Now, Now, Now… Can’t We all Play Nice? Apparently Not.

Hello-Hello, and Happy Friday!

Spat: a brief, petty quarrel or dispute

War –  noun, often attributive

b : a struggle or competition between opposing forces or for a particular end

We have updates to two previous stories today, beginning with that Martha Stewart and Macy’s spat war. Some may recall that Martha Stewart recently announced the sale of part of her company to Penney’s, despite the fact she sells her products at Macy’s, a Penney’s competitor.

Macy's

Of course, part of the deal is that Penney’s will sell Martha’s merchandise, the retailer has said it will open hundreds of mini Martha Stewart boutiques inside its stores. As one might expect, Macy’s is not amused. Here’s more from Business Week:

“Macy’s sued in January to stop New York-based Martha Stewart Living from executing an agreement to sell merchandise in J.C. Penney Co. stores.

Ouch.  Then it really gets nasty, with Martha’s lawyers saying that Macy’s is “essentially holding Macy’s hostage,” alleging:

“…the retailer has stocked and priced Martha Stewart products in a manner that favors Macy’s own private-label brands.

Business Week has a good story on the dispute, including predictions this will be settled out of court.

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Our other business battle is also a followup, this one is about the new C. Wonder stores.

Via Design Wire

The first store opened in Soho, since our post three more stores have opened, in Westchester, Paramus and Garden City.

Via

The Post reports Ms. Burch isn’t happy about the new stores her husband has opened.

A source close to the situation told us, “She is demanding Chris Burch shut down C. Wonder. The famously calm ice queen has lost her cool. She is furious and claims he has directly copied her business plan.”

While no lawsuit has been filed as yet, the source adds, “They are negotiating through lawyers. While Chris set up Tory Burch, his new stuff is identical and a third of the price. She wants him off the board of her company and for C. Wonder to close.”

Below, jewelry at C. Wonder.

Deidre Schoo for The New York Times

The Critical Shopper column in The Times on the store was titled “At C. Wonder, Something Feels Familiar“:

“Now the Burch brand is facing a puzzling retail riposte from her ex-husband, J. Christopher Burch, a venture capitalist who helped found her company and is still a chairman of its board…. he is opening a series of stores named C. Wonder that mirror Tory’s preppy style: go-to-hell colors, nautical flourishes, trim but conservative cuts. It’s unclear whether this is an amicable homage or a hostile takeover.”

Here is a side-by-side look at the two logos:

Logos from Facebook via The Daily Mail

The couple was married for ten years, 1996-2006.

Wire Image via The Daily Mail

More from the Alexandra Jacobs Critical Shopper column:

Maybe it’s a sign that the former missus has arrived, since Mr. Burch is also cheerfully knocking off Chanel, Goyard and Kate Spade — and those were just the influences I clocked in the foremost right quadrant of his new flagship on Spring.

Even the Daily Mail has written about it:

The venture capitalist has chosen an emblem that some see as being almost identical to his ex-wife’s now famous mirror image T’s.

Others like PR guru Kelly Cutrone, who is working with Mr Burch on a collection, argues that a man who has helped launch nearly 50 brands is fashion savvy enough to take credit for his own look.

Hmmmm. We need your thoughts ladies… is it too close for comfort?

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We leave you with a quick Sales & Savings Opportunity, a quick mention of about bargains at Bean, the company is doing a ‘Secret Sale’ this weekend, taking 20% off regular *and* sale prices. That make something on sale like the LL Bean Maine Isle flip flops $15.99, as opposed to $24.95.

LL Bean

The deal is good at both LL Bean and LL bean Signature line, use promo code FEB20 to receive the discount.

Is Prep Dead? (More Importantly, How Did We Miss This?)

Hello-Hello, is everyone ready for a weekend?

We thought it was time for another True Prep update, the volume of media surrounding the book is significant, including multiple declarations that ‘prep is dead’; in at least one instance responsibility for this hypothetical occurrence is linked directly to the book.

