Pointlessly Prophetic Portmanteau: Prippie

Boho is over (if you want it).

This one’s a doozy :-) God heard last week’s wretched moans about my lack of inspiration and the difficulty I found in engaging with fashion on a theoretical level and decided to, like Jonah, Devorah, and Elijah before me, use my earthbound vessel as a conduit for a piece of divine information. Not to complain again, but I feel like I could have really helped out the world with, I dunno, maybe a redaction of that whole “promised land” thing, or at least the exact date of ****** *****’s demise, but instead, God decided to curse me with the pointless portmanteau “prippie.” As in preppy + hippie.

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Yes, I know that that preppy + hippy essentially = “boho,” but first of all, I’ve been seeing some real live Bohemians (people from the westernmost region of the Czech Republic) on TikTok, and they’re extremely annoyed at the fashion set for using their title to define atrocities such as

I’m not one to lay down any hard rules when it comes to fashion, and I’ve famously changed my mind on several sartorial phenomena (polka dots, neon, fringe) I once hated with a passion, but I am going to have to say that wearing what is essentially the cursed GRWM puffy headband across one’s forehead like an impotent visor is a no from me, dog.

Second of all, the boho that trickled down to the masses, as per Google:

is almost completely divested of its preppy half, a few plaid scarves and a prop suitcase the only vestiges of what should be the healthy counter to delusions of nouveau-Woodstockian grandeur. Back to the Olsens, another boho bummer is the fact that, even at its zenith:

”boho” seems saturated with unearned irony. NYC is the best, yes, but even when its many culture vultures aren’t actually doing anything offensive, the hackneyed homunculi some call “outfits” bleed out earnestness like stuck pigs (that was a very beta use of the pig simile, I don’t think I’ve ever tried it out before, so farmers, go easy on me). The boho that congealed in the high fashion world, though better-looking than most of the Coachella-brand attempts, tends to betray the fact that its wearer neither knows what quaaludes are NOR the difference between the Vineyard and Nantucket. Both preppy and hippie are lost in the gestalt that purports to combine them—the forest is forsaken for the trees.

Both preppy style and hippie style, taken alone, are undeniably earnest: chipper Ivy argyle, smoked-weed-once crochet caps, etc. Each is so matter-of-fact and sure of itself that it’s possible to dress up as either for Halloween: though not particularly in vogue at the moment, you’ve seen the high ponytails and tennis skirts, the tie-dye and peace signs, that lend themselves to concerted costuming. Each can be conceived of as pretty much on the opposite ends of a spectrum labeled “College kids who hated their dads in the 60s,” and therein lies the rub: since preppy and hippie styles are largely (if unconsciously) envisioned as oppositional, attempts at their union often result in a muddied fusion, neutered like mixing two contrasting colors or adding a proton to an electron. The preppy side stunts the libertine sensibilities of the hippie side while the hippie side sabotages the sophistication of the preppy side, for one, though there are many ways to imagine this clash of values and aesthetics creating a style that has no honest soul to ground it, and in an honest soul’s vacancy, irony spawns as an attempt at self-justification.

This isn’t to say that irony is always a bad take, specifically in regard to fashion—maybe I’ll get into my thoughts on that someday—but it’s a tough sell. It’s basically the same phenomenon as no one wanting to be friends with a person who’s INCESSANTLY self-deprecating—flourishes of jokes at one’s own expense can be charming, but there’s nothing less attractive than someone who lives as the narrator of their continuous, ambient failure. Boho, as it has waxed and waned in the 21st century, has always been saddled with the ironies of a) its nonconformist, anti-establishment aspirations becoming trendy and lucrative b) its choice aesthetic appropriations meant to emphasize worldliness reducing valuable cultural elements to vacant, untethered props and c) its suggestion of a carefree lifestyle becoming something necessitating intensive curation.

