THE (UN) OFFICIAL PREPPY HANDBOOK
INTERVIEW BY PATRICK MCGRAW
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ISSUE 43 FW23
KALEIDOSCOPE's Fall/Winter 2023 issue launches with a set of six covers. Featuring Sampha, Alex Katz, Harmony Korine, a report into the metamorphosis of denim, a photo reportage by Dexter Navy, and a limited-edition cover by Isa Genzken.
Also featured in this issue: London-based band Bar Italia (photography by Jessica Madavo and interview by Conor McTernan), the archives of Hysteric Glamour (photography by Lorenzo Dalbosco and interview by Akio Kunisawa), Japanese underground illustrator Yoshitaka Amano (words by Alex Shulan), Marseille-based artist Sara Sadik (photography by Nicolas Poillot and interview by Daria Miricola), a survey about Japan’s new hip-hop scene starring Tohji (photography by Taito Itateyama and words by Ashley Ogawa Clarke), Richard Prince’s new book “The Entertainers” (words by Brad Phillips), “New Art: London” (featuring Adam Farah-Saad, Lenard Giller, Charlie Osborne, R.I.P. Germain, and Olukemi Ljiadu photographed by Bolade Banjo and interviewed by Ben Broome).
FROM THE CURRENT ISSUE
ESCAPE TO MIAMI
The most southernly city in the US, Miami exists in the tropical recesses of the American imagination: land of celebrity, thunderstorms, Tony Montana, and Art Deco architecture. Here, we meet the latest generation of Miamians—committed radicals in the fields of art, fashion, and music, who are dreaming up new narratives for the city they call home.
NEW ART: LONDON
The art world’s compulsion to categorize by the yardstick of “hot or not” has historically been the driving force behind the market and the gallery system. Commerce is intertwined with this metric, spurred on by the insatiable appetite to find talented young things to build up. This system is uninteresting: what’s in vogue rarely reflects those operating at the cutting edge. Who are those young emerging artists making work against all odds—work that is difficult and costly to make, store, exhibit, move, and sell? These five individuals typify this path. Working across video, sound, installation, and sculpture, they march onwards, carving out their own niche—exhibiting in empty shop spaces one day and major institutions the next. For them, making is guided by urgency, and persistence is motivated by blind faith.
SARA SADIK
KALEIDOSCOPE hosted a solo exhibition by Marseille-based artist Sara Sadik (b. 1994, Bordeaux), in November 2023 at Spazio Maiocchi in Milan, with the support of Slam Jam. Inspired by videogames, anime, science fiction, and French rap, Sara Sadik’s work explores the reality and fantasies of France’s Maghrebi youth, addressing issues of adolescence, masculinity, and social mythologies. Her work across video, performance, and installation often centers on male characters, using computer-generated scenarios to transform their condition of marginalization into something optimistic and poetic.
FROM THE SHOP
FROM THE ARCHIVE
MANIFESTO
In 2023, from June 22 to June 24 during Men’s Fashion Week in Paris, KALEIDOSCOPE and GOAT presented the new edition of our annual arts and culture festival, MANIFESTO. Against the unique setting of the French Communist Party building, a modern architectural landmark designed by legendary Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, the festival will bring together visionary creators from different areas of culture across three days of art, fashion and sound. The 2024 edition will run from June 21 to June 23.
CAPSULE PLAZA
In April 2023, a year after the launch of the magazine, Capsule introduced Capsule Plaza, a new initiative that infuses new energy into Milan Design Week by redefining the design showcase format. A hybrid between a fair and a collective exhibition, Capsule Plaza brings together designers and companies from various creative fields, bridging industry and culture with a bold curation that spans interiors and architecture, beauty and technology, ecology and craft. The 2024 edition will run from April 15 to April 21.
In recent years, the term “preppy” has undergone something of a renaissance, no longer referring to the stuffy, old-moneyed, exclusionary world that the clothing and the people who wore it represented. In this bootleg, updated version of the ironic Official Preppy Handbook guidebook from the 1980s, we reclaim Prep style for a new dapper class appropriating not just the dress but the full package of mannerisms, signifiers, and curated experiences—to very different ends.