We begin with this headline from a September NPR story:

We haven’t heard the entire NPR story, but did read what is posted online and were unable to decipher exactly how the book’s existence translated into a sign that prep was dead.  The NPR story does carry a lengthy quote from this story in The Atlantic:

As always, the Atlantic review is very well done, essentially positing that ‘prep’ has  been absorbed by a larger, international class.  From the piece by Benjamin Schwarz:

“Whereas OPH was crammed with fine-grained analysis— defining, say, the subtle distinctions between Brooks Brothers (mainstream), J. Press (old guard), and Paul Stuart (urbane)—True Prep’s analysis seems vague and flabby. Whereas OPH’s preppies belonged to a distinct and inward-looking subculture, the preppies of True Prep, defined largely by what they buy and wear, are in many ways indistinguishable from fancily educated professionals.”

The writer doesn’t fault the skill set of authors Lisa Birnbach and Chip Kidd, looking instead at the consumption habits of the era, particularly those of the conspicuous kind.

“Cracked heirlooms, threadbare antique rugs, sturdy L.L. Bean boots, duct-taped Blucher moccasins, and workhorse Volvo station wagons defined OPH’s aesthetic. True Prep’s preppies, armed with BlackBerrys and iPods, wear Verdura jewelry and Prada and vintage Gucci loafers, tote Goyard and Tory Burch bags, and adorn their desks with tchotchkes from Smythson (a firm whose success, Ian Jack notes in The Guardian, has been built “on selling baubles to the impressionable rich”).

It’s no secret we whined struggled with some of the brands featured in True Prep. (For Ms. Birnbach’s comments regarding the J. Crew metallic Top-siders at J. Crew, simply click here.) We have been vocal about the volume of J. Crew & Burberry products showcased in the book.  Frequent readers know the tragic truth: TP and The Consort are two boring, old-school preps.  Our style is basically no style.

However, we do take issue with this claim from a column in the Journal, the headline reads “Preppy Pitfall: All That Madras, Not Enough Effort.” It is the subhead that is irksome:

Did Lisa Birnbach’s original ‘Handbook’ drive people lazy?”

Eric Felten cites TOPH (The Official Preppy Handbook) as a factor.

“One simply mustn’t try too hard. A key principle of what Ms. Birnbach called the Preppy Value System was Effortlessness: “If life is a country club, then all functions should be free from strain.”

The notion that Ms. Birnbach is responsible for the work ethic of a generation is ludicrous.

“Unless you actually have a fat trust fund to underwrite your nonchalance, an aversion to effort is hardly a strategy for success. Which may explain some of our national woes.”

We like Ms. Birnbach; she is talented, witty and loads of fun, but while wielding significant influence, she is not quite so powerful as to be responsible for this:

“Over the last couple of decades we’ve seen the contempt for effort spread far beyond the original preppy demographic. Now it’s commonplace for middle-class kids to go to college and behave as though they are scions of the gentry—abjuring studies and indulging in the bottomless kegger that a recent book dubbed “The Five Year Party.”

Blaming These Challenging Times on any single author just doesn’t work for us.

Next on the review list, AOL’s Daily Finance offers this:

Bruce Watson’s story takes a more reasoned approach:

“…she attached a philosophical component to the look, explicitly wedding the preppy style to a hodgepodge of social values, including traditionalism, thrift, and brand loyalty. In Birnbach’s analysis, preppies buy Brooks Brothers and Orvis because these companies have been in business for over a hundred years and have proven reliability.”

As the monolithic 1980’s preppy culture has fractured into a variety of brands and styles, from Gossip Girl to hip-hop Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren to Vineyard Vines, it’s worth wondering if this explosion of prep may also signal its demise.”

Mr. Watson points to the efforts at updating the fashions offered by some of the stalwarts, like LL Bean’s Signature and Black Fleece at Brooks Brothers, a necessity if such establishments are to compete against trendier, “hipper” (ahem) offerings at retailers like J. Crew. Unfortunately the writer misses an important point in this portion of his story:

“In True Prep, however, conversation positively drips with references to the signs of wealth, as Birnbach instructs readers: “Your car wasn’t in the shop; your Mercedes was getting fixed. You didn’t wear shoes; you wore Manolos.”

