Ralph Lauren Fashion News

The Black collection adopted menswear's narrower silhouette some time ago—the high armhole, the skinny, flat-front pant. The silhouette was emphasized even more when it was shown as a monochrome combination of double-breasted suit, shirt, and tie in the same optical blue tone. But for Spring, the tailoring was complemented by an energetic toughness in the accompanying sportswear. Aside from hints of army life in a paratrooper jacket or pieces in olive linen, there was something of The Heroes of Telemark in a silver and white group. This time around, the same sort of alchemy also applied to the more conservative (for want of a better word) Purple and Black collections. With Purple, color was the key; paisleys and bright hues were played against tailored pieces. And with the suits, there was a new emphasis on lightness.










Ralph's own predilections were evident in trousers tied at the waist with a spotted tie, à la Gary Cooper. True, it was a stylist's touch, but so what, if that inspires you to play with the clothes. Lauren certainly provided plenty to work with.

Designer Clothes Online | Polo Ralph Lauren

Ralph Lauren - he opened with a little black dress, but he soon moved into taupe-y tweed suiting, soft pastel knits, and rich velvet dresses, finishing up with antique ivories and golds



along the way he showcased his great-looking outerwear and subtly glamorous evening options, while touching on such treasured motifs as haberdashery, the equestrian world, and a spot of Anglophilia in the form of Fair Isle knits.


For the evening looks that closed the show, he stowed the outerwear, sending out one shimmery dress after another in ivory satin, pale pink charmeuse, or vintage gold lamé. The highlight of the bunch was a delicate frock with a silvery bodice and gauzy pink skirts to the knee, but they all fairly glowed.





Source: http://www.style.com/

New York – If any collection summed up the mood in the latest New York Fashion Week it was that of Ralph Lauren, whose patchwork yet patrician ideas for fall 2009 were all about high society entertaining.

Underneath a series of glittering crystal chandeliers, Lauren sent out splendid patchwork jackets and vests in mixes of windowpane check and Donegal tweed. But he varied their partnership, showing them with anything from tan cavalry twill pants to honey charmeuse silk paisley gowns.

FWD101 Model walks the runway at the Ralph Lauren show during Fall 2009 Fashion Week in New York on Friday, Feb. 20, 2009



FWD102 Model walks the runway at the Ralph Lauren show during Fall 2009 Fashion Week in New York on Friday, Feb. 20, 2009

FWD105 Model walks the runway at the Ralph Lauren show during Fall 2009 Fashion Week in New York on Friday, Feb. 20, 2009.



FWD104 Model walks the runway at the Ralph Lauren show during Fall 2009 Fashion Week in New York on Friday, Feb. 20, 2009

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Established menswear designers are going back to their roots this season, and no one knows his brand heritage better than Ralph Lauren The diversity of his men's collections, presented this week, allows for emphasis on tradition and simultaneous courting of new customers with more modern fare.

Creatively, the company remains focused on its sub-brand culture even as Polo—just like every other fashion and luxury brand—battles the challenges of the recession. The difficulties were crystallized Wednesday when Polo reported a decline in quarterly income and cut its full-year profit outlook.

Yet Ralph Lauren's vision has always remained consistent. And for fall, that means:

Purple Label, which began with made-to-measure tailoring, now represents the most traditional luxury that Ralph Lauren has to offer, whether in tailored clothing or sportswear. It is deliberately worldly, to contest the perception that Ralph Lauren merely stands for prep or Americana.


"Purple Label is classically the most sophisticated. It has an international quality. This could be Italian, it could be French," said Lauren

English influence comes through dandyish, gray or brown three-piece suits, complemented by shirts of fuchsia, violet or cornflower stripes, some horizontal. Scottish Highlands and equestrian life played into Purple Label sportswear.

"These are things you think you see in a lot of places because they're timeless and classy, but you really don’t," the designer noted.