Culture isn’t what it used to be. Formerly, culture and its subs were the direct result of someone’s lived experiences or the negation of those experiences. Race, class, socioeconomic status, geography, and the history of that geography were all intermixed with whatever other influences may have been available to a culture at any given time. But today, given the constant and immediate access most people have to all forms of culture, both past and contemporary, those former barriers to cultural assimilation have been broken down. One major effect of this condition is that anyone anywhere can LARP as whatever former culture or subculture they want, without actually being tethered to the kinds of socioeconomic forms that gave these cultures their inherent meaning.
Few subcultures have a more distinctive form than the Prep, a term that grew out of what was known as the “Ivy League Style,” coined in early-20th-century America. The look was defined by what was then the usual college uniform: creased trousers, V-neck sweaters covered in school regalia, rumpled suit jackets, and, later, letterman jackets and loafers. But more so than just simply being an aesthetic, the Preppy style was an entire way of life that was defined by the person’s class, location, hobbies, schooling, and even ancestry. By the 50s, the look became well known due to its direct opposition to other subcultures like the Greasers, who defined themselves by wearing denim and leather and were generally from lower-class backgrounds. Today, basically any form of dressing from pre-1970 can serve as an inspiration for the aesthetic of the contemporary Prep, even styles that would have been anathematic to original Preps.
Released in 1980, The Official Preppy Handbook, encapsulates the Preppy way of life in a tongue-and-cheek style that kept the book on the New York Times Bestseller list for 38 weeks and made it a constant cultural reference point to this day. The book perfectly distills the latent humor of the Prep, focusing on the rambunctious antics of the often college-aged practitioners that encapsulated the style. For the Prep, your lifestyle and class were just as important as the cut of your pants or what the enlarged letter on your jacket meant. But, as the book exposes, those class considerations were often just window-dressing for a bunch of beer-drinking, fraternizing youths who’d inherited their wealth and status from their parents.
Released in 1980, The Official Preppy Handbook encapsulated the Preppy way of life in a tongue-and-cheek style that kept the book on the New York Times Bestseller list for 38 weeks, and has made it a constant cultural reference point to this day.
Looking at the Handbook today, you can see how far the contemporary Preppy style has strayed from the philosophy of the former Prep. But even so, the Preppy style has the same “basic” ingredients that can be mixed into any form and stamped with any logo, creating the myriad variations that have stemmed from the Preppy look, such as Japanese Street Style, Ecocore, the Sartorialist style, or the College Dropout look. These iterations of the Prep aren’t based on class or ancestry, though, in a way, they are still based on economics—not inherited economics but rather the economics of being able to buy yourself into the curated, branded, and quaint lifestyle that defines the Prep today.
The contemporary Prep is more of an attitude towards dapper dressing, an idea of simplicity of style that can be applied to many ways of dressing, not just people who wear cuffed trousers and loafers. In these pages, we propose a re-reading of the Handbook with a disruptive twist–a bootleg, updated version which no longer refers to a stuffy, old-moneyed, exclusionary world but rather reclaims Preppy style for a new-generation dapper class. In keeping with the tongue-in-check spirit of the guidebook, we play with the signifiers and mannerisms, and don't take ourselves too seriously. Simply put: Preppy can be anything, so long as its carried out with attitude. –PATRICK MCGRAW
LIFESTYLE / HANGOUTS
A day in the life of a Prep today reflects the general shift in the socioeconomic makeup of the contemporary Preppy class. The Prep is almost certainly located in a major metropolitan hub (as opposed to a leafy East Coast College town), such as LA, NYC, London, Milan, Paris, or Berlin. After waking up in an apartment they share with a few others of the Preppy cohort and checking their plethora of Grailed, Instagram, and TikTok notifications, the Prep finally wanders outside for a coffee from one of their favorite boutique coffee shops, which touts an intricately designed experience filled with bespoke beans that are likely roasted directly in store.
The day of the contemporary Prep is filled with similarly curated experiences: shopping at boutique stores, thrifting, finding the perfect location for their TikTok vid, taking the perfect pic for their Instagram. For the Nu-Prep, it is important that the quality of the ingredients is what is highlighted, so after a day spent wandering around the city, they’ve built up an appetite that can only be satisfied by eating at a gastropub that specializes in local produce and natural wine. Afterwards, they may want to have the opposite experience by enjoying a nightcap at a bar that exemplifies what the city they’re in used to be: a gritty place with wooden chairs and checkered tablecloths that was a working-class dive before the city became a playground for people from the Preppy class.
