The preppy guidebook

Unlike the posh upper east-siders who inhabit a certain gossip-infested production, not all of us have the bank accounts to match the on-trend wardrobes of investment bankers and their offspring. As one viewer noted in a recently published New York Times story, not every girl has the purchasing power to garner the kind of logo-friendly totes girls on Gossip Girl sport like Jansport knapsacks. (Mix-and-match Ferragamo purses, anyone?)

While current paparazzi shots of the show’s frontrunners summering it up in the Hamptons have the likes of Leighton Meester filleted on fashion police sites as she prances about main street in a pair of boat shoes and — gasp! — what look terrifyingly like culottes, it’s the program’s sophisticated city staples — the tailored coat, the Tory Burch ballet flats, the preppy skirts and madras prints — that have garnered this show the kind of cultural cachet most associate with the early airings of Sex and the City. (You know you’ve made it big when chicks at the bar are drunkenly texting each other about last night’s episode while asking their equally inebriated seatmate if they’re more like Blair or Serena. No more Charlotte or Samantha conundrums for this tweener to 20-something set.)

For those fans of the freewheeling, slightly boho aesthetic of Serena, there are high-waist shorts, slightly loose, revealing tops, and linen dresses on the skimpier side. Those who fancy Blair’s more upper-crust, preppy ensembles can invest in poplin blouses with pouf sleeves and super tailored separates, like argyle sweater vests and anything with piping.

Hankering for the wardrobe of the Fortune 500 when the only investment portfolio you keep contains discount cards and coupons? Welcome to the club, sister.

Instead of going the fake route (it’s so uncool when the cops catch you toting something faux through immigration), play with preppy staples you can find at stores like Bench, Bayo, Freeway, Kamiseta, Folded & Hung and the like. The secret is all in the mix.

After all, those Reva flats only became worth something when Tory Burch stamped her signature T all over them. Once you give your wardrobe your personal stamp, rest assured your investment portfolio (and by that I mean your wardrobe) will go the way of fuel prices — up, up and away.