I believe that if we shift our thinking about the College kids who hated their dads in the 60s spectrum a bit, something interesting may rise from the ashes of boho. Basically, instead of trying to coax preppy and hippie into meeting in the middle, what if we let them stay in their own lanes, and just fashion the whole damn spectrum into a style? After all, at the end of the day, they all hate their dads. That’s what I’d call “prippie.”

N.B. I love my dad!

I’m sorry for yet another pointless portmanteau that I am not expecting to catch on or be used outside the bounds of this blog (maybe even this post), and I know it’s a little embarrassing, but then again, this is my blog and I’ll neologize if I want to.

Prippie is unabashedly polar, with one foot in Haight-Ashbury and the other in Provincetown. It’s both crunchier and more buttoned-up than boho—it almost feels like proto-boho, before it started smoking cigarettes every time it went to the beach (I am not a narc, nor am I judgmental hardly ever about smoking, having practiced myself many a time, but I do absolutely hate it when people smoke cigarettes on the beach. Feels too much like a giant ashtray). Prippie has a dash of gorp and a pinch of mod—think summer camp counselor who’s going to Yale in the fall. Most importantly, it’s less irony poisoned than boho, and therefore more compelling.

To hone my conception of prippie, I basically looked at a thousand images and asked myself “is something about this hippie? Is something about this preppy?” If I could answer “yes” to both questions and felt the fit/garment was interesting and/or good-looking enough that I’d actually take it as inspiration, I added it to the canon. I characterized “hippie” loosely with the following adjectives: psychedelic, flowing, “natural,” unstructured, kaleidoscopic, unkempt, shaggy, colorful, childlike, bright, liberal, comfy, chaotic, kitschy. “Preppy” I saw as sharp, nerdy, buttoned-up, knit, pleated, pastel, subdued, luxurious, pragmatic, academic, athletic, conservative, youthful, and sophisticated.

The recurring garments, features, and motifs I noticed among clothes that made the “prippie” cut are:

• Colored tights 

• Crochet 

• Missoni zig-zag (first appeared in the brand’s FW67 show!) 

• Madras (imported to the US from Chennai, India in 1718, peaked in popularity in the 60s)

• Ponchos

• Scarves

• Patterned blazers 

• Paisley

• Long hair 

• Knit dresses

• Patchwork

• Skullcaps 

• Popped collars

• Navy blue

• Stripes

• Chunky beaded necklaces

Speaking of chunky necklaces, the catalyst for my tumble down this rabbit hole was seeing the following fall outfit created by

Jalil Johnson

:

For a second, I mistook the bag under Jalil’s arm for a classic pigskin football, and the clever pairing of a carnelian collar with what at first appeared to be jade but might be prehnite orbs butting up against the crimson V-neck atop satiny trousers (not to mention the strategically layered golden cuff on his wrist) brought me to my knees with newfound vision.

The smarmy Harvard freshman comes back for winter break with a mysterious newfound penchant for crystals. The child of libertine parents “rebels” by getting a degree in accounting but can’t quite let go of their family’s traditions. The captain of the football team falls in love with a classmate obsessed with the occult. The fit-text is rich with so few moving parts—one of those elusive looks that manages to do exactly what it needs to do and not a smidge more or less. Preppy and hippie, here, are not trying to meld and therefore muddling the message beyond the point of potency: the two factors are present, neither more “true” than the other, playing off each other’s syncopation instead of trying to synchronize. Sometimes a piece will fall directly into the tiny overlapping sliver of the preppy/hippie Venn diagram, and that’s a beautiful sight to behold.

I couldn’t find any outfits that perfectly fit my vision as a standalone, but that’s because this is a new frontier. Right now, I don’t have access to a ton of clothes (if you ever have any you don’t want anymore that you feel fit this bill, feel free to email me at emseely@gmail.com and we can organize a trade of a free subscription to the blog for your old togs), so I can’t exactly create real outfits to demonstrate, but I’ll show you some photos that, as a gestalt, basically capture what I’m going for.

