(Admittedly kind of sketchy) evidence of what promises to be a life-changing partnership.

We’ve all been there – rough night, d-hall accident, fight with a puddle. And then you’re stuck with this growing pile of dry-clean-only laundry that sits in the bottom of your hamper, waiting patiently as it becomes wrinkled beyond recognition. Well wrinkles begone! Craft Cleaners and the U-Store have struck up a love affair that promises to make all of our lives a whole lot easier.

Starting this semester, you can avoid the trek to Craft and just drop by the U-Store with your dry cleaning. From there, it’ll be spirited away to Craft, cleaned, and returned to the U-Store for your convenience. You can even purchase a specialized bag for this purpose to keep your dry-cleanables separate from your washing-machinables.

The deets: pick-up occurs twice a day, Monday-Friday, at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., and your cleaning will be returned two business days later.

Also, in the category of new U-Store goodies, word has it that the Nassau Street U-Store has just received its first Brooks Brothers shipment, allowing you to be both classily preppy and clean. Happy U-Storing!

The H710 Low Sneaker collection, unveiled in December, features eight new designs for each of the Ivy League schools. The Princeton pair features a beige upper, heavy-duty cord laces striped in orange and black, and tongue tags with the New Balance branding that are designed to look like the Princeton shield. The sneaker-boot hybrids promise to be strong enough to handle the mud/slush/weather abuse that New Jersey’s been throwing our way.

Take a look:

Classic and sturdy, the way I like 'em

More after the jump!

The Princeton crest, re-imagined

Keeping your smelly sneaks in a locker: a health DON'T

The bad news? The shoes were designed overseas, and are only available to a Japanese market. So quick! Get ahold of your friend’s sister’s Japanese exchange student and have them ship a coupla’ pairs over!

Now that the bicker/sign-in craze is dying down (okay, except for Terrace. Keep an eye out for offerings all this week), we’ve moved on to worrying about our IIP/PICS/Bain/Goldman/Google/other-hopeful-options interviews. For those of you who haven’t been poring over Case in Point and preparing examples of a time you overcame an unexpected trial or had to demonstrate leadership under pressure, though, never fear: Career Services is offering a host of last-minute interview how-to sessions.

Tonight, Boston Consulting Group will be at Career Services from 6:30-8:00 p.m. to share tips for mastering the infamous case interview. On Tuesday, Career Services is holding another workshop on general interview skills and strategies. And for B.S.E kids, the “Interviewing for Engineers” session at the Friend Center next Wednesday will teach you how to sell your social and scientific skills.

Seriously Mom, how could I go to my interviews without a light charcoal Aubrey jacket in Italian wool? Girl, please.

But perhaps most exciting of all for Princeton’s prep kingdom is this: J.CREW FASHION NIGHT. Stop by our two-story J.Crew in Palmer Square on Wednesday from 7-9 pm, and enjoy exclusive extra hours just for Princeton students! J. Crew associates will be there to outfit you in business and professional wear, plus you get a special 20% discount. Need I say more?

Even if you don’t have an interview, it might be worth going just for the sale, and to satiate the prepaholic inside you. Come on. Lawnparties is sort of close, right?

Space is limited, so sign up now.

1. Out with the boat shoes. In with the loafer.I love boat shoes just as much as anyone, but the Fall breeze is coming soon, and a flimsy Topsider won’t be cutting it. This season, I’m really looking to swap in a penny loafer. It’s a little more durable, definitely warmer, and it’s the slightest bit more dressy than your dockshoes. And it’s a breed of dressiness that says you’re down to business, without being a stiff; I’d argue that a penny loafer actually feels just as fun and down to earth as the boat shoe — especially when paired with some quirky socks (like these from Smart Turnout). I’d recommend you equip yourself with a Bass Weejun (pictured) if you’re looking to buy something new.

