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"The word &amp;quot;preppy&amp;quot; didn&amp;#x27;t really enter my vocabulary until I started reading American Young Adult fiction (like Sweet Valley, Anastasia, The Babysitter&amp;#x27;s Club, Judy Blume, etc...) hidden behind school-sanctioned books in the library. For me, preppy is a supremely American style genre (I&amp;#x27;m British, remember!) that has its own set of classic items that best represent it as an aesthetic.G.H. Bass Weejuns, established in 1936, are most definitely part of that. This institution of a shoe company has collaborated with Tommy Hilfiger for a set of &amp;quot;Originals with a Twist,&amp;quot; taking their classic Weejuns loafer and making them up in wool plaid, pony skins, suede and polished leathers in the classic prep colors of burgundy, coke bottle green, navy and ochre. There&amp;#x27;s nothing new about reviving classics, but somehow, the &amp;quot;American-ness&amp;quot; of it these Tommy Hilfiger x G.H. Bass Weejuns makes it a new experience for me. It&amp;#x27;s always a bit odd looking into another country&amp;#x27;s heritage pieces, and G.H. Bass&amp;#x27; Weejuns loafers aren&amp;#x27;t something I have personal memories of or an attachment to. In a way, I feel a bit fake to be so enthusiastic about something I have no prior memories of, but the imbued American preppiness of the shoe is what makes it wholly appealing. A few concept and department stores are doing special launches and installations for the collaboration and in London, and Selfridges have a special Hilfiger x G.H. Bass Weejuns style made for them with yellow stitching, a yellow sole, a yellow penny to slot in as well as an Olympia Le Tan shoe bag to go with them: I was trying on the Selfridges yellow ones for size, but I&amp;#x27;m going for the navy ones with the red stitching as a lucky preview order. They&amp;#x27;ll be properly available for all on the Tommy Hilfiger site online from September onwards. I love that fellow London blogger Navaz of Disney Rollergirl came geared up in preppiness already with her pair of vintage tasselled weejuns as well as a well-worn inside-out red sweatshirt: And now for another American classic: You&amp;#x27;ll laugh if I say that up until a few years ago, the brand Coach barely entered my brain. There&amp;#x27;s good reason for this. There were no stores in Europe for a very long time, and I&amp;#x27;d only ever seen them fleetingly in American magazines, or I might have come across Coach when I was visiting Asia. Coach&amp;#x27;s presence in the UK has, of course, changed with a store now in London&amp;#x27;s Westfield shopping mall and Net-A-Porter&amp;#x27;s recent relaunch of iconic Coach styles. It&amp;#x27;s interesting that NAP have chosen to revive styles with the help of Coach creative director Reed Krakoff rather than bring in current Coach styles, but I gather from the viewpoint of fans of older styles of Coach bags, this is a welcome collaboration, indeed. I&amp;#x27;ve personally never hunted for vintage Coach, but it seems there is a certain nostalgia for the older styles in supple leathers, quite different from the more recent logo-bearing Coach styles. I was lucky enough to try out the small shoulder purse in tan can attest that the leather has a lovely suppleness to it as well as being well-treated (multiple downpours of London rain hasn&amp;#x27;t battered it one bit). This small shoulder bag style is a compact but sturdy beginning but I&amp;#x27;ll definitely be checking out the bucket bag in navy when the whole range drops for a roomier option. Photos courtesy of Tommy Hilfiger, Susanna Lau, and Net-a-Porter "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/fashion/blogs/dressed/2011/06/yp-preppy-style-the-american-clas>