Week of Prep: A Suited Start

photo by Fred Castleberry

In a weeklong collaboration with Fred Castleberry of Unabashedly Prep, we explored the preppy roots of our personal style using his photographic expertise as our means and Princeton University’s campus as our backdrop. For the first day, we took aim at one of our favorite F/W pieces: The Chalk Stripe Suit. If there’s one thing that brings fear to a young guy these days it’s the prospect of wearing a suit. For some reason, suits have been relegated to the few instances of formality when a tuxedo isn’t appropriate and you can’t wear a blazer and chinos. Quite sad, in our opinion.

In this look, Chris tried to give the suit a sportier feel without losing too much of its formality. Instead of working it with a plaid sport shirt, it’s a french cuff dress shirt with a contrast collar. While he’s not wearing a tie, the vest balances it out and adds a seasonal touch with its heavy tweed. One of the best things about a seasonal suit like this one is that it can be worn with some more heavily worn-in shoes. You can wear those wingtips with a little bit of extra soul in them because the heavy wool and tweed in the rest of the look works so well with it.

Check out the Mr. Castleberry’s commentary here.