The Last Great Preppy Revival

Until the next one...

My great weakness is Japanese menswear magazines. They cost anywhere from 30 to 60 bucks a pop in the States, and I am more than willing to hand over the cash to buy something I can’t even read. Part of it is because everything in the mags looks so great—from the photos to the layout—that I find myself inspired after just looking through one or two times, the way I once did when I picked up old glossy mags in America. And the whole “the way I once did” thing is the other reason I’ll gladly pay too much money for a magazine: I love the experience.

Usually, it’s an experience I can always wait for. If I pop into one of my favorite places like Casa in the West Village and they have an issue of Popeye or Free & Easy that I don’t have in my collection, then I’ll pick it up. It’s a high-priced, but low-stakes obsession. But when I saw that 2nd magazine’s August issue was called the “New Preppy Handbook,” with a madras frame that recalled the original, satirical Preppy Handbook from 1980, I went to great lengths to get a copy ASAP.

Flipping through the issue, I had two thoughts that I couldn’t help shake. The first was how tired I’d been watching the whole latest preppy moment. I was born the year The Official Preppy Handbook came out, so right in the middle of the first real preppy “moment.” I’m fascinated with that time, specifically how at the same time American prep—a look, and lifestyle that came out of old-money, W.A.S.P., Ivy League that, at the time, was still sort of mysterious and guarded—was having its moment, you also had this fascination with British upper crust style that had Manhattan department stores dressing mannequins like they were in Chariots of Fire and ready-to-wear looked to the 1981 Brideshead Revisited mini-series for inspiration. Powerful but classy was what people were going for then, but about 25 years later, the next prep wave was more folded into what we like to call the #menswear era of the aughts and early 2010s, of Ralph Lauren’s Rugby line and Andy Spade decorating J. Crew stores.

These days, I don’t know exactly what it is besides a bunch of people saying “Prep is back!” But I did notice early on that a lot of the stuffiness and cosplay of the preceding eras had been taken out, so that’s good. Now, it’s mixed with streetwear and ‘90s retro, and a bunch of other stuff, and that’s great. The “New Preppy Handbook” takes all of that into account.

But what I couldn’t get past as I flipped through the mag a few times was how no matter what flourishes are thrown in, it’s all still old. And I mean that in the best way possible, especially since if there’s one way to describe how I dress, I’d just show you a copy of 2nd and tell you “Sort of like this, I suppose.” Lots of dad hats, canvas sneakers (I’m especially jealous of the pair of Madras Sperrys Hiroyuki Yagisawa of Cassidy bought in NYC in the 1980s), rugby shirts, and blazers.

I’m not saying anything new when I say that if there is a Magna Carta for how the preppy style looks, it’s the 1965 Japanese book Take Ivy. That’s really the main reason I took a “New Preppy Handbook” by a Japanese magazine like 2nd seriously. As W. David Marx outlined in his book Ametora, the Japanese have been carrying and perfecting the style since America got over it the first time around. And what I love about this 2023 take on a look that was around for a few decades even before the satirical Preppy Handbook from 1980 came out is that it proves in some small way that the preppy keeps coming back because it’s classic, and there’s something comforting about classics.

Maybe people you classified as preppies when you were younger were assholes, so the mere mention of the term makes you want to punch a wall, but the thing that is noticeable throughout all of the issue of 2nd is that this has always been a look that sits in the middle of a triangle with stylish, casual, and dirtbaggy at the points. I wrote a little about the birth of what I called “Dirtbag Prep” a few years back at GQ, but this issue of 2nd really shows a much bigger picture. It’s a Japanese magazine, but it is focused on a very American type of style. It might not be American anymore, but the things that get added to it every few years almost always tend to be, which is why it makes sense that Jack Carlson of Rowing Blazers gets so much page space and Brendon Babenzien (founder of Noah, now creative director at J. Crew) adds a lot with his mix of preppy looks and skateboarding past. I get the feeling that 10 or 15 years from now when there’s another “prep revival,” kids are going to look more like him, with his vintage CB jacket, heavy denim jeans, sockless loafers, and his sunglasses hanging around his neck. He’s got a little of every era in there, and I assume that’s how the evolution will keep going, that the “Chip and Muffy” country club vibe will be forgotten and the prep thing, whatever it is, will be more like this current iteration that 2nd has documented so well.