Hello and good afternoon,

Today I would like to share with you a type of shoe I’ve been searching for in vegan leather. A plain and simple classic penny loafer.

MaraisUSA, a very cool source for “unintentionally vegan” shoes, recently released their fall line.

Usually I love their classic styles, but I only really liked one of their shoes this time around.

Important Update: These shoes are no longer (or perhaps never were) VEGAN. Sorry for leading people astray. A commenter alerted me. 

One thing that bothers me about this otherwise super cool company that makes many vegan shoes is that they just don’t make all their shoes vegan. Instead some shoes are made out of “genuine supple rich kid suede”. To me that is very off putting and disturbing. I don’t care if the skin of a baby goat is rich and supple. That is just not cool at all.

However some people are just not aware of these issues.

Anyway, these loafers are perfect for a look that I have always thought is really cool. Let’s just call it vintage prep school style.

Let me show you what I mean.

Here are some photos from Take Ivy. A hilarious book written by a Japanese reporter in the 1960s who came to Ivy League schools to report back on Ivy League style, because there was a huge trend in Japan to dress like an Ivy Leauger going on. This book was fetching astronomical prices on ebay before some publisher reissued it. Supposedly fashion insiders were hoarding copies of the book and color copying every page to give to their employees.

Great looks, no?

I believe this athletic, wholesome, ivy league look of “Take Ivy” style resurfaced years later in Abercrombie and Fitch during their golden age during the late nineties where all their clothes seemed to be reissues of vintage gym attire from this same time period of Take Ivy.

They put out a magazine called the A&F Quarterly photographed by Bruce Weber that explored and idealized this preppy college style and lifestyle. However, the magazine featured so much nudity and so many controversial articles that it was eventually shut down by angry parents groups, and the issues became collector’s items.

This magazine was so crucial to my adolescence I one day purchased the complete set  on ebay for an exorbitant fee but I have not regretted it at all!

In a way the A&F Quarterly was like the tumblr of yesteryear — full of nudity, beautiful photography, and hot people.

Some tumblrs at least.

Moving on.

This preppy “Take Ivy” style cause I believe has now been taken up by American Apparel, another notoriously controversial company.

American Apparel focuses on recreating preppy looks from the 70s, 80s, and early nineties. Like Abercrombie, this company tries to be edgy by using shockingly sexy ads, some featuring porn stars and underage girls in NSFW poses. I tried to look for ads to illustrate but amazingly found them all too NSFW. At least Abercrombie tried to be more high art with gorgeous lush photos by an amazing photographer, but AA’s style is more… raunchy, to say the least.

To each his or her own.

I recently saw a cool and more updated example of this preppy style on the newly launched Rookie Magazine, Tavi’s latest and greatest venture. photos by Petra Collins.

socks by American Apparel.

Which brings me back to loafers.

Loafers are a great way to wear knee socks, and experiment with preppy style.

Finally here are some photos from MaraisUSA’s really cool lookbook, again exemplifying Preppy style.

Let me know what you think!

Do you enjoy preppy style? Are Abercrombie and American Apparel idiotic or awesome? Would you wear penny loafers and knee socks or is it too Lolita and inappropriate for a young woman. Comment below!