2. Invest in some new pants.

Autumn — more than any other season — is about the texture of the fabric. In addition to some nice corduroys, look into wool, flannel, or tweed pants. They don’t have to be loud or ostentatious — a subdued charcoal flannel or brown tweed in a slim fit is perfect. Just try something different from your run of the mill jeans and khakis. You can pair your trousers with anything simple on top — even a white tee shirt goes well with some brown wool pants.

I usually start my trouser search with Ralph Lauren — but the price point this season is a little daunting. Be on your toes and try vintage shopping, as well as brands like J. Crew.

3. Look into some scarves.

Scarves are a great way to accessorize and they can actually be pretty masculine when done right. Avoid loud colors: keep the hues relatively muted. Smart Turnout has about the best selection of collegiate wool scarves out there — even an awesome Princeton one.

Source: Teruyoshi Hayashida/PowerHouse Books, published at www.nytimes.com/style

As  we dredge hopelessly through the dog days of summer, with New York experiencing one of its hottest July weekends on record, it makes sense that we’re all getting a little back-to-school-fever.  Case in point: the front page of today’s New York Times Sunday Style section, which featured a story on the timelessness of Ivy League preppiness, complete with color picture of Princetonians in all their tiger-toned glory circa 1965.

Nassau Steet parties like it's 1965; a spread from the newly-reissued "Take Ivy." (Photo: www.jcrew.com)

The occasion? As we announced to you back in March, Teruyoshi Hayashida’s classic book, Take Ivy, is coming to a retail store near you (as in, a short jaunt down Nassau Street) in just a few weeks.  The style classic, long worshipped by the powers-that-be at prepster labels like J.Press and Ralph Lauren, will be reissued by Powerhouse Books on August 23rd and sold by retailers like J.Crew.  What better way to spark up your post-Reunions, pre-move-in enthusiasm for Sperry Top-Siders and popped collars than to snap up a copy? Until then, you can preview the preppiness at your leisure in this NYT slide show, or read your fill about how this All-American Ivy look has taken over international men’s fashion here. Doesn’t it make you long to dash past East Pyne in a pristine letter sweater on a crisp Fall day?

And yet, if I may, I’d like to throw the gents of Princeton some sartorial tips. Looking outrageous and looking cool need not be diametrically opposed. Contrary to popular belief, you can throw on a ridiculous seersucker jacket with a plaid shirt beneath, and still look pretty awesome. So, pulling from a weekly special that we do over at Prepidemic, called “Piece by Piece,” here’s an outfit I’ve arranged that I’m digging for this Sunday.

Brooks Brothers Slim Fit patchwork oxford

L.L. Bean Signature Sportsman's Chino Shorts in Nantucket Red

PF Flyers Windjammers

It’s the preppiest day of the year, and that’s why I love it. But if you follow my advice, what will differentiate you from the rest of the pack is not just having something a little over-the-top in preppiness, but actually having stuff that fits right. (Sidenote: I understand if we all wore this same outfit we’d look the same, so consider it more inspiration, a suggestion of brands to wear and great garb to consider.) This is an outfit for which the fit of the garments obeys the fundamental rule of fashion aesthetics: make the man look strong and lean.

So all it takes is three garments with color and fit. Start with Brooks Brothers’ wild patchwork oxford. I like my stuff to fit close, so I tend to size down from a medium and slip into a small. American labels make roomier cuts for their pants and shirts because the population they sell to is a bit larger than those overseas, and Brooks Brothers is no exception.

Next, we move to L.L. Bean Signature shorts. Hone your sense of tradition with a pair of shorts in an authentic Nantucket Red, a color rich with prep history. While the originator of shorts in this color is Murray’s Toggery Shop, actually situated on Nantucket (thus the name, Nantucket Red), L.L. Bean offers a far more affordable option in a fit that will suit men of all body types.

