natashavc:

“The subculture most obsessively, lovingly, and savagely scrutinized, though, has been the northeastern WASPestablishment. The best-selling nonfiction books of Cleveland Amory, E. Digby Baltzell, Stephen Birmingham, and Nelson W. Aldrich Jr., and the best-selling novels and short stories of John O’Hara, John Marquand, and Louis Auchincloss, meticulously probed the manners and mores, clubs, sumptuary codes, drinks, summer colonies, houses, bedroom communities, schools and colleges, banks and law firms of what would come to be known as the preppy. And in 1980, Lisa Birnbach—a young woman in, but not exactly of, preppydom—produced The Official Preppy Handbook, a knowing codification of the tribe’s tastes, proclivities, and accoutrements. All but a how-to manual, the book sold 1.3 million copies and, not inconsequentially for the history of American retail, inspired the creation of J. Crew.”

Prep Is Dead, Long Live Prep