Harvard Licenses Brand for Preppy Clothing Line

Harvard has approved a new line of expensive prep clothing, called "Harvard Yard," to generate money for Harvard's undergraduate financial aid program, a deal that has drawn mixed reactions from students and intense media coverage in late-night television, celebrity gossip blogs, and major newspapers.

The clothing manufacturer Wearwolf Group announced last week that it had licensed Harvard's recently trademarked phrase "Harvard Yard" for 10 years in a deal made through Collegiate Licensing Company, which represents the University and helped broker the arrangement, according to Collegiate Licensing Senior Vice President of Marketing Kit Walsh. Walsh did not disclose the deal's financial details, though he said that, as with other Harvard licensing agreements, the University will be paid in royalties.

Wearwolf will use the phrase as a brand name for an international line of preppy clothing, beginning with men's wear selling for prices ranging from $160 for shirts to $495 for sport coats. The clothes will not bear a Harvard logo or shield, but will include crimson trim around button holes and zippers as well as the "Harvard Yard" brand on the neck label and the hangtag, according to Wearwolf Executive Vice President Jeffrey D. Wolf. Many of the line's clothes are named after buildings around the Harvard campus, he said. For example, shirts will be called Yenching and Holyoke. Wolf said that he is currently shopping the clothing line to stores and that the men's line will be available in late January or early February.

The clothing was inspired by photographs of students lounging in Harvard Yard during the 1950s and 1960s and is aimed at males between 25 and 45, Wolf said. At first, only men's clothing will be offered, but Wearwolf plans to introduce products for women and children soon. Wolf said that the men's products will include trousers, shirts, scarves, topcoats, trench coats, and outerwear. "Harvard is the ideal—the pinnacle," he told Bloomberg. "When you think of modern prep, you think of New England and the Northeast. You think campus, quad, and you think Harvard."

Though American universities have licensed fashionable clothes abroad, the agreement regarding the expensive clothing line is unusual in the United States, Walsh said. "I don't know offhand of something else in the college market that's been done similarly," he said.

Harvard licenses its various trademarks to many clothing manufacturers, such as the Harvard Co-op. The University maintains over 100 domestic and international licensees, wrote University spokesman John Longbrake in an e-mail. "This type of licensing project is actually nothing new for Harvard, since the University has always licensed a wide range of apparel products worldwide, including high end items," Longbrake wrote. The Harvard Trademark Program's website states, "Typically, the University licenses select goods such as apparel, novelty items, and stationery products and other 'traditional' licensed items."

According to Longbrake, the "Harvard Yard" clothing deal "has been in the works for a while—over the last several years." Wolf said that he had been in dialogue with Harvard about the line for about a year and a half.

All Harvard licensing income beyond the costs of trademark protection and licensing goes to fund undergraduate financial aid, and profits from the "Harvard Yard" line will be no different. Harvard Trademark Program director Rick Calixto told the Boston Globe that Harvard makes over $1 million in royalties by licensing trademarks to entities like bookstores and mall kiosks. Longbrake wrote in an e-mail that about $500,000 a year from Harvard's licensing revenue funds undergraduate financial aid.

Peter Bebergal, associate officer for use of name and trademark at MIT, said he believes the practice of earmarking licensing royalties for financial aid is commonplace among schools, including his own, which he said uses the proceeds for financial aid.

The clothing deal has amused many bloggers since it was first reported by the trade publication Women's Wear Daily. Celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton asked: "why???" The IvyGate blog quipped: "You know Harvard's broke when they start competing with Hollister." And Jimmy Fallon chimed in on late-night television: “Harvard University is launching a new clothing line called Harvard Yard....Of course the clothes are really hard to get into, unless your father wears them first.’’ Even the Chronicle of Higher Education couldn't resist, and published a blog post called: "My Khakis Went to Harvard."

Wolf said that he has been surprised by the blog frenzy. "I think it's very easy to be critical," he said. "It requires no effort and no thinking." Later, he said that "the wave of interest has just been really fun," and that the publicity has been good for the brand. He said that a line of prep clothing bearing a "Harvard Yard" name did not run the risk of being elitist. "I think it would be aspirational," he said. When asked about student criticisms, he said that the line "is not geared for students, and is not being marketed to students.

