I never knew that the old trend I ran into during my high-school days (late 1980s) would see much traction: mid-state New Yorkers tend to lag a great deal behind their much more stylish cousins in “The City” (namely, New York City and in particular, Manhattan).

I mean, to put this into perspective from a Manhattanite, there is “the City” (specifically, Manhattan south of 96th St.), the “Bridge and Tunnel” dwellers (BNT’ers: people from the outer boroughs like Queens, Brooklyn, etc.) and then the “rednecks from up north”.

Ed. Note: Up until the 1980s, this was largely true - Rockland and Westchester counties were the bedroom suburbs, and Orange-Putnam-Dutchess and any county north of that were largely farmlands and apple orchards except for a few selected large towns. Until all the yuppies decided that the Lower Hudson River Valley was “the new Hamptons” and started buying up everything in sight, especially during the sub-prime mortgage frenzy… now you can drive three miles without running into a WalMart or a TGIFridays.

Manhattanites were always the cutting edge of fashion, and often we’uns up here snickered at some of the fashion ideas coming up out of the City. Brooklynites, New Jerseyans, and the other BNT’ers would adopt to some degree what the Manhattanites did, albeit with discounted or non-major brands and labels, or waiting a few months for the labels to come down in price.

We up here though, are the Long Tail of Fashion: I mean, people up here (only one hour north of Manhattan) were sporting pegged-leg jeans and stonewashed denim as late as 2000, along with (mostly late 30’s-early 40’s) women with that awful NJ big hair look.

Coming back to the main topic, Popped Collars on polo shirts were kind of cool (along with stonewash denim and pegging the legs of one’s jeans, as well as the “Mandana” - a bandana worn on the head as a hat-kerchief thingy) in the late 1980s.

On rare occasion you might find a rare instance of some guy now in his late 30s or early 40s who does the popped collars with his golfing ensemble at local golf courses, or on college students at nearby SUNY New Paltz, or Pace University down the river. Again, youthful indiscretions are what they are.

And sadly, the widest demographic of polo shirt collar-poppers tends to be younger men with an overinflated sense of self-worth that results in an arrogant demeanor, and a general sense of being posers out for attention. For the sake of my eyesight and general human kindness… please don’t be like this guy:

And yes, he is wearing - count them - FOUR polo shirts - with each collar popped. All he is missing for the complete effect would be the slightly tilted visor or ballcap worn backwards.