A reader question:
Muffy,
Did you see this Vanity Fair article on Smathers & Branson needlepoint-belts and the modern frat-bro uniform? (https://www.vanityfair.com/style/story/needlepoint-belts-frat-golf-rush-week). I wonder what your readers thought about needlepoint-belts and "Frat-Coded" clothes?
From the article:
Smathers & Branson, a maker of needlepoint belts and accessories, [was] founded in 2004 by a pair of Bowdoin College students who were both gifted belts by then girlfriends... “I had sailboats, kind of a coastal Maine scene,” Peter Carter adds....
Link:
- Smathers & Branson <https://www.smathersandbranson.com/>
It’s a slippery slope these needlepoint belts. Yes, there are some who wear these belts who are New England wasp/prep. However, it can quickly end dangerously and become southern bastardized something or another.
ReplyDeleteGiven the popularity of needlepoint belts in the South, it's a little bit precious to fret too much, in 2025, whether the wearer is "New England wasp/prep" or not, or if the belts are now "southern bastardized something or another." The prep school demographics are now wildly international, and overly self-conscious "preppiness" these days is like a photocopy of a photocopy.
ReplyDeletePoppycock
DeleteYes, but anyone can attend a prep school whether they are New England wasp, “2025 “ prep or the aforementioned bastardized prep of the south.
DeleteI can wear clerical clothing, and that does not make me a minister.
DeleteBut it can make people believe you are a minister, and isn't that sometimes the point?
DeleteTo be a fake ?
DeleteWe wonder what Ron McKernan might have thought of the Smathers and Branson dancing bear offerings.
DeleteRemember Tucker Blair needlepoint accessories?
ReplyDelete