{"id":611877,"date":"2026-09-10T15:10:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T15:10:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/611877\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T15:10:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T15:10:18","slug":"ralph-lauren-proves-the-american-dream-still-sells-at-new-york-fashion-week-new-york-fashion-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/611877\/","title":{"rendered":"Ralph Lauren proves the American dream still sells at New York fashion week | New York fashion week"},"content":{"rendered":"

The opening show of fashion\u2019s month of catwalks was not on the official schedule, but Viola Davis and Cynthia Erivo were snuggled on to celebrity-packed benches in a cathedral-sized marble hall where tapestry-hung walls and a gilded coffered ceiling framed a view over lower Manhattan.<\/p>\n

Ralph Lauren, 86, took his bow at the end of this women\u2019s wear show casually dressed in a varsity jacket spelling out New York<\/a>. In an industry obsessed with youth and novelty, Lauren is more relevant than ever in his ninth decade.<\/p>\n

He described the show as \u201cirreverent\u201d. Velvet evening wear was burnt out to show a little skin beneath. There were shredded, low-slung jeans \u2013 take note, jeans-wearers everywhere \u2013 and a wink to the extra-wide ties that started his empire 59 years ago.<\/p>\n

The spray-painted brocade gowns and lush embroidered evening coats on this catwalk will be giddily expensive, but the energy propelling the brand comes from a much broader audience.<\/p>\n

Ralph and Ricky Lauren. The designer took his bow at the end of this show casually dressed in a varsity jacket spelling out New York. Photograph: Dia Dipasupil\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Gen Z has rediscovered Ralph Lauren, and its Polo shirts, rugby shirts and baseball caps are cool again, a renaissance that shows up emphatically on the balance sheet. This year the fashion house reached its highest ever annual revenue figure of $8.1bn (\u00a36bn) \u2013 a rise of 15% on the previous year.<\/p>\n

Ralph Lauren has a genius for marketing that feels like mythology. The 1920s-coded cocktail dresses nod to Gatsby\u2019s lawn; the denim to cowboy ranches. There are college jocks and Upper East Side socialites. Born Ralph Lifshitz, the son of Jewish immigrants from Belarus, the designer has invented a fantasy America, borrowing from English aristocracy and from classic westerns; from Native American craft and Waspish New England; from country clubs and jazz clubs.<\/p>\n

He has taken the contradictions of the US \u2013 old money and the frontier, east coast establishment and wild west freedom \u2013 and made them look as if they belong together.<\/p>\n

This world is not real, but it is visually coherent, and has proved to be universally seductive whether you are shopping for a baseball cap or a ballgown. It is this sleight-of-hand \u2013 selling the fantasy, not the actual product \u2013 that has enabled Lauren to remain aspirational to the 1% while making a ton of money in the malls.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Lauren described his latest collection as \u201cthe freedom and fun of creating a style that is truly personal\u201d. Experimental fabric techniques gave the impression of a design studio that still knows how to have fun.<\/p>\n

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Lauren described his latest collection as \u2018the freedom and fun of creating a style that is truly personal\u2019. Photograph: Caitlin Ochs\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Grand gowns were laundered with a \u201cspritz and tumble\u201d method that gave a louche rumple to their glide along the catwalk. Lauren was this week announced as a nominee for American menswear designer of the year, and his tailoring heritage showed up in two sharp trouser suits, tailored for women in an Italian menswear workshop.<\/p>\n

The swagger of the show was a fitting curtain-raiser to a New York fashion week<\/a> that opens with more confidence than in recent seasons, as designers gravitate toward a US market that is a bright spot in a troubled global luxury industry.<\/p>\n

Fellow grandee Tommy Hilfiger will stage a show at the Plaza Hotel, with Michael Kors setting up his catwalk at the Museum of Modern Art. The Diane von Furstenberg brand returns with its first show in a decade when new designer Henry Zankov shows his debut, and London-based, New York-born Conner Ives makes his home-town debut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The opening show of fashion\u2019s month of catwalks was not on the official schedule, but Viola Davis and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":611878,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[146,85,46],"class_list":["post-611877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}