Finally, find your favorite pair of fun kicks. Given the abundance of alcohol being thrown all over the place, I tend to steer clear of anything that I’m worried about ruining, so I find sneakers do the trick. PF Flyers’ Windjammer is a reissue of a 1965 shoe that made waves through Ivy League campuses back in the days of the original “Ivy League Look.” With such strong colors, I highly recommend it. I have a yellow pair myself, and they’re my go-to whenever I’m bound to have a drink or ten spilled on me.

The video, which took over a month to produce, was a joint effort between Jack Hutton ’13, Sebastian Steffen ’13, and Tim Delaney, a student at Penn. Having partnered with Delaney to produce films in the past, Hutton said he had fallen “into a bit of a creative dry spell” after coming to Princeton this fall. Steffen, a native German speaker, approached him about a video contest sponsored by Frontlineshop.com, a German clothing store that Steffen frequents. The two immediately began writing the script and partnered with Delaney for plotting and filming ideas. When the English script was composed, Sebastian translated it into German.

Hutton, who doesn’t speak any German, said the subtitles proved a bit tricky, as he often had to “intuitively figure out when each phrase and line should begin.”

The film received fourth place in the contest. Although he said that this was a bit disappointing, Hutton added that in the end he was “just happy to have made the video for its own sake.”

And in case you’re wondering about the final scene, it was shot around the same time that our campus masturbator still prowled campus. Hutton says no one really bothered or cared about the half-naked man standing in the middle of Whitman at 12:40 on a Thursday afternoon. “Thankfully, we didn’t get caught committing any act of ‘lewdness.’”

Flawlessly clad Princeton students back in the day

Yesterday, blogger Mister Crew posted that an American publisher is reissuing Take Ivy, a classic photobook that captures the celebrated Ivy League look through pictures of students on several Ivy League campuses — including Princeton.  The book is now available for pre-order on Amazon for $24.95, almost a hundredth of what many have been paying for hardcopies of the original.

The book, by Japanese photographer Teruyoshi Hayashida, was first released in 1965 and the few remaining copies now sell for over $2,000 online and elsewhere. Its re-release is huge news to prepsters and fashionista/o’s everywhere; the book is the authority on that classic prep look — best typified by a crewneck sweater, an oxford shirt, tapered chinos, and Bass Weejuns — that so many revere today. This is the look that current brands like Band of Outsiders and Thom Browne are celebrating in almost all of their collections, not to mention the look that seems to be sweeping through campus.

But seriously, pre-order this thing quick!  For quite some time, preppies have had to stick to online scans of pages on websites like A Continuous Lean and the Trad, so no surprise that people are running wild on the blogosphere over the opportunity to have their own copy (I just bought mine). Believe me, rummaging through the photos proves to be pretty enlightening on Princeton’s sartorial history and what preppy style is all about.

image sources: thepursuitaesthetic.com

But trust me, these shirts are legit. (That’s a link to a story on my old menswear blog, prepidemic.wordpress.com — but while I’m shamelessly plugging my own work, check out Prepidemic.com, the new site.)

For those of you who don’t know about it, Alexander West is a pretty cool tailor service, and they have much more affordable options — starting as low as $105. And it’s completely custom. You can do it all online, or hop on the dinky and visit the shop in New York.

There you can choose from hundreds of fabrics, and then go on to pick your collar type (from point to spread — which means from narrow to wide), cuff type, if you want pleats on the back, if you want a monogram, whether or not you want a pocket, and on and on.

Then you give them nine measurements like sleeve length, back length, shoulder width, neck size, wrist size (if you wear a watch they’ll make one wrist bigger than the other), and more. Wait 4-6 weeks, and you’ll get your awesome, form-fitting, body-flattering shirt right at your doorstep/Frist Mailbox.

Slip that thing on and man, you’re officially looking sharp.

So I say dig deep in your wallet and go on and show some love to the Tiger shirt. Because while it might not be black and orange, it’s still a custom shirt that looks good and flaunts some Princeton pride.