Word: wearer
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...habit acquired in childhood, the preppy look betrays a pitiable lack of self-confidence. Faith in a designer's name is a poor substitute for belief in one's force of character. An alligator shirt or a madras skirt is the equivalent of a sandwich sign advertising the wearer's shallowness and insecurity. It doesn't take a firm grasp of existential dialectics to see the intimate link between L.L. Bean and Nothingness. Preppy clothes cloak an inner void...
...WORST "fashion statement' is the plaid skirt, which asserts the wearer's class superiority and gender inferiority. Preppie culture has always been patriarchal. Thorstein Veblen, who coined the phrase "conspicuous consumption" at the turn of the century, contended that the leisure class woman's function was to display-her male keeper's wealth. "The high heel, the skirt...and the general disregard of the wearer's comfort which is an obvious feature of all civilized women's apparel" suggested to Veblen that "the woman is still in theory the economic dependent of the man." Despite changes since Veblen...
Nevelson is past 80, without seeming so. One of the results of having a public mask is that its wearer seems to age more slowly, and no persona in the field of American culture is more instantly recognizable than hers. The armature of bone is a little more visible through the gaunt face when the makeup is off; the immense clumps of false eyelashes, glued double or treble to her lids, seem rather darker against the skin; the expression is slightly more imperious. Otherwise there is little apparent change...
...from being crass advertisements for the wearer's employer, company chokers tend to be stylish, subtle, discreet. Manufacturers Hanover Trust in New York celebrates its success in international banking with cravats, designed by Pierre Cardin, that bear tiny symbols of various European, Asian and Middle Eastern currencies. Ties for Republic National Bank of New York, one of the nation's leading gold merchants, have a design showing little ingots. Brokers at E.F. Hutton can suit up with ties bearing the initials EFH. The letters are almost indecipherable at a distance of more than six inches...
MULTIPLYING on campuses from Cambridge to Madison, the big red-and-white buttons glint like badges of honor. They attest to the wearer's rare intellectual discernment in recognizing the merit of Rep. John B. Anderson (R-Ill.). The Anderson fan knows he is showing unusual judgement and independent-mindedness because every major media commentator has told him so. Numerous quotations from favorable reviews decorate the Illinois Republican's leaflets as if they were ads for a new movie or bestseller; one expects to read, "compelling... I couldn't put him down'--James Reston" or "the sleeper of the season...