If Quiet Luxury was not an almost arbitrary construct created to generate SEO-sexy content related to some popular TV shows, then Ralph Lauren would be the king of its American iteration—just as he remains the king of so many categories in American fashion. Following a four-year absence, his expansive and spiffily attired team returned to his gorgeous green marble Milan palazzo today. They were back to showcase Lauren’s Purple Label collection, and rightfully so. For although it is shaped by the M&M loving man himself from his Madison Avenue eyrie, Purple—the apex Lauren brand—is 100 per cent Made In Italy.
Once past the custom Jaguar XK120 in the atrium, through the scrum of Champagne proffering waiters on the staircase and up onto the piano nobile, there was a Lauren representative there to talk through the collection there to talk through the collection. This was breakdownable into three sections; latte, navy, and rainbow resort.
The latte section featured deconstructed unlined formalwear including two peaked collar double breasted suits in linen and flecked shantung silk. There was a marvelous pleat-shouldered sports jacket in silk/linen herringbone over a v-neck herringbone sweater in coffee shades teamed with an expertly folded coffee check tie, complete with tie-pin. Looser looks, including a handmade cotton/silk faded Fair Isle meets Basque knit sweater and white pant, and a suede field jacket whose navy sweater was the segue to section two were teamed with that Purple label styling touchstone, the cravat. The navy section sailed into suede trucker jackets, cropped linen herringbone bleus de travail, elevated denim suiting (radical for Purple), and one pre-WFH Wall Street pinstripe.
The final section was in another room, and getting to it was happily delayed by a detour into a new line of accessories named Bedford. Saddle stitched in aniline leather, they included burnished grip bags with interior “grab and go” canvas baglets, a backpack you just knew would get better and better with wear, and some ‘RL’ sandals. Nice. The rainbow room featured a mix and match of jackets, pants and resort wear in bird of paradise colors, all mix and match-able and styled with the usual velvet slipper and, more interestingly, an espadrille. Purple’s fastest growing category is non-traditional evening wear for clients who want to make a splash: these jewel-toned pieces were designed to deliver them. Luxury? For sure. But quiet? Not so much. The best label to apply here was simply Ralph Lauren, with all its composite multitudes of cinematically masculine archetypes expertly executed by menswear’s finest hands.