An alternative night may see the Prep attend an opening, a fair, and subsequent afterparty where they will be present but not engaged. Again, this is antithetical to the traditional Preppy way of things, which was to avoid art with a passion and instead adhere to groupthink, tradition, and conservative ways of thinking that wouldn’t include any of what is experienced aesthetically or culturally in the day of a contemporary Prep.
An alternative night may see the Prep attend an opening, a fair, and subsequent afterparty where they will be present but not engaged. Again, this is antithetical to the traditional Preppy way of things, which was to avoid art with a passion and instead adhere to groupthink, tradition, and conservative ways of thinking that wouldn’t include any of what is experienced aesthetically or culturally in the day of a contemporary Prep.
Sasa Radikon is a cult natural wine producer based in Friuli, northern Italy, famous for orange wines. The perfect bottle to satisfy your taste for extreme macerations.
FAVORITE VEHICLES
The contemporary Prep won’t often be traveling long distances between their quaint eateries and niche upmarket stores. This, in addition to the fact that they’re often based in dense, urban areas, means that the contemporary Prep, as opposed to their historical counterpart, will likely not be driving. There are a number of services that the Prep will employ to charter them from store to event to ideal Instagram setting, from Uber to the ubiquitous CityBike.
These are also forms of transportation that match the Prep’s delicate view of their own garments. However, if a Preppy is to drive, they’ll often pick a car that matches their taste: a vintage BMW 3 series, a Volvo 240, or a nineties E-class Mercedes, to name a few options. Or the Prep will just use their parents’ car (probably a Subaru).
Cinelli is an Italian bike manufacturer that achieved global recognition for its exceptional steel bike frames. Milanese style–how is a Prep to resist?
READING LIST
The Preppy reading list represents the general untethering of the Preppy aesthetic from any concrete form of class or ideology. Though it may be generally uncommon for the contemporary Prep to be “well read,” they will often have a well-stocked library of books that will serve them for a variety of occasions. This can range anywhere from having a heady intellectual conversation with an artist or writer to talking about the latest stylistic references from your favorite Preppy style coffee table book. The Prep’s taste in books will also go great with whatever fit they happen to be wearing.
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
Glamorama, Bret Easton Ellis
String Theory, David Foster Wallace
Pattern Recognition, William Gibson
The White Album, Joan Didion
Speedboat, Renata Adler
Underworld, Don DeLillo
Portnoy’s Complaint, Philip Roth
Supreme, Rizzoli
A Privileged Life: Celebrating Wasp Style, Susanna Salk
Take Ivy, Shosuke Ishizu
Sleeveless, Natasha Stagg
The Culture of Narcissism, Christopher Lasch
The Cambridge Companion to Deleuze
Capitalist Realism, Mark Fisher
Black Ivy, Jason Jules
Anything by F. Scott Fitzgerald
And, of course, a wide breadth of monographs and books from the “right” artists, like Mike Kelley, Alex Katz, Bruce Weber, William Eggleston, and Jeff Wall, amongst others.
THE PROPER PET
But to the contemporary Prep, whose lifestyle is less about leisure-time sports and more about leisure time in general, a cat would be a more suitable pet than a dog; a dog swims in the lake and rolls in the mud, while a cat lounges. A sphinx might be the best suited for the Preppy life, a highly Instagrammable cat that oscillates somewhere between odd and elegant. When it comes to names, it’s best to remain ambiguous and represent the contemporary Prep’s b of nonchalance and nihilism. Don’t name your cat after a person, but an object: Puppet, Milk, Momo—something that will fit well in the caption.
A sphinx might be the best suited for the Preppy life, a highly Instagrammable cat that oscillates somewhere between odd and elegant.
Everything is an accoutrement to the contemporary Prep—cities, people, and living animals—and, for the prep, having the right pet is akin to wearing the right shirt. The golden retriever was the dog of choice for the classic Prep, an animal that epitomized the way Preps saw themselves: ebullient, gregarious, sporty, classic, and versatile. Even the way Preps named their golden retriever (normally after a family name) was in line with tradition.
LEISURE TIME
SHOPPING
Previously, the Preppy style was almost inherited; the sweaters and trousers that you wore could be purchased at the same store that your father bought them at, and in reality, you could probably just wear his exact pair. But today the Preppy look is something that is purchased, to a point of obsession. Shopping is something that takes place in all forms everywhere; you buy clothes from your friends, online, on your phone, in store. No matter where you are or what you’re doing, you’re always shopping.