The modern sleekness of Black Label, on the other hand, alludes to spy planes and Italian race cars. The tailored component is minimal and slim, and styled in monochromatic charcoal ensembles.

"Black Label is contemporary, somewhat technical. This is really saying what sportswear is. We took things from skiwear, various active things," said Lauren, gesturing to fitted and padded black leather racing jackets with bright pops of primary color.

"I love the ability to go from Purple Label, which has heritage, to Black Label, which feels like another brand," said Lauren.

The Polo label introduced two new suit silhouettes. One has a wide-notch lapel paired with trim flat-front trousers. The other has rolled shoulders. Here again are three-piece suits with striped dress shirts and wide club ties. "The three-piece suit feels modern to a young guy," said Lauren.


Polo sportswear was displayed in vignettes, including a tweedy hunting party and a '30s football rivalry.

And hidden behind a curtain, but meticulously arranged, was a display of RRL, the purely vintage-inspired line that is not wholesaled. Lauren said RRL enjoyed a serious following in Japan, where there is a resale market among collectors. Special-edition RRL jeans sell for $1,350 only in Ralph Lauren's Omotesando store in Tokyo. "It's a cult thing," said Lauren.


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“I believe strongly in this partnership,” Polo chairman Ralph Lauren said of the venture in a statement. “This business is an important part of our global luxury accessories strategy. I am confident that our unique design sensibility and luxury brand-building skills, combined with Richemont's unique experience on a global basis, creates an opportune way for this partnership to succeed.” Lauren and Richemont's executive chairman Johann Rupert have been working on the creation of this company for two and a half years. The venture is new to both; Polo has never crossed over into the jewellery and watch market before and Richemont has never collaborated with a designer, instead owning design companies in their entirety.

The pair chose a joint venture, instead of a license or partnership, because of its authenticity. “I don't have licenses,” Rupert told WWD. “The question with licenses is always who is controlling the design and who has the final say.”

The watches will debut in the spring of next year in Geneva and the first products will hit stores in fall 2008. Neither company wanted to give sales projections. Meanwhile, jewellery sales are likely to begin on a smaller scale than watches. Rupert said that the category would, however, grow faster than watches, taking into account that “generally as a sector, it is growing quicker than watches.”

According to Rupert, this joint venture is a one-off and does not mean that Richemont has changed its strategy. It will continue to own luxury brand portfolios, such as Cartier, Piaget, IWC, Jaeger-le-Coultre and Baume & Mercier. In terms of the strategy for the new company, it will be positioned as a global brand with considerable growth potential in the US.

Source: http://www.fashionunited.co.uk/news/polo.htm

Polo Ralph Lauren , the luxury goods brand that, like so many other high-end firms, has seen its stock battered by the economic headwinds, is digging in at the trophy 650 Madison Avenue, between 59th and 60th streets.

Sources have confirmed that Polo has renewed its lease for more than 150,000 square feet at the nearly 500,000-square-foot building exquisitely located in the middle of the Plaza District -- just one block away from Central Park and the GM Building.

Last we heard, Polo was the largest office tenant in the 27-story, emerald tower, which Hiro North American Properties last year sold to Ashkenazy Acquisitions and the Carlyle Group for $680 million.

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Until a couple of years ago, the stretch between 71st and 72nd Streets on Madison Avenue, not far from where I live, was a pleasant retail hodgepodge of small boutiques. There was Alain Mikli, the eyeglasses purveyor, but its lease expired. The stationery store vanished, but the clerks were snooty, and I was glad to see them go. Silvano Lattanzi, bespoke shoemaker, moved up the avenue.

On the corner of 72nd Street was the Rhinelander mansion, built for a socialite who dreamed of living in a Loire Valley chateau. Since 1986, it has housed the 20,000-square-foot Ralph Lauren flagship. In 1993 a Bauhaus-inspired Ralph Lauren store selling sportier wear opened across the street.