The two celebrities that kept showing up in my search were, unsurprisingly, Vivienne Westwood, who inflects her prippie with punk, of course (p²rippie):

The Daily Mail article this is from is so offensive (about how we shouldn’t let “oddballs” “dictate” what woman wear) I’m not linking to it

An easy way to start conceiving of a prippie outfit is taking a patterned item that could be styled as preppy if the rest of the outfit were kept “professional,” then bulking out the fit with weird, flowing, drapey, fringey shit or florals or something to lose the crisp silhouette.

via contactmusic

Fringed blanket skirts are a notable point of intersection between preppy and hippie—the below uncredited vintage pic shows a great one.

If one added a long, fringy suede vest to the above fit and let their long hair flow out of the scarf, maybe added some chunky stone necklaces—boom, it’d be prippie.

A bit more surprisingly (but not that much), Andre 3000 is an unwitting master of prippie:

via Taylor Lee

Andre knows his way around a polo shirt, the preppy staple—adding a polka-dot neckerchief as a gesture towards a cravat plus a 70s-does-Victorian-looking textured vest (bonus: matching the optic white of the neckerchief to trousers) steers it way out of frat territory and into, like, coolest theater kid ever-land.

via Deborah Johnson

Matching your crocheted skullcap with your polo is similarly good work. Also, Erykah Badu looking like she’s visiting from the year 3008 by your side is never gonna hurt your cool factor.

Circling back to Vivienne, her SS17 collection creative directed by her now-widow Andreas Kronthaler contained pretty much the closest full fits I could find to what I've been thinking about, all via Elle:

The satin button-down (and yes, I pride myself on having finally learned the difference between a button-down and a button-up) has the air of a monogrammed pair of fancy pajamas one would receive in a goodie bag for a destination wedding (A + V—me and WHO?), but the bottoms are where we get into serious prippieland: sunset orange chino-esque pants (cuffed) split open at the inseam to create an ad hoc skirt—a perfect marriage between the deliberate crispness of prep and the goofy deconstructionist impulses of hippies, augmented with a pendulous, talismanic necklace and Jesus sandals (I love the punk detail of the black-painted toenails). I’ve never seen another menswear look that makes a skirt look so smart, as opposed to self-consciously smug. The whole outfit feels very (I’ll preface this by saying I’ve never seen the show) end of Mad Men when Jon Hamm gets a little spiritual with it—nails the whirlwind energy of a prep on vacation getting a little nutty with it after their first ayahuasca trip.

The collar buttoned all the way up and the demure cardigan give way to burnout pants (I can’t tell if the waistband is constructed like that or layered—if it’s layered, this is epic styling work)… great stuff, but…

…I like the above color scheme better. The vague mint of the pants that makes you wonder if you’re seeing things and they’re just off-white (if I am, LET ME LIVE IN MY DELUSION) paired with the denim-blue socks exposing their white cotton veins as the ribs stretch over the ankles, all capped off by those adorable optic white sandals—I’m not a big fan of feminine looks with childlike sandals like the above, but when paired with a more masculine fit, I adore them.

And I mean, the above is textbook—a dorky little suit set in hazy tie-dye. Is that a skirt on the bottom? Or deconstructed shorts? If worn with a gauzy, Chloé-esque cream blouse underneath (and matching cream socks), this would be a contender for flagship prippie look.

Her FW04 was a strong foundation:

via MP

The tight waves verge on psychedelic Missoni zig-zags—throwing on a disheveled striped dress shirt as if to contain a trippy pattern is a great way to make a hippie or mod-leaning look more prippie in a pinch.

Seems the prippie thread was carried into SS24 by the VW team:

via Vivienne Westwood

See, minus the work shirt the above look would lose pretty much all of its juice and just look like something on the Stüssy chopping block. Great tie-dye colors, though. The whole collection kind of circles prippie (and I love the casting) but this is the look that feels most like what I’m thinking.

