Uniformity in American Higher Learning

...The United States is a nonhistorical environment, and individual identity must be earned.

But the young American male need not hunker down in a group like a fraternity to risk anxiety over being caught out of uniform...Fraternity boys engage in all sorts of levities and pranks, but not a single "brother" would think of appearing in, say, colorful tights. The brothers in their millions are clad in the obligatory uniform of their decade. It used to comprise, at least in the East, khakis or gray flannel trousers, button-down shirts, tweed jackets, and loafers. Crew neck sweaters and corduroys were also acceptable. Professor Edward Said of Columbia recalls what everyone - everyone - looked like at his prep school and at Princeton, where he went next: "My classmates either were or tried to be cut from the same cloth...everyone wore the same clothes (white bucks, button-down shirts, and tweed jackets)." Getting the shirts right was particularly important, and in button-downs, light blue was virtually obligatory. Said testified that he once witnessed two Princetonians at work soliciting the desired worn-out look by applying sandpaper to the collars of new, and of course blue, shirts.

Source:

Paul Fussell, Uniforms: Why We Are What We Wear (2002)