In Defence of the Polo Oxford
On recognisability, intention, and Ivy accessibility
Welcome to this week’s meeting of The Prep Club, last week’s bulletin is available here, or on your way out, featuring lots of things that I cannot afford, but can admire from afar, also if you are perhaps looking for a late Christmas present for yourself or a collegiate dresser in your life, consider making use of the new and improved Club Directory. Today, an exploration of Ivy accessibility, and a resistance of collar-roll evangelism.
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I was perusing a selection of images from Take Ivy, a practice which I strongly recommend the collegiate dresser does with regularity (It’s available on the internet archive). I think it’s easy to get caught up in the modern day nostalgia for Ivy style, and forget that a lot of those kids were wearing hoodies and 501 cutoffs. Of course, it’s a later stage of the progression of the style, but I think it does speak volumes towards how Ivywas, and continues to be, just clothes. No-one photographed in Take Ivy was getting a fit off, they were just dressed, it’s hard to capture that laissez-faire attitude when approaching collegiate clothing from a place of interest and thus intentionality. The problem then is if one chases the aesthetic presented in these photographs, they veer into the realm of period cosplay. Whilst some folks are cool with that, it’s not for me, I think there is something bigger and better which we can take from Take Ivy.
Attitude Outmatches Aesthetics
I believe that when engaging with clothing references from bygone eras, it is more pertinent to distill a sense of the approach and attitude to the garments and outfits, rather than to chase after replication. From there, by working with that which is available to one in the present, we can benefit from certain insights whilst avoiding the cosplay trap.
As an example, I’d never have worn a grey hoodie with khaki chinos, in my head they are dissonant pieces, not of the same grade of formality, and the two light colours wouldn’t gel. Then seeing it done in the book, I tried it and that outfit is going into permanent rotation from here on out.
I don’t look like I’m wearing the outfit in the photo though, my chinos are wider and my hoodie is more over-sized, the way I like them personally. I like to think, therefore, that I’m able to present a contemporary version of that look from sixty or so years ago.
This is all to say that I do not think it is particularly important to have garments which perfectly match those from the golden era of Ivy in order to engage with the style in a very authentic manner.
The Case for the Polo Oxford
It is through this lens that I would like to approach the Polo Ralph Lauren Oxford shirt. As one dives deeper into the annals of online menswear discourse, particularly that of collegiate dressers, there appears a greater animosity toward this ever-ubiquitous garment. For understandable reasons, if one is approaching it with a desire to match the aesthetics of a bygone era. It doesn’t look like an OCBD that one would see in Take Ivy, or other photo references from that era, the collar is too short and soft to roll properly, and it’s not really the right length. This is not an argument that a Polo OCBD outclasses one from Kamakura or J. Press, it doesn’t. It’s just the longer I go on the more I’m beginning to feel like it doesn’t matter that much.
I don’t wish to come across as suggesting that “it’s not that deep” because it can be, hell, that’s basically why we’re here right now. I do think though that obsessing over the physical aspects of a garment rather than how it is worn is possibly missing the point. Further, if discourses around clothes are forever about their physical qualities, it perpetuates an air of inaccessibility around fashion for those introducing themselves to it. Menswear forums are confusing enough to navigate at the best of times, with varying attitudes from different generations beginning to homogenise at this point (In my journeys through forums I’ve seen the resistance towards the advent of skinny fit stuff back in the late oughts, then it’s dominance through the twenty-tens and it’s decline in recent years). For those beginning a journey to immediately be assaulted by the intense attention to detail which us obsessives have developed over the years is perhaps just a bit much. Whilst a more premium OCBD will always have a certain aesthetic edge, and obviously the quality jumps significantly, the Polo example is vital in its role as an accessible first foray. In the UK, at the very least, they’re widely available secondhand for around £20-£30, putting them on-par with a new shirt from a high-street store (mall brand for the yanks).
I think also that there is one category in which Polo cannot be beaten: recognisability. Sometimes, it’s nice not to have to explain where one’s clothes come from, sometimes it’s nice to say “it’s Polo”, people know Polo. I have a good few of them, it’s just hard to beat their affordability and ubiquity on the secondhand market. They’re not perfect, and it doesn’t matter, they’ve facilitated the building of a collegiate inspired wardrobe on a student budget, and I can go on to style them with the attitudes present in Take Ivy.
A New Issue of the Club Directory
I’d like to close out today with a message regarding the Club Directory, something which I am hoping to make a somewhat more significant part of the Club as a whole. Whilst it launched simply as a list of online stores, essentially a formal presentation of my own bookmarks for online shopping, I am looking now to develop it into a more quintessential guide to collegiate clothing, regularly updated, and as comprehensive as possible for one writer to achieve.
THE DIRECTORY
Please find below The Prep Club’s Directory, an as-comprehensive-as-possible, alphabetised guide to retailers and labels
I would, for that reason, like to reach out to Club members for assistance on this. Thus far I have compiled a list of my personal favourite stores and labels, everything I could pull together from memory, bookmarks and saved posts, but I’d love to have more, so if you have a recommendation for the directory and if it’s no bother, it would be wonderful to hear it.
Thank you for attending this week and I hope the directory proves useful, sending good tidings for the festive season. Prep Club adjourned, see you soon.