This Missoni SS19 fit is like the most boring, subdued, Almond Mom-ish version of what I’m talking about:

via Vogue

The shawl is a nice p/h point of crossover, though.

The zig-zags the house made famous in the 60s are all over the vintage examples I found:

via hideelee

via Etsy

The above look is so straightforwardly prippie it looks like an encyclopedia entry. The dorky corduroy blazer over the spacey crocheted skirt? Definitely classic 70s, but also letting both the prim and perverse aspects of the p/h dichotomy shine.

via Etsy

Prippie is not in the slightest gender exclusive. The masculine fits are actually my favorites. Is it just me or are the two following guys wearing the same fit in different fonts:

via GQ

via A Little Bit of Rest

See? The patchwork does a ton of work, even in more subdued tones. I like the top one a bit better (and apparently Dakar, Senegal is the flyest city on the planet, which I plan on looking into more soon)—the cap (would look even better with a crocheted skullcap IMO but you know how I feel about them) and fisherman sandals feel more chilled-out and less contrived than the beret and cleats.

The next guy is so incredibly fabulous I don’t know what to do with myself:

via Vogue

WHO TAUGHT HIM HOW TO DO THIS? The red laces pulling out the red striped in the spangled jacket. Is that a LEATHER tie? I need to hear your thoughts on this fit. Oh, and it’s from fucking 2023. He walks among us. I need to meet this style hero (and I need baby blue sneakers with crimson laces).

This shirt (still available!) with this clean-cut looking hair situation:

via Etsy

These Boston dudes in the 70s, especially the guy on the left (NOTE the striped socks with clogs, the structured leather bag, the bucket hat—his friend leans more toward disco):

via Deborah Johnson

Some more misc. vintage prippie:

via Gold Country Girls

Pattern-mixing masterclass, above—aviators are a prippie accessory because they make equal amounts of sense paired with both capitalist and communist auras. They are a true neutral of the eyewear realm.

via Plaid Stallion

Above: madras IN patchwork?? Say less. I feel like patchwork being hippie-ish is pretty self-explanatory, but I also can see it as preppy-friendly because it feels like what some yuppie’s Meemaw would have in her coastal cottage.

via They Roared Vintage

The above fits definitely lean mod, maybe too much to be prippie, but I had to include for their gorgeousness and the amazing deployment of colored tights—a prippie staple, equal parts demure (covering up the legs) and debaucherous (highlighting the legs with bright colors).

via Etsy

I could imagine the above on Parker Posey, which means it’s preppy enough through its rustic, hippie sensibilities to be prippie. Much like how throwing a striped shirt over something can preppify it, sliding on a white turtleneck under something will do the same.

This one is almost exactly on the nose of what I imagined as the platonic ideal of prippie:

via Dalena Vintage

Almost riding jodhpurs and big Pilgrim collar made less old money with the addition of a soothing poncho sweater set.

The below is a really weird, mod-inflected take on prippie that I’m obsessed with:

via Periodicult

Finally, some cold-weather prippie, a through line in which was brightly-colored stripes that feel very Andes-coded:

via Fix It

via Focus Damnit

And an accessory that pretty much sums everything up:

via sib

At the end of the day, you might just want to call all this “boho.” But that’s you. Me? I’m cursed. I opened a box I can never close. “Prippie” will haunt me until the day I die, but in the meantime, I’m gonna try to scrounge up some skullcaps and striped blazers at the vintage store.

Thanks for indulging my prippie paroxysm. Please let me know if you have any thoughts (or, in fact, brain cells) left after reading, either in the comments below or on Instagram—I’ve strayed away from making shoppable posts recently because that feels kind of silly as someone who basically doesn’t shop themself, maybe even gauche in this economy, but if I get some interest, I’m happy to devise some link-riddled outfits that I feel hit the nail on the prippie head.

<3 ESK