It was cocktail hour at Ralph Lauren’s Milan outpost when Vogue Runway rolled up this evening. Due to a time snafu on our part the models had already skedaddled, and the sun was below this presentation’s yardarm. John Wrazej, EVP and creative director of men’s design, gamely put down his sundowner, adjusted his black cravat, and headed back into the showroom for one more debrief.
That golden parka you see on a model was plucked from the storeroom. We sat on some deep Ralph armchairs and went over it from hood to hem. The fabric was inspired, Wrazej said, by the fire-retardant engine cladding found on the MacLaren Formula 1 car that is part of Lauren’s collection. Other design inspirations included early-20th-century Art Deco travel posters for the French Riviera and sports events, which were adapted and then redrawn via intarsia on sweaters or glossy bonded stencil on outerwear.
The Ralph Lauren edifice has been undergoing internal redesigns aplenty in recent years and at this putatively Purple Label presentation the most interesting aspect was the integration of RLX, the formerly stand-alone performance sportswear line. The rationalization of lines and labels may well be a primarily financial/managerial decision, but it creates a contamination between formerly insulated-from-each other Lauren narratives that reflects the breakdown of categories across menswear.
So why not wear a leather-roped, brass-hooked duffel coat over a swirly tie-silk evening jacket? Or team a navy-inspired boilersuit with a Clark Gable–inspired double-pocket shirt and a pair of technical sneakers?
The one thing that stays constant on planet Ralph is the image of the founder, and here there was a new garment dedicated to the man himself: the Ralph suit. Broader at the shoulder, pinched at the waist, and designed to be fastened at the bottom button, not the top, of its double-breasted jacket, it did indeed reflect the founder’s silhouette.