But something slightly eerie has taken place: in the last couple of years those two Ralph Lauren emporiums reached out their tentacles and consumed every single one of the little storefronts on the west side of Madison between 71st and 72nd Streets. Hidden from view for weeks or months, the new shops emerged one by one from their white seedpods — excuse me, wallboard and scaffolding — as fresh outposts prepared to indoctrinate future generations of Ralph Lauren shoppers.

The only non-Polo entity left on the entire block is St. James’ Episcopal Church, an institution of historic social standing on the Upper East Side, which apparently could not be pried from its roost at the southeast corner. I, a Catholic, don’t attend, but I do have a good friend who comes from the kind of family that inspires the Lauren-esque blend of luxury, money and Pietàs.

“You know, I was married there once,” he tells me every time we walk past the church. “I just can’t remember to which wife.”

In that remark lies the genius of Ralph Lauren. Mr. Lauren has created a storybook fantasy out of the attractive parts of white Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture, leaving out all the ugly bits. When I think of that disappearing cryptoclass, I can’t help but think of John Cheever and the dislocation and anomie of “The Sorrows of Gin” or “The Swimmer.” But on Planet Polo, families dress up for horseback riding, golf and tennis, and pack their perfectly weather-beaten satchels for Nantucket and Bermuda. There are no divorces or drunks there, nor do families squabble over the last shreds of a dwindled fortune that once, long ago, vaulted their ancestors briefly into the upper classes.

For a while I tried to convince myself not to be alarmed at how the neighborhood had been transformed into a Disney-like mall of Ralph Lauren stores. But in the spring I read the Joan Didion memoir, “The Year of Magical Thinking,” and came across a passage in which Ms. Didion, who also lives nearby, describes how many times during the day she thinks of things to tell her husband, John Gregory Dunne, who had recently died. “I notice some change in the neighborhood that would interest him,” she writes. “Ralph Lauren has expanded into more space between 71st and 72nd Streets.”

I stopped. Rubbed my eyes. Reread. There it was: Page 194. This titan of literature, one half of perhaps America’s greatest literary duo of the last quarter-century, had seen fit, in the Pulitzer Prize-nominated ode to her late husband, to muse on Ralph Lauren’s expansion on Madison Avenue.

WALKING along the block, as I do almost every day, puts me in mind of walking along a stage set, from the perfectly shined brass knobs on the doors, to the outfit worn every day by Freddy, the man who hoses down the sidewalk in front of the Rhinelander mansion every morning: perfectly pressed khakis, Wellington boots and a Polo button-down. He is the best-dressed sidewalk-washer in Manhattan.

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Ralph Lauren has a contract to run the design empire he founded, Polo Ralph Lauren, that does not expire for another year. But Mr. Lauren, the indefatigable fashion icon, has already re-upped through March 2013, when he will be 73. His five-year extension could be worth much more than $100 million, and that’s not counting the reimbursement for the mandatory use of private jets and helicopters for all of his business and personal travel.

Mr. Lauren, the chairman and chief executive, will receive a salary of $1.25 million as well as annual bonuses of as much as $19.5 million. And each year he will also get 100,000 options and 75,000 shares of restricted stock, currently worth more than $7 million. PATRICK McGEEHAN

DIALING MR. BROWN Ever since Carl C. Icahn started rattling the cages at Motorola in January, people have been wondering how long Edward J. Zander, the ch
ief executive, would last. Last week the pressure heated up as the company reported its second consecutive quarterly loss after failing to come up with a hot-selling replacement for the Razr cellphone.

Thomas J. Meredith, Motorola’s chief financial officer, said the company’s board supports Mr. Zander and is not searching for a replacement. But industry analysts say Gregory Q. Brown, the company’s chief operating officer, could soon replace Mr. Zander. They add that few people have all the skills needed to run a cellphone maker. KEN BELSON

HEIR SHOW It will be family night on Wednesday for the scions of two famous American clans at the big annual air show in Oshkosh, Wis.

