That kid in the back row of econ class does it every With its roots in high schools that required uniforms, the action of adding some extra flair and a touch of irony to an otherwise dowdy polo or Oxford shirt by lifting the collar so that it points to the sky, more commonly known as "popping your collar," is the preppy phenomenon that's become prominent on the Homewood campus.
And it's not just exclusive to a sect of the Blue Jays. In fact, my attention was brought to the whole popped collar trend on a recent trip to a spring break locale, where my friends and I encountered far too many tanned boys with southern drawls and pastel Lacostes with the collar fabric erect. After I voiced my observation about the disappointing seas of popped collars surrounding us, one of my friends made an astute assertion: "Popped collars actually work to our advantage," she explained. "It's like they're wearing little signs that warn us: 'I'm a tool, don't date me.' It's a way of screening."
Granted, many girls may argue with this sentiment (it could be a way for some to pick out the winners), but my friend brings up a good point. Like it or not, the old clich?? has at least a shred of truth to it -- the clothes make the man, and in this case, a few inches of upturned cloth brings a couple of stereotypes to mind.
Prior to attending this fine institution, I thought the popped collar was merely an urban legend -- a myth exclusively linked to Zach Morris and kids with their own personal sailboats. But, after nearly two years at Hopkins, I've learned that the popped collar is a way of life for many, albeit still a bit of a mystery to the rest of us, the non-poppers.
Perhaps the appeal of the popped collar lies in its comfort factor -- maybe it acts as a makeshift scarf for its wearers in chilly weather. Or the collars could simply turn themselves upward naturally, kind of how flowers sprout up in the direction of sunlight. Or maybe it's more of a power thing -- that wearing an upturned collar gives a person reason to command greater respect from others, or at the very least, gives them an air of confidence.
In order to better understand the upturned collar, I decided to put my personal convictions aside and try it out for myself. While getting dressed one morning, I skipped past my t-shirt collection and crossed my fingers that today wouldn't be the day that I'd encounter the punk boy of my dreams on campus. In the depths of my drawers, I found a light pink polo shirt with a little embroidered insignia on it, from my more misdirected years, slipped it on, and tugged the collar upward. This is where I encountered my first problem of the day -- the collar, in what seemed to be a protest against the preppiness, flopped right back down into its natural position. So I tugged at it with more force until it finally succumbed to the battle.
With my theory that it's the innate tendency of polo shirt collars to simply pop up discounted, I expected to find that the style was simply more comfortable than regular old shirts. But before even leaving my dorm room, I learned that this hypothesis was incorrect as well. Not only was I hyperaware of my clothing, due to the constant cloth poking at the back of my neck, but I also found that my hair kept becoming awkwardly tucked into the depths of the collar and that, since the collar decided to put up another fight, I kept needing to fidget with it in order to maintain proper popping. Plus, after a glance in the mirror, I realized that along with the whole popped collar style looking a bit unnatural on me, it also didn't work too well under a jacket.
I almost chickened out and felt compelled to fold my collar down as I finally made it out of my room, but decided that this experiment needed to be fully completed. This is where the main question lay -- would the popped collar make me feel more powerful as I strolled to Remsen and Shaffer and the like?
Well, simply put, not really. There was one moment when I passed by another collar popper, and I felt a slight feeling of camaraderie towards him, until I remembered that I was merely in costume. And, come to think of it, the collar made me more aware of my posture, so I may have walked with an extra spring in my step. Otherwise, strangers didn't react to me any differently than usual, which proves that the popped collar (and other fashion statements, for that matter) means less to the general public than previously assumed. Friends, on the other hand, had a lot to say, namely a disbelieving "Are you popping your collar?" Otherwise, my adventure as a popped collar wearer was disappointingly uneventful -- not even a single extended invitation to a country club.
So, the popped collar seems to have no practical purpose, aside from being just another fashion statement to convey a little about the wearer's personality to the rest of the world. And even that is weakly supported -- throughout the course of my adventure, I was neither the victim of any anonymous heckling nor the recipient of immense laud and praise.
Even though the popped collar is decidedly harmless, backlash against the popped collar has grown to epidemic proportions. On www.thefacebook.com, a group dedicated to members' shared distaste for polo shirts with upturned collars, "People Against Popped Collars-JHU Chapter," has a whopping 396 members. According to its founder, freshman Jake Sand, he got the idea for the group from a friend at Princeton, and it slowly gained membership. "At first I was begging people to join. It's hard to get people to find out about stuff like that," Sand said. But, as more and more Hopkins students found themselves idly procrastinating on www.thefacebook.com, the group grew in size. "There's a lot of groups, and I think only one has more members now," said Sand.
Sand himself doesn't have any huge problems with popped collars themselves. He simply thinks, "It looks pretty goofy. Popped collars are just such a foreign concept to me." Sand, along with other adamantly non-collar poppers, even finds himself slightly intrigued by the mystique surrounding the trend. "If you pop your collar, do you hang the shirt up popped, or do you fold it and then have some popping ritual every morning?" he wonders.
Although he is the leader of the anti-popped collar pack, Sand admits that he would pull his own collar up, given certain circumstances. "[I'd pop my collar] If I had a really bad rash or had been savagely attacked by a vampire... I'm not even sure about the rash one though," Sand said.
In response to Sand's group, several groups supporting the popped collar movement have been started on www.thefacebook.com, including the lengthily titled "People Who Think the Anti-Collar Poppers Need to Get a Life," "Popped Collar Society," and "Wearing Your Collar Down is for Poor People." No representatives of these groups offered comments.
Whether or not popped collars are yet another fleeting trend or will be gracing the Homewood campus a decade from now is uncertain, but the trend seems to be something that is taken lightheartedly by its wearers and is mildly amusing to the rest of us. After experiencing the style for myself, I might even find myself speaking up on behalf of a polo-clad person the next time I hear "the popped must be stopped."
