If Ralph Lauren was a bartender, who could ever stay off the sauce? Happily for us his infinite flair for creative mixology is dedicated to crafting intoxicating new flavors in fashion. This season’s womenswear Polo collection was another example of his endless capacity for stimulating taste.
“This was very much inspired by Ralph himself in the 1970s in New York City, and also by some of his very early womenswear collections,” said Karen Brown Brody, who works under Lauren’s direction as senior brand creative director for women’s Polo. Brown Brody reported that Lauren had been fine-tuning today’s lineup from New York until the last possible moment before a new format that saw the models walk into a Marais art space. They came in one look at a time, show-style, but then lingered as a group on the un-sanded floorboard runway that edged the room to allow a standing audience to contemplate the collection at its leisure. Not unlike the collection itself, this show-meets-presentation format was hybridized, unconventional, and effective.
Asked to nominate a look that epitomized this approach, Brown Brody chose a brown-to-black shawl collared top coat and matching pant worn with brown leather boot-toed monk strap shoes “and a check shirt like the one Ralph bought from K-Mart.” That famous Lauren gesture reflects a house passion for garments that can gain emotional and visual value through wear, akin to the watch community’s fondness for “beater” timepieces: this collection was thronged with such items.
Key examples included the fringed suede jacket designed in collaboration with the husband and wife duo Jocy and Trae Little Sky, part of Lauren’s artist in residence program. A navy knit rugby shirt, a rodeo’s worth of western belts, cropped patch pocket denim jackets, a new saddlery stitched soft leather bag named the Blaze, tie print scarves, and a very Ralph shawl collar western coat in tough duck cotton all looked swell new but also seemed rich in their potential or patina.
Fashion contextualizes clothes according to hierarchies that reflect perceived social strata. Here, however, there was a strong sense of horizontal democracy that went beyond the tropes of high-low dressing. That tuxedo collared coat against Lauren’s affordable (but much valued) check shirt was echoed in looks that placed a raglan shouldered topcoat over double denim, or a bomber jacket over tailoring, or a hoodless check duffle coat under a white cotton hoodie with a tailored suede jacket in between. This Polo collection was a meritocratic mix. The new formula for showcasing the collection was fun too, and definitely merits further exploration.
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