St. Grottlesex Style
“Preppy,” that unique blend of outrageous colors, extravagant patterns and sometimes bizarre details, stands beside Cowboy of the US West, the jazzy Zoot Suit of the Harlem Renaissance, 1980’s Seattle-spawned Grunge, and others, as icons of their ages, truly American fashion phenomena. “St. Grottlesex,” a term coined to describe the youthful demographic of this pure-bred, Mayflower-borne social set, was an amalgam of the names of the most elite of these private secondary schools, Saint Paul’s, Grotin, Middlesex.
It is said that the style these young men affected, jackets with small shoulders but an easy fit through the body, narrow neckties, slim-fitting, pleatless pants worn above-the-ankle short, was derived from the influence of British swells. But there is no real historical evidence to support this. My father arrived at Princeton in the mid-1930’s and, according to him, the guys from the New England schools were dressed in this unusual way; to him it was a sui generis, a style like no other, unto itself, signifying the wearer’s membership in America’s unspoken upper class. Over the next thirty years the purity of the look and the exclusivity of its adherents became diluted, until it reached a near self-parody in the manner of The Preppy Handbook, a best seller with the same mysterious popularity as things like The Pet Rock.
Although its appeal was at first limited to a very well-heeled, insular audience, in fashion terms preppy was a rumbling, a tectonic shift that signaled an impending earthquake. In the next decade we went from Eisenhower-age grey uniformity, through the pink-and-green embroidered phase, all the way to flamboyant-designer and, ultimately, drug-induced psychedelia: from the grey flannel suit to bell bottoms and magenta velvet, skin-tight jackets, to sunburst tie-dyes and beaded necklaces. By 1970 no one knew what was going to happen next in men’s wear, and the masculine mystique of guys like Harry Truman and Jack Kennedy was just a memory. Preppy broke the ice.
The Preppy craze became widespread in the late 50’s, like the Hula Hoop for the Chip and Trey set. My father told me he wondered how long it was going to last. He was in the vanguard. Storekeepers would ask, “Do you think people will be buying these dinky-shouldered coats two years from now?” Gant was part of it, as were Corbin slacks, Southwick’s suits, Reis of New Haven ties, Canterbury belts, Bass Weejuns, and a bunch of other stuff now lost in the attic of memory.
Some of these companies took incredible chances with color and pattern. One, GT Trousers, they were called, a Boston firm, made a killing in preppy pants. They had a huge range of colorful corduroys and velvets with pheasants, geese, foxes, hounds and all manner of Anglo-Saxon iconography embroidered on. Scottish knitters like Druhmohr and Ballantyne showed Shetland and slack-knit cashmere sweaters in colors from Ashleigh Apricot to Wallingford Wisteria. Pink and yellow oxford shirts gained widespread acceptance. Madras was everywhere.
It was a revolution in fit, as well. The fifties look was characterized by big, easy-fitting, wide-shouldered jackets, and details like pleated pants. Think of cultural icons like Ward Cleaver, Beaver’s father; or Perry Como. The natural shoulder, Ivy League look was spare, lean. No pleats, no shoulder pads, tight trouser legs. Everything got small. Corbin advertised “Natural Shoulder Pants;” a clever way to describe the look.
There was a store near where we lived called Mark, Fore and Strike that sold all this stuff. The place was blinding, brighter inside than it was outside, even on a sunny day. I bought a madras poncho that you pulled over your head. It had a hood and a sort of marsupial pouch in front instead of pockets. I was about thirteen, and maybe for that reason alone I was immediately embarrassed; I maybe wore the thing three times. It was the exact opposite of my white Levi’s experience. It was stupid; but it was a milestone in my sartorial education. A year or so later I got a white windbreaker with a souped-up’32 deuce coupe on the back custom designed and drawn by Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, the absolute king of west coast hot rod art. Equally stupid, but way more counter-culture, more of a statement. I wore that probably four times. I had some trouble with my identity back then.
A couple of years later Big Daddy Roth’s Hot Rod-Surfer dude art gave way to Peter Max’s Beardsley-esque psychedelic poster art, tie-dyed tee shirts, tight bell-bottoms from Brittania jeans and Mexican wedding shirts from stores like The Different Drummer on Lexington or Jack’s in Boston. (The Different Drummer’s advertising campaign was iconic of the age: A guy holding a pile of, you guessed it, with the legend beneath: “Tired of the same old shit?” It was a David Ogilvy-esque stroke of genius, like the Hathaway eye-patch of the revolutionary era.) And as took place in the French Revolution, chaos followed chaos; as if it had been Harry Truman or Jack Kennedy who’d said, “Après moi, la deluge.” We all got into the counter-cultural habit, donning our huaraches, serapes, six-inch-rise Britannia jeans and batik-print headbands; any self-consciousness we may have felt about this outlandish metamorphosis of style was easily overcome by two or three tokes on a reefer.
