Updated: Nov. 25, 2013:The tiger has won. The monocle has lost.

The class of 2014 will now vote between the following four versions of the classical tiger design, as announced in an email sent Monday afternoon to all seniors.

Jacket 4 Jacket 3 Jacket 2 Jacket 1

 

Voting began today and will end Monday, Dec. 2 at 4 p.m.

Nov. 12, 2013: There is a 50 percent chance that the beer jackets for Princeton's Class of 2014 will look like this:

The design, dubbed "The Monocle" is facing a runoff vote against this tiger:

The winning design will be the beer jacket for the Class of 2014. It will make its debut during Reunions this year and be worn ever after.

The unorthodox monocle, designed by Molly Bolten ’14 and Kuni Nagakura ’14, faces a more traditional prowling tiger design by Greta Hayes ’14 in this week’s runoff. The two finalists emerged from a field of 20 entries that ranged from a vicious tiger ripping into a keg of beer to a jacket with tiger-fur trimmings on the cuffs and collar.

“This is a jacket that we will wear once a year for an absurd three-day event of debauchery after four years at a school that is serious, busy and stressful," Nagakura and Bolten said of the monocle. "Let’s have a sense of humor about it and stand out as the Class of 2014. Vote monocle.”

“The inspiration for my design comes from some of the older beer jackets, which all had a very unique aesthetic often featuring a tiger. I wanted to create a jacket for our class that would be a breakaway from the more recent, simpler designs and instead incorporate some of this vintage look to create a jacket distinctive to 2014," Hayes said of the tiger. "Designing a beer jacket allows for a lot of creativity, and the process was really fun — I think this jacket is a great way for our class to express character and school spirit, and will remain timeless for the next 25 years.”

The monocle, which features a Princeton crest stylized as a mustachioed face sporting a gold monocle and bears a striking resemblance to the man on a Pringles can,moved many seniors to take to Facebook to express their intense displeasure and/or rabid fanaticism Monday night.

"There has been a lot of discussion about the runoff vote, and we are glad to see that people care so much about our class legacy," Senior Jacket Committee members Sonya Huang '14, Meg Partridge '14 and Luke Cheng '14 said in an email.

The Committee said "a majority" of the class voted in the preliminary round, and that there was "a large drop-off" in the number of votes per design after the top two.

A Facebook group emerged Monday night entitled “Haters Gon’ Hate: Vote Monocle.” As of Wednesday night around 6 p.m., it had 71 members.

As Princetonian lore goes, beer jackets are a tradition dating back to 1912, when a group of merry Princetonian men drinking beers at the old Nassau Inn had a eureka moment mid-slosh. They realized many of life's problems could be solved if they had an item of clothing designed and dedicated to being stained with beer.

Over the years, the tradition has evolved, morphing from denim overalls into today's jackets. Each graduating class creates its own beer jacket, soliciting designs from the entire class that are then put through several rounds of voting. The jackets are worn every year at Reunions until the class's 25th, when alumni receive their class blazers.

"Choose wisely -- you will still be wearing this when you are 40!" the Senior Jacket Committee wrote in an email to the class.

Voting began Monday afternoon and ends Friday.

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