Are 1980s preppies known for wearing multiple polo shirts?

Cafe Society
1

I saw that Netflix now has the original Wet Hot American Summer, so I took the opportunity to watch it and also move on to its prequels and sequels.

For those who are unfamiliar, it’s a somewhat surreal and absurdist parody of the summer camp genre set in 1981.

I’m currently on First Day of Camp, which is set six weeks prior to the original but was made 14 years after, with much of the same cast. So actors in their 40s and 50s are playing teenagers. Even more surreal.

But one new character is the antagonist at the neighboring rich kids’ camp played by Josh Charles.

He’s supposed to be a preppy type and he often seems to be wearing three polo shirts at once, one over the other over the other, with all the collars popped.

Is this a parody of a real preppy stereotype? Were they known to wear multiple polo shirts?

2

I saw that look back in the day.

3

Yes. Multiple polo shirts with popped collars was definitely a thing in the 80s, at least at my school. Especially among fraternity members.

4

I was going to say absolutely not, but Maserschmidt says it happened, so I’ll just amend my answer to “not around here.”

5

Polo shirts layered over polo shirts, polo shirts layered over a printed turtleneck, slouchy socks layered over slouchy socks…oh heck yeah it’s accurate.

Source: I went to jr. high and high school in the eighties and did all of those things.

6

I wonder how this style developed. Maybe cold-weather clothing became uncool and people just started wearing more and more pastel-colored warm-weather clothes?

7

I was in high school and college in the midwest during the '80s. The Polo with a sweater tied around the shoulders is the look I remember.

Don’t recall ever seeing the multiple-polo thing, but I’ll believe the Dopers who say it existed. Might be a regional thing.

8

Oh, and the tight rolled jeans. What a look. I was a belated hippy. I wore bell bottoms that had been my older Sister’s. I also wore fatigues, olive drab with a button fly. Loved those pants. I wasn’t exactly preppy.

9

It was a thing in parts of Houston in the 80s, but only the dicks did it.

10

I remember the popped collars on the polo shirts, but not multiple polo shirts. (And of course those guys wore Izod Lacoste polo shirts, with the alligator on the left breast.)

11

I graduated from HS in 1981. The multiple polo shirts, usually pastel with the collar(s) turned up came along a few years later.

12

And my experience was in Austin. So maybe Texas dicks, regionally speaking.

13

Yeah, it’s gotta be a regional thing. Graduated in the late 80s and that wasn’t a thing I recall happening. If anyone did that, they probably would have been ridiculed as some sort of dumbass for wearing two shirts that way.

14

I was in high school in the early 90s (but a place removed enough to be several years fad delayed) and absolutely can confirm that two polo shirts was a staple of the cool kid wardrobe for at least two years. The inner one was preferentially white or a light solid color that coordinated in some way with the outer one. There were many acceptable ways to wear the colors but the preferred method was the inner was straight up as it showed it was a new crisp shirt.

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Wearing a popped-collar polo shirt under a button-down shirt was a generic “preppy” look in the '80s, but I agree that layering one polo shirt over another may have been originally a regional style that gained wider currency in the mid-'00s revival of '80s fashions.

17

I associate it with memes like this. Some people might’ve done it, but I don’t know it was a “thing.”

Paul Rudd is almost 50 and clearly a vampire, so at least he can plausibly play himself in a prequel.

18

Two years ago, this style returned from the grave/ slithered out from under a rock/ crawled out of the hot-tub drain when Steve Bannon showed up in DC rockin’ it. Why Steve Bannon Wears so Many Shirts

19

I don’t remember it, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Seems weird though – how do you wear three polo shirts without looking bloated and puffy? Someone should have been selling polo shirt dickies so you could just layer the collar part.

Popped collars were common though. It’s the multi-shirt thing that I don’t recall.

20

I can say it wasn’t a thing in my region of the Mid-Atlantic. There were preppies, but they were far outnumbered by the FFA and heavy-metal-concert-t-shirt (and heavy blue eye shadow for the girls) types.