News Roundup: WASPs, Prepdom, Maine, And What Yalies Do After Graduation

wasp

We’re finally catching up with some news items of the past few weeks.

First up is Grailed.com, “a marketplace for buying and selling preowned high-end menswear.” It was recently launched by class of 2013 Yale grad Arun Gupta, who tells us he spent much time at J. Press.

In an email Gupta explained the business model:

There are many similar sites that cater towards women and I thought that the menswear community deserved one as well. Our goal is to provide a secondary market for exclusive brands like Visvim and Epaulet. It’s free to use and I’m hoping it will become a positive resource for the male fashion community. There’s a lot of great stuff up there already; a lot of the clothes are new or barely used, so it’s basically just high end fashion at a lower price.

Much of the current stock looks like workwear that’s been laid off, but you might find some RL stuff or even these Allen Edmonds shoes:

showpage_allenedmonds_shoes_strand_brown-walnut

As for Gupta, he’s also putting his education to use in other ways.

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Richard Press recently tweeted this passage from a New York Times article, which states that prepdom is losing its influence on American menswear designers:

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Of course, prepdom in the hands of a fashion designer is kind of like a portrait in the hands of a Cubist, with the result distorted beyond recognition. No loss for you guys; just keeping you abreast of the zeitgeist.

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Speaking of trends winding down, Vanity Fair recently ran a piece called “Is America Finally Over Its Maine Moment?” Writes Chris Rovzar:

But then, earlier this year, I went to a pop-up shop in West Chelsea and I realized it had gone too far. A dozen or so new and old Maine brands, L. L. Bean included, had set up booths in a giant garage and were selling everything from rugged flannels and earflap hats to saddles and benches made of re-claimed pine planks. It was evocative of Maine, but somehow not. The plaid button-downs and the river-guide shirts were as itchily familiar to me as the smell of a leaf pile in the backyard. But the Edison bulbs? The hand-stitched leather wallets? That wasn’t really what I remembered finding in the general store in my dad’s rural town of Stoneham (population: 250).

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And finally, from just before Christmas, is a Wall Street Journal piece entitled “The Late, Great American WASP,” by Joseph Epstein, author of the book “Snobbery.” The first line is straightforward and should hook your interest:

The U.S. once had an unofficial but nonetheless genuine ruling class, drawn from what came to be known as the WASP establishment. Members of this establishment dominated politics, economics and education, but they do so no longer.

Weep not. Their sartorial legacy lives on.

7 Comments on "News Roundup: WASPs, Prepdom, Maine, And What Yalies Do After Graduation"

  1. Happy Martin Luther King Day.

  2. Indeed. And here’s Richard’s MLK post from last August:

    http://www.ivy-style.com/golden-years-a-j-press-tie-for-dr-king.html

  3. Richard Meyer | January 21, 2014 at 5:19 pm |

    Are we better off since the decline and fall of WASPdom politically? I wonder. Now we are a plutocracy.

  4. “The Ruling Class” notion Is superb…..when you are in it. Just ask Prince William. As for the rest of you commoners, well, sorry, you shall never be a member. No matter how hard you try, no matter how smart you are.

  5. Epstein’s elevation of the “Token Jew on the SCOTUS in the Otherwise All Land of WASPs in Days of Yore” and decrying the Kennedy clan as somehow engaging in “mimicry” misses the point entire. Many of the earliest elites, jurists, medical men, explorers and fighting men on CONUS were, in fact, of Irish, Catholic, or otherwise Continental Catholic, or Non-Wasp Continental origin – such as the Carrolls of Maryland – Founding Father types – and many prominent families in New York and Mass and New England, including some of the Bush family’s kin.

    Then there was General Pulaski and Michael Kovats – who like any true prep – were great horsemen and bushmen of their era.

    It is always interesting to see people re-invent traditions of yore, but Epstein has failed this time.

  6. I haven’t heard of most of the “high end” brands featured on grail.com

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