Birth of a Blog

The Official Preppy Handbook is legendary.  Satire often has a way of revealing the absolute truth.  How often has a William Hamilton cartoon cut to the bone?  Every single time, I would guess.  TOPH became an instant, timeless classic precisely because it confirmed all that is right about the preppy way of life.  "It's the preferred self-help.  It's key."

In the late 80's, my dearest friend and I conspired to write the sequel.  Our vision for TOPH2 outlined an expansion and update.  Life-long, crippling procrastination kept us from doing anything more than making grandiose plans for two decades.  I’m sure our outline gathers dust in her childhood closet (right next to that bottle of rum that was pilfered from the liquor cabinet). 

When Alexandra Wentworth wrote The WASP Cookbook in the mid 90's we were crushed.  We could have written that!  We should have written that!  But we didn't.  Alexandra Wentworth did, and a fine job at that.  Then came Tipsy in Madras.  Who were these people and whose woodwork were they crawling out of?  We most certainly could have written that!

Flash forward to the age of the blog.  Not being one to hop on any newfangled bandwagon, I am a latecomer to the world of blogs.  I don't recall how I came across my first preppy blog read, but it filled a need in me.  There are other people out there who view the world as I do.  And they dress like me too!  

I stumbled across Muffy Aldrich's amazing blog, The Daily Prep, late one night last month.  Bleary-eyed and obsessed, I devoured every post, my soul crying out for more.  Here was my kind of prep!  A classic beauty, Mrs. Aldrich knows what suits her and obviously feels no need to fix what's not broken.  And she is generous enough to share her opinions and her beautiful photos with the world.  I went to bed that night with visions, not of sugar plums, but of my own preppy blog dancing in my head.

I shared The Daily Prep with the aforementioned dearest friend.  She too found herself repeating my late-night behavior, obsessively reading each post.  When I told her that I started my own preppy blog she was enthusiastically supportive.  The more we talked about it, the more I realized that I couldn't do it without her.  She graciously agreed to help me, so you can expect to see postings from both of us.  We are also collaborating on the stand-alone pages which we intend to update frequently.  

With The Daily Prep, Mrs. Aldrich has established her authority on the sartorial nature of preppy style.  What more we could add?  My vision is to expand upon virtually every page of TOPH by the time it’s all over.  I want to include what was left out, to provide links to more information, to celebrate what makes preppies so great.  We hope that readers of The Prep Pantheon will enjoy what we are putting together.  We invite you to let us know what topics you would like to see covered in future postings or on the stand-alone pages.