Prep School

Yesterday I wore my Lilly Pulitzer vest, which was one of my first purchases with my hard-earned summer job money the summer after I graduated from high school. The other purchase I made was a houndstooth skirt from Vineyard Vines. I've always been a fan of preppy styles. Part of that has to do with growing up in the Northern Virginia suburbs of DC and part of that probably has to do with both where I spent summers as a child and where my parents grew up/were educated. My parents are both from New England and as a child we would go visit my grandparents on Nantucket.

image found here

Nantucket is probably the epicenter of preppiness for me. Summer in Nantucket is full of people in bright colored polo shirts and those crazy pants with lobsters embroidered on them. Last time I went to Nantucket I was in high school and we stayed with my Aunt Sarah and her family in their house there. Nantucket is beautiful - with its distinctive style of house and the gorgeous flowers that line people's fences, as well as the beach and the center of town where the streets are made of cobblestones and are lined with cute little shops. It was on Nantucket that I first went into a Lilly Pulitzer store. I fell in love with the bright colors and patterns (which are unfortunately out of my price range).
In high school, my favorite colors were pink and green which I wore together with aplomb. I had a drawer in my dresser reserved for Polo shirts, which I would buy every time we went to the Ralph Lauren outlet. I also started a bit of a Vera Bradley collection and am in possession of more brightly colored patterned quilted bags than is probably advisable. There's now a Vera store in the mall in my hometown and it's beautiful. I've also got a lot of argyle and plaid, cable-knit sweaters, sweater vests and hair ribbons. After all, I did play field hockey and lacrosse in high school. It's basically required to have a ribbon. For prom my senior year, I decided to not look for something that was a traditional prom dress and instead convinced my mom to buy me a Lilly Pulitzer dress - and matched it with green eyeliner and pink mascara.My prom dress - it's full length and I plan on getting it hemmed into a knee length (or a little shorter) dress so that I can wear it again and again. This isn't the best picture - taken indoors - the colors are a lot more vibrant in person.High school Christmas card picture. Note the argyle sweater, polo shirt, khakis and pearls.
Freshman year of high school: pink polo shirt
The Vera Bradley stuff I have at school (trust me, there's a lot more at home)
I think I like preppy clothes so much because they always seem classy to me. There's never too much skin showing, and there's rarely a dearth of bright colors or patterns. I love walking into a store like Ralph Lauren or Lacoste and looking at the stacks of vividly colored polo shirts. I'm definitely influenced by places like Nantucket and clothing lines like Lilly Pulitzer and Kate Spade. Really, anything with a bright color or print and I'm there. I even own pink and green suitcases.
Below, some of my favorites from Lilly and Kate.
Lilly (from lillypulitzer.com):
Kate (from katespade.com):