The preppy personal item is a best-seller for a reason; it fits even more than you could ever imagine, and it will attach to your suitcase, making it the perfect carry-on for those summertime flights.

The look and meaning of preppy fashion have shifted multiple times over the decades. A new variant of preppy has gone viral online. And it involves pink clothing, cartoons, ribbons, and bowties.

Lisa Birnbach has seen this all before. Dries van Noten spring 2024. But what does preppy style signify now? And how did an aesthetic that once felt niche and exclusionary take over the world?

Attention ancient users of the Internet—this includes you, too, Gen Z and millennial online dwellers: Preppy no longer means what you probably think it means. If you thought it still looked like ...