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Preppy Optics
Our columnist infiltrates the WASP’s nest to explain the optical origins of the iconic pink and green color combination.
White-light interference phenomenon in soap bubbles. [Getty Images]
The Official Preppy Handbook, published in 1980, facetiously revealed to those not raised in upper-middle-class white Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) households the culture’s passwords and clichés, including its love of the pink and green color combination. I make no apologies for invoking a book that’s more than 35 years old; in fact, it underwent a rewrite about five years ago. Even today, in prep culture, pink and green still match.
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