Words are a funny thing. Every now and then, for reasons unclear, they’ll undergo a total semantic transformation. “Nice” once meant “dumb.” “Clue” was once a term for “a ball of yarn.” (Greek mythology stuff.) And now, thanks to my 8-year-old stepdaughter, I’ve learned that “preppy” has undergone a linguistic evolution specifically for Generation Alpha. Only in this instance, the source of the change is fairly easy to determine. Like most Gen Alpha trends, it’s fueled by TikTok, but there’s also a physical origin of New Preppy: a bubblegum pink boutique in Snider Plaza. In October 2023, Dear Hannah Prep posted a TikTok of a young girl walking into the shop and excitedly declaring, “It’s so preppy in here.” And thus, a meme was born. DHP even gets name-checked in Merriam-Webster’s slang definition of “preppy.”
When my stepdaughter says she wants to look preppy, she’s not referring to crisp Oxford shirts, argyle socks, or Rugby Ralph Lauren. She knows nothing of the term’s class connotations or the elitism of WASPy preparatory schools. She just wants to hold a Starbucks cup in one hand and a Stanley tumbler in the other. She wants to wear pink flouncy skirts and slap a smiley face sticker on something. To borrow a term from my millennial generation, she wants to be “basic.” But unlike that word, the new “preppy” can also be used positively. It’s fitting that the meme-generating TikTok took off in 2023, the “Year of the Girl” that saw the release of Barbie, the launch of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, and an unabashed celebration of girlhood.
Dear Hannah Prep, which also opened in 2023 as a tween-focused offshoot of Dallas’ Dear Hannah boutique, is a shoppable ode to the girlies. It’s wall-to-wall bows, charm bracelets, smiley faces, and star motifs. There’s a display dedicated to Taylor Swift and a rack of fuzzy Lafufus (faux Labubus). Both times I visited the boutique, several groups of tweens dressed in colorful skirts and tank tops popped in to purchase a sequined bauble. The store manager explained that they regularly get out-of-state visitors who’ve made the preppy pilgrimage to see them.
Of course, TikTok stardom often paves the way for controversy. Many commentors have raised a brow at the use of very young girls to market Dear Hannah Prep on social media. The account has essentially become a kidfluencer platform, which is hairy for a number of reasons, including whether or not the stable of “Prep Girls” are being paid for what is clearly work. Neither the store’s owner, Hannah Caillier, nor its social media manager, Gabriela Vascimini, responded to an interview request, but the brand did share a statement in August 2023 explaining that the “Prep Girls are equally compensated in a variety of ways.” Girlhood, as Barbie and The Eras Tour demonstrated, is big business after all.
My stepdaughter has yet to visit Dear Hannah Prep, and I fear exposing her to its TikTok account would break her mind into a billion Lafufus. But from the puffy purple headbands she picks out in the morning to actor Benito Skinner using “it’s so preppy in here 🙂” for a social media caption this past summer, DHP’s presence is still felt. All the way from Dallas, Texas.
This story originally appeared in the September issue of D Magazine with the headline “The New Preppy.” Write to [email protected].
