Winning over millennials is a notoriously difficult feat, but converting them into lifelong customers? That seems nearly impossible. And yet, Ralph Lauren’s design team was surprised to learn just how many young shoppers want a piece of the RL lifestyle. “Millennials are shopping the brand more than we even realized,” reported John Wrazej, executive vice president and creative director of men’s design. He and his team kept that in mind when they designed their latest Polo men’s collection, an irreverent mix of novelty pieces and reimagined classics. On one side of the showroom was Lauren’s signature suiting—known as “haberdashery” in his Madison Avenue HQ—which ranged from classic two-piece suits for the office to a ripped and mended chino three-piece and a lustrous navy jacket woven with a clever RL crest motif. Even more novel: a houndstooth tweed suit printed over with camouflage, a first for the label, and a herringbone suit covered in scribbles. Wrazej said you could wear it with a T-shirt, but here, the look was happily over the top with a button-down, a clashing striped tie, suspenders, and even a pocket square. “This will be key to our business,” Wrazej said. “These are suits for the funkier kid who wants a traditional look—club collars, pleats, suspenders—instead of the more contemporary suits out there. It isn’t middle of the road at all.”
Indeed, in a moment of fashion extremes and Instagram trends, anything remotely “middle of the road” is swiftly forgotten. The Polo team steered clear of that elsewhere in the collection, which was broken into groups that catered to every Ralph Lauren archetype: There’s the menswear buff, who you’ll see in those tweed suits at Pitti Uomo; the East Coast preppy, who will never stop wearing regatta stripes, white jeans, and cricket sweaters; the vintage collector, who will gravitate toward Spring’s madras shorts and broken-in M-65 jackets; the sports fan, who will go for the red, white, and blue anoraks and hoodies; and the classicist, who really just wants a great shirt and khakis. All of those guys will be surprised to discover the more youthful, tongue-in-cheek spirit at Polo; in the past, the collections were all pretty “straitlaced,” as Wrazej put it, but Spring’s maximalist, statement-making hero pieces felt like a wake-up call. Varsity jackets weren’t just decorated with footballs and “Ralphie” patches, for instance, but spliced with orange satin sleeves and a camo-printed hood. Madras shirts were styled under madras jackets with madras bow ties; silver anoraks were patched, lined with shirting fabric, and styled with the pleated chinos Mr. Lauren wore in the ’90s; and heritage crests and symbols like the polo player, bear, and tiger were blown up to cartoonish proportions.
“It all speaks to this time where people have no limits. They want stuff that’s avant-garde,” Wrazej said. “It’s been interesting to reintroduce the brand to a younger customer who didn’t grow up with it. They’re learning the origins of the brand and discovering it for the first time.” In fact, some of those customers might be more interested in the classic RL-isms rather than the novelty stuff. “What’s funny is that this iconic windbreaker used to be the staple of our business,” he said, picking up a simple navy zip-up, “and this is what we’re selling to the 20-year-olds who love its ‘dad style’ simplicity. It has none of the bells and whistles.” In the coming seasons, Polo will be a greater focus for the Ralph Lauren brand as a whole, so maximalists and “dad style” minimalists alike will have more to look forward to.