Walsh, too, downplayed the idea that the clothing line, with its high-end pricing, might seem exclusive. "I would not think that that's something of huge concern," he said. Prep clothing is worn by a wide range of men, he said. "If you look at what people like Kanye West and Russell Simmons and people in the hip-hop community as well as people from other ethnic backgrounds are wearing, at the end just because that look was worn by one particular group of people doesn't have anything to do with the way things are now," he said. "As places like Harvard have become more diverse, so has fashion."

Students said that they have mixed feelings about the clothing deal.

J.P. Stilz '11 is a member of Harvard's men's polo team, and is playing the sport this summer in his home state of Kentucky. He said that he sees two sides to the clothing deal, some of which mirror challenges the polo team has faced. "I think it's going to be bad for Harvard's image," he said. "We already have an image that all of our students are aristocratic, preppy bastards, frankly. So as an undergraduate student I'm kind of taken aback a little bit that that's going to be happening, and I almost want to laugh at it."

But prep has become a style for a broad section of Harvard students, Stilz said. "Anybody from the richest final club president to somebody there on financial aid is typically walking around in khakis," he said. "Prep is kind of blurred into the new Harvard."

From a business perspective, Stilz said that he supports the effort to raise more money for undergraduate financial aid. "If it hurts our image, it hurts our image," he said. "The important thing is that Harvard continues to make the commitment we have to offering need-based financial aid for all students. It would be different if the money were just going to the endowment, but the fact that the money is going to go to financial aid I think justifies it." But Stilz cautioned that the financial contribution would only justify the deal if it were large: "$1 million is a drop in the bucket," he said.

Nicholas J. Navarro '10, an executive producer of last year's Eleganza fashion show who has been criticized in the past for working on racy fashion scenes, said that he feels conflicted about the new line. "As a student on financial aid, I care about expanding the financial aid system at Harvard," he said. "But at the same time, as a Latino, I came into Harvard my freshman year with preconceptions about Harvard being a culture of wealthy Caucasians, and the product line comes at the cost of reinforcing those stereotypes."

Navarro said that the clothes, especially because they will be marketed around the world, may discourage poor students interested in Harvard. "If a student, whether from Los Angeles or Shanghai, goes into a store and sees a Harvard brand name that they can't afford, it's easy to think, 'I can't afford to go to Harvard,' or 'Harvard is for rich people.'"

Alexandra N. Alves '11, from Cape Verde, another executive producer of last year's Eleganza, said that, while she appreciated the boost to financial aid, the clothing line could alienate many students. "The clothing line could cause a whole lot of pressure on a whole lot of minority students at Harvard," she said. "lt's confusing that Harvard is saying 'this is who we are' through this clothing line when it's not like that in real life. There's a disconnect there."

Alves saw pictures of the Harvard Yard clothes on the Perez Hilton blog, and said that the designs seemed especially off-putting. "I think people nowadays at Harvard shop at preppy stores like J. Crew, Gap, and Lacoste, and they don't look like people in Harvard Yard photos," she said. "The clothes seem older, and more connected to the 1950s. Harvard could have done a better job of making the clothing seem less old-school. If Lacoste can do it, I don't see why Harvard can't. Maybe they could add in more color."

The fact that the clothing line's first offerings are for males only "makes it 10 times worse," she added. "I'm not white, I'm not a male, and I don't want to feel I don't belong at Harvard."

—Staff writer Alex M. McLeese can be reached at amcleese@fas.harvard.edu.

CLARIFICATIONS:

The Aug. 13 news article "Harvard Licenses Brand for Preppy Clothing Line" contained a quotation from Nicholas J. Navarro '10 that was truncated in violation of an agreement with Navarro. The quotation has been updated online to include the words "as a Latino."

The article also may have misleadingly characterized the nature of the controversy surrounding an Eleganza scene that was criticized as racy.