In Which I Am Being Preppy

It might be that I've been spending too much time on Madison Avenue or it might be that my personality has underwent a dramatic change due to some latent brain disease, but this summer something bizarre started happening to my style. All of a sudden Ralph Lauren has become my favorite shopping destination. Believe it or not, but never in my life have I owned a polo shirt before. Now I have, um, a couple. I wear them with a collar raised in a disgustingly foppish fashion. With a white skirt and white ballet flats or kitten hills. And a bandeau on my head. Readers, I scare myself. And so one day, as I trotted along Madison with my understated in style but not in price bag in the crook of my arm, an inevitable question popped into my head: which perfumes can be described as preppy? The easy answer would be - fresh, clean, sporty, understated. And one predictably and somewhat unhappily thinks of Lauren, Hilfinger and Lacoste and wonders if one can possibly find a perfume that would be preppy but not generic. Luckily, the fresh-understated genre encompasses some interesting things. Whether I personally like them or not, such pale and breezy scents as En Passant, L'Eau d'Hiver, Pure White Linen and L'Ete en Douce are pretty, interesting and preppy. And, of course, in search for preppy freshness one can always resort to the citrusy range: Eau d'Hadrien and Eau de Sud, Eau Illuminee and Cologne Bigarade, Chanel's new Eau de Cologne and Guerlain's wonderful offerings in the genre would go wonderfully well with a polo shirt and real estate in the Hamptons. But to smell preppy one doesn't have to just (barely) smell fresh. If one broadens the definition of "preppy" to conservative and classical (preppy is, after all, more or less synonymous with WASP-y), infinite possibilities would open up. From that point of view, Chanel Cristalle (classical AND fresh!) is an ideal preppy scent. So is White Linen. And so are Jacomo Silences, YSL Y, Hermes Amazone, Diorella and any number of dry green florals and fresher chypres... I am still questioning my new style, but at least I can feel smug in certainty that I smell great. Which scents would you describe as preppy? And of course- where does everybody summer? Image source, ralphlauren.com