Ralph Lauren is the US’s poet laureate of style. His brand came of age in a gilded era of American charm, when Bill Clinton was president, the economy was booming and the twin towers glittered on the Manhattan skyline. His clothes speak to an America of sportsmanship and vigour, where everyone has a firm handshake and perfect teeth.
The US could use some poetry right now, and at 86, Lauren is still the man. To open New York fashion week, he transformed a grand marble palazzo in the city’s financial district – a showpiece of the young city’s financial muscle when it opened in 1894 – in the style of his own country estate upstate.
The frigid streets outside, banked with greying icebergs of snow, were banished in a cosy scene of overlapping antique rugs and generous urns of winter greenery. In keeping with the film-set vibe, a significant proportion of the audience were red-carpet famous. Lana Del Rey showed off her new Ralph Lauren cowboy boots to her fellows on the front row. There was a Devil Wears Prada moment when Anne Hathaway, soon to reprise her role as underling to a legendary magazine editrix, posed with Vogue’s Anna Wintour.
The great fashion designers are world-builders who use shows, billboards and stores to sell a dream that is much bigger than clothes. Walking into a Ralph Lauren store feels like walking into a country club even if you have never in fact been inside a country club. A shrewd business model has built a sturdy pipeline selling this dream to the people, one £175 quarter-zip cotton knit at a time.
A yearning for the era when Have A Nice Day, not Maga, was America’s favourite baseball cap slogan, is at the core of the brand’s revival in the past decade. The American sweetheart Taylor Swift wore a breezily striped Ralph Lauren sundress for her engagement photoshoot last year, and the US Winter Olympics team are currently on the Italian slopes in Ralph Lauren stars-and-stripes kit. At this fashion house, the American dream is still alive. Nostalgia has become momentum: its quarter-zip sweater was named the hottest product of the last quarter of 2025 by the Lyst index, which ranks brands according to sales, search and social media. TikTok went wild for a “Ralph Lauren Christmas” over the same period.
Not that there were any £175 sweaters on this catwalk. The fashion week collection is the pinnacle of the brand, and the dress code was unabashedly grand. Floor-length velvet gowns hung from delicate straps, and glass-bead fringing swished the carpet at the hem of sinuously curving skirts. Comfort and cosiness was layered on top: a tweed blazer was shrugged over a beaded cocktail dress, and a tailored evening suit padded past worn with velvet slippers.
A keen eye for contemporary styling connects the dots between the high-rolling clients who buy these clothes, and the baseball-cap buying masses who are the engine room of the business. Pebble-textured leather jackets, generous trousers worn with belts, knitwear slung around shoulders reflected an awareness of fashion as it looks in the real world right now.
The show ended with a curtain drawing aside to allow Lauren to take a brief, stately bow. He waved fondly to his audience, like a patrician head of state.
