If You Want Chic Spring Trend Ideas, This "Dated" Top Is Officially Cool Again (and Looks Good With Everything)

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Polo top street style
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Fashion editors have been saying prep is back for some time now. But it finally seems to have made it's way back to the mainstream. It's different than you may remember. You no longer need to adhere to the stuffiness laid out in books like Take Ivy. The preppy look of 2026 isn't about just looking prim and proper. It's a bit more subversive.

Polo top street style

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Polo top street style

(Image credit: Getty Images)

The preppy look now involves wearing a preppy element, like a polo top, and mixing it with different aesthetics. Think of it like a school kid but rebellious. It's about bending the rules instead of following them.

Polo top street style

(Image credit: Getty Images)

While walking around New York city, which has a longer history of grittiness than preppiness, I noticed lots of cool girls opting for polo tops. They were wearing them with mini pleated skirts that would have gotten them dress-coded, baggy jeans worn loose enough to expose some underwear, and colorful thigh-high socks with heeled Mary Janes.

Polo street style

(Image credit: Getty Images)

It reminded me that sometimes the best wardrobe staples are those that have a reputation. When something has a defined vibe, it makes it more fun and ripe for experimentation. And that's exactly why you can expect to see polo tops at a higher frequency than normal this spring, worn in all of the ways you would least suspect.

Tara Gonzalez
Tara Gonzalez
Senior Fashion & Social Editor

Tara Gonzalez is a senior fashion and social editor at WhoWhatWear. where she is interested in exploring the intersection of fashion and culture and why we are drawn to wearing the things we wear and what that says about the world we live in. Previously she worked as a senior fashion editor at Harper's Bazaar. When she isn't writing trend deep dives for WWW, she's working on her newsletter on Substack, Cult Classic, which explores the very best fashion in film and television. She has a degree in creative writing from The University of Pennsylvania. She lives in Brooklyn with her boyfriend and pug Bjork, the later of which has a very extensive collection of dog-sized Sandy Liang sweaters.