The book isn’t instructing readers to converse in this fashion. To the contrary, this specific segment laments the way people speak these days, bemoaning the ostentation and name-dropping and label flashing.  Melanie Spencer’s story in the Austin Statesman illustrates this distinction with a quote from the author:

“”People are oft misbehaving and name-dropping and talking about money,” she says. “It is vulgar. It’s becoming normal. I’m here to help correct. Something as benign as ‘Sex in the City’ sort of sanctioned gross materialism. Instead of saying, ‘Oh, my shoes hurt,’ it’s, ‘My Manolos hurt.’ You are sending all kinds of messages. You can say ‘My car is in the shop.’ You don’t have to say, ‘My Jaguar is in the shop.’ It would be so refreshing for people to go back to those basics.”

We had to laugh aloud at this part of the story, it seems not everyone in Austin was fond of the prep aesthetic. (Gasp!)

“”Preppy fashion was the lowest point in the history of women’s attire,” says longtime Austinite, style and design writer and Austin Monthly Home editor Helen Thompson.”

Oops.  Hopefully Melanie, I Pick Pretty and other notable Austin denizens won’t tell Ms. Thompson next time we visit.

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Enough of the deep thinking, we have an eye-popping Pretty in Pink & Green to share:

The Argyle Pullover is available at Elegant Baby, and there is also a version in blues if looking for something a little more sedate.

With that, we are off to enjoy the weekend, and hope you are able to do the same!

Weird, Wonderful & Wacky: the Top 15 Searches at The Princess

Hello-Hello, happy Tuesday!

We are blessed with a gorgeous day here at the Prepatorium and hope you are enjoying the same wherever you may be.

In yesterday’s post about making it (miraculously) to the million mark in blog viewers we promised to share the highest ranking search engine terms.  We’re going to share the Top 15, doing most of the list in a visual way and in reverse order.

We will start with the 15th and 14th most searched terms as they are so similar: Number 15 is “preppy blog” and Number 14 is “preppy style”, both equally difficult to describe with just one image.  The best we can do is share the brief back story on an ancient item of clothing, a basic turtleneck we purchased ‘back in the day’ when Abercrombie & Fitch stood for something worthwhile. When its name was Abercrombie and Fitch Country Clothiers. When the most one would see of a logo on anything carrying the brand’s name was this. Below left, the inside of said turtleneck and below right, the external tag at the hem of this piece of perfection.

For those interested in more on the topic (at least from our very early archives), we discussed the topic in Those Abercrombie Abs…Part One and Part Two, also probably the earliest mentions about our horrific case of LogoPhobia.  (Of course we still wear the turtleneck, it is in perfectly good condition!)

Number 13 is perhaps better explained by a map.

Fodor's

(The Hamptons.)

At Number 12,  a brand that once shone brightly in our little corner of the globe.

Lacoste

Number 11 covers a topic sadly featured in many posts, we’ll go with an image from The Snuggie at Fashion Week last fall.

PHOTO: Jason DeCrow/AP

Number 10: This individual is mentioned in multiple posts, but here (more than 2 years ago) we officially confer Anti Prep status upon her. And yes, we are aware the young woman has undergone some significant image rehabilitation, but official Anti-Prep membership carries lifetime status.

(Kim Kardashian, famous for being Kim Kardashian.)

Number 9 comes to us from TSU (The Spousal Unit, aka TC), in his post titled The Consort’s Version of Cash for Clunkers, or Carpe Auto:

Yugo? No go.

This one came as a surprise to us, here is Number 8:

Via Two Barking Dogs

The search is just one word, “fireworks”, not a term we would associate with the Princess blog, this oddity addles our little brain.

Very similar to Numbers 15 and 14, at Number 7 we have “preppy” and rather than search for one comprehensive or spectacularly preppish photo we shall take the wimp’s way out and simply show the full image from whence we found our avatar.

PHOTO: TQM

It would seem our affection for madras is deeply rooted.

Number 6:

Courtesy Bravo TV

This image may be one of the least familiar to our readers, it is the cast of NYC Prep, the one-season wonder chronicling the lives of ‘real prep school students’. Ahem.

