The Official Preppy Handbook

Most of my inspiration and discussion of style comes from a forum on the website www.bodybuilding.com, there has currently been roughly six of these such style threads within the forum (here is the latest ones as of this post http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=128777581, which also features links to some of the past threads) and it was here that I first heard tell of The Official Preppy Handbook, also known as TOPH as it is referred to often enough that the acronym is quickly recognized under the context of style.

I ordered my own copy online from Amazon in 2009, like the Tea Partay video, the handbook has a tongue in cheek vibe to it's explanations of the complete preppy lifestyle and I got several chuckles out of it, relating several excerpts to my relatives and especially my Grandparents.

The handbook details everything from childhood to retired age with descriptions of what sports are preppy to what jobs and schools are preppy with of course the style of dress discussed throughout.

If you are interested at all in preppy style, I recommend the read.

Go to Hell

The Go to Hell look is something that I immediately took an interest in, while the majority of my friends groaned and rolled their eyes at the thought of wearing brightly coloured or critter print pants or shorts or other flashy items, I thought it looked like fun.
The best explanation of Go to Hell style and its origins was created by Christian Chensvold of www.ivy-style.com


Here is the complete article featuring many awesome Go To Hell pants of both the brightly coloured and the critter print variety.
http://www.ivy-style.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/gth-story.pdf

Tea Partay

A satirical video made to poke fun at preppies much like The Official Preppy Handbook (which I will discuss later) has played a big part in inspiring me too push the limits in my style and to adopt somewhat of a Go To Hell attitude (which I will discuss later) to my style.  Upon seeing this video I almost immediately placed an order with Brooks Brothers for a pair of bright red chinos (which I will discuss later) similar to those worn in the beginning of the video by the P-Unit frontman Prescott.
Your regular run of the mill prep style of wearing khaki coloured chinos with polos, button downs in pastels and navy or tweed blazers along with boat shoes and penny loafers always work and is a classic look. However at university this can get pretty plain and boring when everyone is wearing the same sort of thing and unlike grade school there is no longer a dress code, even though sometimes it may appear as such.
So since watching this video my style has become slightly skewed with a greater interest in GTH (Go to Hell) style, wearing the average acceptable prep style with the occasional item that ranges from a slight pop to an in your face assault of colour or pattern, which makes it just plain fun to get dressed in the morning.