LOUNGING
In terms of activities, the Prep of today inherits more from the Dandies of the 19th Century than from former Preps. Where the Prep of the 80s may have spent their time sporting at a club, fraternizing, or working a cushy job their parents got for them, the contemporary Prep will spend the majority of their time lounging. But to the contemporary Prep, there is no such thing as simply lounging; lounging is a form of expressing yourself, a way of displaying your new outfit, perfectly in line with our generation’s crisis of nonstop work.
POSTING
When being seen constantly by those in your immediate surroundings isn’t good enough, the contemporary Prep will take to their phone and post a well-crafted image of their fit, in a select setting of their choice. This means that posting isn’t just the act of hitting “post,” but an endless Sisyphean search for the perfect location, the perfect outfit, the perfect post.
The Eames lounge chair is the perfect accent piece for your living room, which also doubles as a chill and stylish remote workstation.
WORKING
The Prep’s occupations vary widely. Many times, the Prep will have the benefit of working at one of the quaint shops or boutiques that they frequent, giving them both an employee discount and a place for their Preppy cohort to hang out. The creative industry and its glut of vague and oftentimes meaningless jobs will also be overrun with Preps; wherever there’s “creative directors” or “artistic consultants,” you’re sure to find some. Others will simply live off the money they make buying and selling their collection of clothing, and even more will just coast off of a trust fund.
SOCIAL NETWORK PREPPY ETIQUETTE
Preps must abide by the same golden rule that all other users of social media users must: be constantly online while simultaneously acting as if you’re never online; make your presence seem effortless. It’s a rule that’s a byproduct of the constant trickery that is required to navigate the virtual/real divide: obsessively post pictures of your nonchalance, or appear humble while posing one of your elaborately planned fit pics.
Instagram and TikTok, the apps of choice for the contemporary Prep, are the tools used to signal Preppiness to a wide audience, as others must see you being a Prep for you to truly be one. The content ranges depending on the age of the given Prep: while the older millennial Prep will mostly post fit pics and about their favorite restaurants and natural wine bar, the younger Gen Z Prep is more likely to be posting themselves dancing to the latest TikTok craze while wearing an accordion skirt and a cardigan. Both groups are prone to posting (or reposting) a heavy dose of vaguely architectural or design-related pics, archival fashion pics, and usually one or two niche interests that that set them apart from the bunch (an obsession with Japanese hardcore aesthetics, for instance).
But for anyone on the Preppy spectrum, who you tag is as important as what you post. In this regard, it’s important to maintain a good mix of semi-famous followers alongside friends and acquaintances with low follower counts; it makes you appear humble and down-to-earth, as if your mild Preppy stardom hasn't affected your ego too much. And don’t forget the witty and nonchalant caption; most Preps have a collection of captions in their Notes app for all possible occasions.
PREPPY ROOM
The room of the new Prep will look more like a boutique than a lived-in space, as the Prep is defined by their tastes to the point that they themselves become a commodity. Settled on their plaid day blanket are their various forms of reading material that signal no allegiances other than to an imaginary idea of being “up to date”: Fantastic Man, Arena Homme +, Brutus, POPEYE, Artforum, the New Yorker, the New York Times Book Review. Carefully placed at the foot of the bed atop original parquet flooring (well, carefully enough to not seem careless) is a curated selection of perfumes: Aesop, Malin + Goetz.
This new line of cannabis-infused personal care products by Malin + Goetz is tested for sensitive skins, so it won't mess with the natural PH of your Preppiness.
In the Prep’s room, nothing is left to chance and everything is a signal. From the tote bags (their favorite art galleries or fairs and a few bespoke local restaurants) to the laissez-faire collection of vinyl (every genre will be represented here, just in case) and the stylishly dying houseplants that dot the room, everything is meant to signal a greater cultural meaning. The same goes for the multiple roommates that the Prep is likely to have.
PHOTOGRAPHY: TIM SCHUTSKY
STYLING: SIMONEZ WOLF
CREATIVE DIRECTION: ALESSIO ASCARI
PHOTO ASSISTANT: BRYAN ANTON, PATRICK WOODLING
STYLING ASSISTANT: INDIA REED
SET DESIGN: SARAH FAVREAU
SET DESIGN ASSISTANT: COLIN FAVRE
HAIR: LEDORA FRANCIS
MAKEUP: AYAKA NIHEI
CASTING: MEMORIA DI
HAIR ASSISTANT: ZACH DIERKS
PRODUCTION: CAROLINE RAMSAUER AT ABOVO