. Preppy could never be TTBP, and TTBP could never be Preppy (in this sense), because TTBP did not see itself as a style. Preppy people dressed as they did to be noticed by others. TTBP people dressed as they did so that their clothes would hardly be noticed at all.
3) Trad
Trad was something different entirely. Trad was one facet of the widespread desire among Millennials from, say, 2005 to 2020 to connect to things that seemed traditional, hand-made, authentic, durable, and honest. Some Millennials began brewing boutique beer or coffee, others made hand-crafted bicycles, others took up knitting, embroidery, or quilting, and still others sought out and sometimes produced traditional, quality clothing. Much of this overlapped with TTBP but not fully because many Trads also wore traditional workwear like denim and heavy boots. Whereas Preppy was a style, Trad was a philosophy (or perhaps a pseudo-philosophy, depending on your perspective).
Unless you are (like me) over 45 and you lived through it, I think it's almost impossible in 2024 to imagine a social world in which everyone dressed well without thinking much about it, and didn't think of themselves as having a style, much less a lifestyle. But it happened. I was there. :)
In any case, I think all three [TTBP, Preppy, and Trad] are dead or dying. I returned from a very nice New England supermarket just before writing this. Out of the 50 or so men I saw, three had shirts with collars, and only one of those three had his shirt tucked in. Instead, there were oceans of t-shirts and tank tops, cargo shorts, crocs and flip flops, and visible tattoos. I don't feel judgy toward anyone. But, as an American male, I often ask myself what has become of us. If dressing well is a form of good manners, and good manners are necessary for society to function, how can we allow ourselves to continue on this way?
Your comment is interesting as the UK followed a similar pattern (although we didn't have terms like "preppy"). Your last paragraph really struck a chord as it would be similar here, not only in supermarkets but restaurants too. We recently had lunch in one of our favourite supposedly upmarket country hotels and I was the only person in a jacket and tie, in fact I was the only male not wearing shorts and casual footwear. There was an abundance of t-shirts and tattoos (fashion now seems to be about mobile phones and tattoos). Did I feel uncomfortable? No, I was brought up with the mantra that you can never be overdressed and I'm more than comfortable if I'm the best dressed person in the room, which I usually am. I enjoy nice clothes and dressing well, it gives me great pleasure. I really don't care how other people dress, life has moved on and I'm clearly a dinosaur, but I'm happy in my own skin.
DeletePreppies were the offspring of the generations comprising TTBP, so to say "Preppy must not be confused with TTBP" is in error.
DeletePreppy as a style or fashion did indeed become vulgarized and commercialized but it didn't spring from nowhere: This was the garb that was being worn proudly and yes, at times self-consciously by the children of TTBP. As I've observed elsewhere, in the late '70s many preppies started to identify as such and wear clothing that would unambiguously send that signal. Sorry if that challenges the myth of the insouciant and unselfconscious WASP who just "wore what he wore" but it is the truth. I think the people you are describing in #2 are what Nelson Aldrich in his 1979 essay called "Archies."
At 45 years of age you were there ? I think not
DeleteIn fairness he does say he's over 45 which could be any age
DeleteYes true I read it incorrectly.
DeleteCORRECTION: Should be "happy in my own un-tattooed skin."
ReplyDeleteHa ha! Yes you are correct, perish the thought!
Delete