Preppy Goes Back to School

By Kate Novack

It's a sweltering day in New York City, and five teenage boys are selling bottles of Poland Spring water to drivers stopping at a traffic light in Harlem. Business is slow, so the boys--camped out on lawn chairs on the sidewalk--start bantering about fashion. "L-E T-I-G-R-E. Le Tigre!" shouts one of the young entrepreneurs to another as the rest of them look on in disbelief. "Don't you know what it is?"

For those who don't know, Le Tigre is a brand of polo shirt. And for a certain set of fashion-forward high schoolers, including these urban teens, it has become a staple of the biggest look for the back-to-school season: preppy. For the past three years, teenagers across the country have tested the limits of propriety--and school dress codes--with girls in ultra-low-rise jeans (often paired with a peekaboo G-string) and itty-bitty graphic Ts. Boys have opted for baggy denim, athletic jerseys and hooded sweatshirts. But the de facto uniform is finally changing. Teens describe their new look as "simple" or "clean" rather than preppy. Whatever name you give the trend, students are incorporating tweeds, tartans and button-downs into their back-to-school wardrobes.

"I call it the bye-bye-to-Britney look," says Teen Vogue editor in chief Amy Astley, referring to the scantily clad pop princess Britney Spears. In its back-to-school issue, the magazine showcased (gasp!) high-waisted jeans, kilts and tweed blazers. Seventeen advised readers to opt for below-the-knee skirts and higher-waisted pants. The look is in full force in stores, with Old Navy pushing Argyle tube tops and ballet flats and H&M stocked with modest blouses that Paris Hilton wouldn't be caught dead in. Even perennially preppy retailers like J. Crew are taking the look a step further with navy schoolboy blazers that have polished brass buttons.

The styles that woo fashion editors and retailers don't always win over customers (like the high-waisted trousers for adults touted by women's magazines last fall). But the latest preppy trend is catching on with teens. Marshal Cohen, chief apparel analyst at the NPD Group, a Port Washington, N.Y., market-research firm, estimates that about $80 of the average $300 that each student spends on back-to-school clothes will go to preppier, more conservative apparel. No, teens are not gathering to burn their low-rider jeans, but waistlines are inching back up, and Argyle sweaters and plaid skirts abound. "I'm not saying these girls want to wear turtlenecks and high-waisted pants," says Gina Kelly, fashion director of Seventeen. "They just don't want to look cheesy."

Parents, of course, have been advocating the noncheesy look for years. But it took more than a mother's disapproving eye to turn teens on to a more conservative, demure style. This summer, apparel manufacturers began churning out preppy brights, new denim styles, ballet slippers and other alternatives that appealed to teens. Magazines and retailers quickly embraced the change. At the same time, a growing roster of celebrities--from hip-hop star Jay-Z to actress and Miu Miu model Maggie Gyllenhaal--is sporting more polished looks. Young mallgoers followed their cues.

"If you go to the mall, it's basically all you see," says Irene Hukkelhoven, a sophomore at Governor Livingston High School in Berkeley Heights, N.J. "They have dedicated themselves entirely to this preppy style." Hukkelhoven, for one, seems relieved. "When that whole skin-is-in thing was happening, you could not walk down the hall [at school] without a girl bending over and her panties sticking out. Now it's looked at as slutty if your jeans are really low." So what's on the 16-year-old's fall shopping list? She's on the lookout for Polo shirts (which she'll wear with the collar up) and jeans in different washes (with special attention paid to the stitching). She has already found a faux-pearl necklace and matching bracelet.

Polos and pearls? They're quite a change from T shirts and thongs. But that's just the point. "When designers and manufacturers want to elevate fashion interest and counter the trends--like the low riders that have been going for three years--they need to go in the opposite direction," says the NPD Group's Cohen. "That's the only way the industry can catapult consumers into buying. So darks become lights, pastels become brights, short becomes long."

Urban labels like Rocawear, Sean John and Phat Farm, which made their names with warm-up suits and athletic jerseys, are introducing more dressed-up looks in an attempt to expand their customer base and achieve mega-brand status along the lines of Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger. Jay-Z, who founded Rocawear with Damon Dash, even sang about the sartorial shift: "I don't wear jerseys, I'm 30-plus./Give me a crisp pair of jeans ... Button up." (Concertgoers quickly followed his lead, he says.) Dash, Rocawear's CEO, isn't a fan of the new trend. "This is the dress-shirt winter. I'll just stay warm and still while that winter blows by," he says. But he knows dressier styles are an important way to build the brand. Rocawear is billing fall as the season when "the hip-hop look graduates." Classic warm-up suits are still a key part of the collection, but now there are striped button-down shirts for men and corduroy blazers with collegiate-style crests for women. Says Dash of the move: "Ralph Lauren does it all the time. Why can't we?"

Industry observers also suggest that teens are turning to more traditional styles as an antidote to the uncertain times we're living in. "As a society, we're running scared and looking for security," says David Wolfe, creative director of the Doneger Group, a fashion-trend-forecasting company. "For young people, that manifests itself in classic, preppy clothes. It means the end of the pop-tart influence in fashion. Britney Spears may have to ride off into the sunset."

Or she could pick up a few polo shirts and some pearls.