Yuppie was a 1980s acronym for 'Young Upwardly Mobile Professional Person'. The word was coined by the advertising industry to capture the essence of a particular type of work hard, play hard, ambitious minded city career person.
The hectic lifestyle of a yuppie meant that after long hours of work, rare free time was spent in a self indulgent way frittering away the cash earned on anything, from expensive perfume, to a bottle of fine champagne. Conspicuous wastage was part of the attitude. The term applies to men whose ages range from about 21 to early 40s.
Yuppie-style is always matching and usually upscale. They like to flaunt their good taste. Even if the young professionals are in debt to their ears, they work hard to maintain the image of success. For day they sported wide shouldered jackets and for weekends they wore a Barbour to effect a country aesthetic to assume the appearance of a more advantaged lifestyle.
The ultimate yuppie fashion film is American Psycho. The short clips will give you a more in-depth view of...
...the grooming and vanity
...the importance of conformity and status-symbols
Sources: 1 2 3
I LOOOOOVE the look but what strikes me most is the aspiration to conformity. From today`s perspective its pathetic but it still has more class and effort than today`s fetish for "individuality" - that everybody expresses with THE SAME H&M "vintage" blazer...