The Harvard Sweatshirt: Too Cool for School

Abstract

Princess Diana had an affection for sweatshirts. One of the most iconic was a cowl-neck Harvard sweatshirt she wore to the gym. This piece was so critical that the Ivy League university recreated it for season five of The Crown after the costume department reached out. In 1997, Princess Diana and her 2022 character launched and relaunched Crimson sweatshirt fashion that had nothing to do with university spirit and was all about style. Historically, university sports fans and students wear university-related clothing to connect with their institutions and sports teams, flaunting their identity and spirit. In addition, collegiate clothing plays a significant role in building university brands and reputations. During the twentieth century, these became part of the ‘All American’ vernacular, becoming a compelling component of the American fashion identity. Although it is customary to trope American Fashion to Hollywood and Seventh Avenue, college students have been key players in developing a casual style, the epitome of American Style. This article explores the Harvard sweatshirt’s road from school to cool by drawing on Bourdieu’s ideas of social space, acknowledging the impact of mass media in structuring the fashion field, and Marx’s ideas of commoditization and fashion fetishism. It will explain how and when the item transubstantiated from a signifier of class privilege and intelligence to a signifier of style and became part of the spectacle of fashion. It will also describe how the institution capitalized on this phenomenon and how it affected the inhabitants of Harvard’s social space.

Keywords:

• university brands
• American fashion
• Harvard Sweatshirt
• Bourdieu
• Social space

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The Crown, season 5, episode 2. 8:11’ Actress Elizabeth Debicki, as Princess Diana.

2 Clemente, Deirdre. 2014. Dress Casual: How College Students Redefined American Style. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press P1.

3 Paparazzi-style image shows Hailey Bieber walking through a parking lot. She wears white workout sneakers and white cotton socks, a pair of black legging shorts, and an oversized red sweatshirt with white unintelligible collegiate font, “something” university. Her hair is styled in a messy ponytail, and she wears sunglasses. Bieber has her bag in one arm and is looking for something with the other. Her car keys hang from her mouth. Shot by Gregory Harris and styled by Virginie Benarroch, Vogue Paris, September 2019.

4 Paris, France. March 1^st, 2022: A guest wears black sunglasses, a blue faded oversized jacket, a white latte with burgundy Harvard print pattern t-shirt, blue faded denim ripped large jeans pants, white leather high top sneakers from Nike, outside Nanushka, during Paris Fashion Week - Womenswear F/W 2022-2023, (Photo by Edward Berthelot/Getty Images).

5 Birnbach, 1980, The official Preppy Handbook. exposes The Preppy value system. Rule number two is “nonchalance”: “While preppy take pride in their social position, they are loathe to flaunt it to the world. Understatement is key. They know they have wealth and power, so why show it off?” p34.

6 Traditionally, SWAG stands for Stuff We All Get, a.k.a. promotional products for marketing and giveaways, but swag (derived from swagger) also means calm, composed, and “with it.” Swag can be used as both a noun and a verb and continues to evolve in popular culture.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maria Chammah

Maria Chammah is an independent scholar with a Master’s in Fashion Experience and Design from SDA Bocconi as well as a Master’s in Art in Costume Studies from New York University. Her research interests center around the consumption of symbol-intensive fashion artifacts throughout history, exploring their social and cultural nuances across various contexts, with a special interest in culture-producing retail environments. [email protected]