preppiness

And his preppiness began to seem endearing, this aide said.

He is in all respects the vision of preppiness.

To them, the preppiness of the shoe represented American prosperity and free-market conservatism.

The epidemic of preppiness that had infected so many began to retreat, much the way a virus lies dormant.

While some other merchants play down their preppiness, J. Crew revels in it.

According to Etro, in being true to its secondary-school heritage, preppiness possesses a "juvenile allure."

And for all his preppiness, Dr. Jacobs maintains strong ties to his heritage.

It implies weakness, preppiness, noblesse oblige - an impression fortified by his tin ear for slang.

The crocodile, taken from René Lacoste's nickname reflecting his tenacity on court, became a widely worn symbol of preppiness.

His old-boy manner, his preppiness, his name-dropping - they were absolutely elegant in their genuineness, with no trace of affectation or self-consciousness.

"That's always been the thing about preppiness," says Shari Jacobson, an assistant professor of anthropology at Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania.

As a consequence of its extreme preppiness, J. Crew said, its sales jumped 25 percent in July, including catalog and Internet sales.

Color-washed chinos for men from J. Crew, in red and blue, evoke the chipper preppiness of classic Nantucket Reds, minus the country-club stiffness.

Or, as Alison Pollet, 18, a sophomore at the University of Chicago, put it, "People are trying to achieve the state of slovenly preppiness, of calculated dishevelment."

The original fount of preppiness has been reduced to deploying an army of image-makers to reclaim customers from faux WASP competitors such as Ralph Lauren.

He has a huge crush on fellow class president Christine (Hélène de Fougerolles), but doesn't dare to act upon it because her preppiness is the target of her friends' ridicule.

"It's that tension between the traditional and the unusual that I find appealing," said Alexander Olch, a tie designer, whose round tortoiseshell glasses and halo of red mad-scientist hair mirror the skewed preppiness of his Italian corduroy and gingham seersucker ties.