Number 5 (from multiple posts on a Princess favorite, Goyard):

Courtesy Goyard

Number 4 (from multiple posts):

Kris Connor/Getty

Number 3 from Why There is no Preppy Princess Post Today:

The actual search term is iPhone, again – utterly baffling. Why on earth would anyone come here for that topic?

Coming in at Number 2:

Andrew Eccles/The CW Network

(Actor Chace Crawford in a publicity still from the inaugural season of Gossip Girl.)

And now (drum roll please) we share Number 1:

Andres Eccles/The CW Network

Our Number 1 most searched term also hails from the cast of Gossip Girl: Blake Lively.

As of this writing 19,538 searches for Blake Lively have brought people to the blog. Is anyone else troubled by this fact? Especially when we confess to never having seen a full episode of G2?

With that, we must solicit your thoughts: did any of these surprise you?

More on J. Crew’s Disdain for Preppy & a True Prep Update

Hello-Hello, welcome to another wild and wacky day here at the Prepatorium

We have follow-ups to two topics we initially covered last week, J. Crew’s fall line and True Prep, the new book from one of the TOPH (The Original Preppy Handbook) authors, Lisa Birnbach.

Friday’s post on Crew’s fall line offered a number of photos but little editorial blather from either the professionals in the trade, or your utterly unprofessional hostess here at Princess InterGalactic HQ.

Courtesy Photo

As AOL’s Stylelist noted:

“”This is all about Edie Beale-goes-to-Girl Scout camp,” J.Crew Creative Director Jenna Lyons tells StyleList. “There’s a bit of that grandma-chic that we always draw from. There are elements borrowed from the boys, but we decided she’s at Girl Scout camp.”

Here are more detailed looks shot by WWD’s Kyle Ericksen:

And two more:

The review with the most telling perspective on Crew’s path may be this brief story in today’s Women’s Wear Daily (subscription req’d.). While many perceive the company to have preppy roots and/or preppish products even now, this quote from design director Jenna Lyons suggests a different direction:

“Classic outerwear with a military feel was worn over girly sequined pieces, creating an eclectic layered look intended to further shed J. Crew’s preppy image, which makes Lyons cringe. “We had a story in The Guardian recently, and the opening line was ‘the preppy retailer,’ and I was like, really? Still?”

Some may remember this post where we highlighted a quote from a lengthy interview Style did with Ms. Lyons:

““Preppy” style is often mentioned in the same breath as J.Crew. Is today’s preppy different from yesterday’s?

I have a hard time with the word “preppy.” To me, it’s a way of styling. Classic things mixed a certain way—especially special color combinations—look very preppy. We still have the same pieces: polo shirts, khakis, a great classic blazer, a beautiful white shirt. But what we’ve been trying to do is change the way things are presented. Maybe that little cargo jacket that we would have shown ten years ago with a polo shirt we’re now showing with a little sequin top and high heels. And the thing about preppy is it can be alienating to some people. It’s very coastal and it leaves out a lot of Americans who aren’t yachting or going to the beach club.”

It remains to be seen if Ms. Lyons will continue the move away from ‘preppy’ toward trendier pieces, or if the brand will retain some of its more traditional styles.

Another tableau from the presentation:

Courtesy Image

From The Cut’s review:

“… models wore rugged tweeds, textured tights, and outerwear with Mongolian lamb accents. J.Crew creative director Jenna Lyons described the look as “Edie Beale goes to Girl Scout camp.” The saucer-sized jewelry and homemade headpieces would definitely be at home in Grey Gardens, and Lyons suggested “slapping brooches all over everything” to achieve this eccentric, layered look.

More looks:

More from StyleList:

“The predominant tone in the presentation was olive. “I’m olive obsessed,” Lyons says. “My olive fixation goes back to wanting to touch on the military moment.”

We don’t do olive.

The following thoughts on the men’s styles are also from WWD:

“As for men’s wear, shown before the women’s presentation, J. Crew brought its American heritage to a new level with sophisticated and clean looks.”

Most of the men’s styles we saw looked quite stylish.

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Our other topic with some life to it, True Prep, first discussed here.  An interesting connection to the story above: the new book has multiple references to Crew: in just one diagram the man is described as wearing “J. Crew Head-to-Ankle,” the woman’s striped shirt and khakis are by Crew, and she is carrying a J. Crew handbag.

More to the point today, news about the upcoming publication hit the Times.  On the front page.  On Sunday.  “Rejoice, Muffy and Biff: A Preppy Primer Revisited” looks at the upcoming release while also briefly meandering back to TOPH:

“The original volume, a slim, plaid-covered paperback that poked fun at the gin-soaked polo-shirt and loafer-wearing set, started out as a piquant bit of mockery but…  it ended up being adopted as a kind of guidebook for those who wanted in.”

Why do another book? Perhaps this sentence from writer Motoko Rich says it best:

“But even for prepsters, it turns out, the world has changed.”

As previously mentioned, a good portion of the new book deals with the impact of technology and things like cell phones, while also updating style trends.

“And while “True Prep” dispenses a dollop of the upper-class frugality, many of its featured items are a bit more upmarket than the duck shoes and other L.L. Bean duds that dominated the first volume. Think Tory Burch, E. Goyard bags and the luxury jewelry brand Verdura.”

We simply adored seeing quotes  in the story from other preptastic bloggers:

“The blogosphere is filled with fans eagerly awaiting the new book. The first handbook “was like a bible to us,” said Alice Richardson, 44, who blogs about preppy things at “Summer Is a Verb” (summerisaverb.blogspot.com).”

Along with Hopsy:

“Helen “Hopsy” Goblirsch, a 25-year-old event planner for a real estate developer in Dallas who blogs at “Monograms and Manicures” (kappaprep.com), said she discovered the original handbook when she was a sophomore at the Taft School in Watertown, Conn.”

While reading the story was a delight, looking at the online comments is always an eye-opener.  BTW, True Prep is no longer slated for an August release, it is due out mid-September.  To see an interview with Ms. Birnbach and co-author Chip Kidd (and to also see what brand of loafers the hypothetical preppy male is wearing in the new book), click on the link in the video:

Sunday’s Easter dinner was quite a gala, TQM graced us with her presence and we were off to the Consort’s ancestral home to visit with scads of other relatives.  We close with an Adventure in Argyle, compliments of our hostess for the dinner extravaganza, the Consort’s mother. Not only is she an amazing cook, look at the place cards she created for everyone!

PHOTO CREDITS:

Additional J. Crew images: Kyle Ericksen/WWD

Celebs & Goyard, The Snuggie Goes Upscale

What could be more fun than the Goyard tote? Most readers are aware of our appreciation for this accessory (and not only because it is available in a pink print), a fondness nurtured before the brand became quite so popular, even being declared an “It Bag” by those who issue such declarations. (Our original post and this follow-up offer more background, and for fun, this post details the Goyard Visionaire Trunk.)

Photo via Pretty Shopaholic

At any rate, we are still overcoming the trauma of seeing an Anti-Prep with our bag:

Other celebs have also been spotted with the bag recently; below singer Shania Twain.

Photo via Bag Snob

We thank the sharp eyes at BagSnob for posting the photo above.  One of the primary reasons we like the bag so much is because of the clean and simple design.

Courtesy Photo via Business Week

One more link fans may enjoy: the outstanding Paris Hotel Boutique Journal had a fabulous post last week comparing and contrasting Goyard with Louis Vuitton. We highly recommend it.

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Our only other item today? Word that the Snuggie is doing its very own show at Fashion Week.

Courtesy Photo

This clearly belongs in our “You can’t make this stuff up” category, because it is true, not made up. Seriously.

We direct your image to the photo below:

Imaxtree Photo via The Cut

The fab folks at The Cut blog share the following verbiage from the official invitation to the Snuggie show:

“Amid the glitz and glamour of New York Fashion Week, Snuggie™ will host a runway show of its own, taking center stage to showcase the latest colors, fabrics and patterns…

… the sexiest looks in blanket-wear and adult, kid and even canine models will hit the runway.”

We are predicting this will become the must-have ticket for the week.

With that, we send hopes to all of our treasured readers for a holiday weekend filled with happiness – enjoy!