Edsel B. Ford II, a Ford director and great-grandson of the company’s founder, Henry Ford, will team up with Eric Lindbergh, the grandson of Charles Lindbergh. They will introduce a showing of “The Spirit of Saint Louis,” the classic film starring Jimmy Stewart, at the EAA AirVenture, billed as the country’s biggest show for private aviation.

Mr. Lindbergh, the pilot, and Mr. Ford, the auto company founder, were friends, while Edsel Ford is known as an aviation buff. His presence is just part of the auto company’s expanded role at the show, which attracts 650,000 people a year. Ford, which has been the main corporate sponsor for AirVenture since 1999, will use it this year as a mini-car show. It will display vehicles like the Flex, a crossover scheduled to be introduced in 2008, and offer test drives and seminars.

Of course, Ford’s chief executive, Alan R. Mulally, is the company’s biggest current link to aviation: he joined Ford last year from Boeing. But Mr. Mulally will not be attending the show. MICHELINE MAYNARD

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What does a New York fashion titan do for his 40th anniversary? He secures the first-ever public event at the Central Park Conservancy.

It was the perfect storm of natural beauty and stunning fashion for Ralph Lauren, who set up his label four decades ago and wears the crown for all-American ease and elegance.

Set against the park's lush green backdrop, Lauren's collection showcased the designer's celebratory mood: glamour gowns in electric florals mixed it up with upper-class equestrian. Think jackets, jodhpurs, riding crops and family crests. Beautiful, young, fresh and never snooty. Lauren's women have always been strong and sexy, and this season, they're strutting in patent stiletto boots, hot yellow trenches and skinny pants no wider than licorice laces. Ladylike short gloves were perfect for the show-ending standing ovation.

Ralph wasn't the only one celebrating a big birthday yesterday. It was 75 years ago that crocodile-chic brand Lacoste first started crafting preppy pieces for the sporty set.

A candy parade of rainbow-bright sporty dresses, bikinis and shorts poured onto the runway as though out of a Skittles packet.

You'll want to run to the south of France, after seeing the Malandrino collection, a watercolor splash of tangerine, ivy and geranium. Catherine Malandrino, inspired by a town called St. Paul de Vence, set her show against lush greenery. Out came slinky pieces that audience member Janet Jackson could squeeze into to show off her back-again bod.

Twinkle sent out petite pieces in soft chiffons. Though designers are relentless in their quest to get grown ups to wear jumpers, I don't think we should. Twinkle's shortie version is no exception.

Born Ralph Lifshitz on Oct. 14, 1939, Lauren developed an eye for style early in life - he used money earned from after-school jobs to purchase expensive suits.

But there is no typical stint at fashion college on his résumé. Instead, Lauren studied business at City College but dropped out before receiving a degree. His first gig touting style was as a glove salesman.

Next up was a job at tie manufacturer A. Rivetz & Co. It was at Rivetz were Lauren began designing wide ties, a stark contrast to the super-skinny versions then in mode. The ties would become the genesis of his entrepreneurial career.

With help from his older brother and a loan for $50,000, the man whose name would become the epitome of All-American style, launched his first business enterprise in 1968 - Polo Fashions.

Polo - still the go-to label for a preppie-classic take on modern style - grew to become an international business success, in part due to Lauren's canny knack for creating an aura of wealth and success around his products. As important as the actual designs are the packaging and advertising campaigns.

Buying Ralph Lauren is buying into the lifestyle - be it real or imagined - the brand represents. Old-money preppiness, tweedy English aristocracy, polo-playing playboys, rough-and-ready cowboys - there's something for everyone.

Lauren's empire (he is the founder, designer and chairman of the $900 million company and his net worth is estimated by Forbes.com to be $2.3 billion) reaches across men's wear, women's wear, jeans, fragrances, accessories and homewares. You can even cover your walls in Ralph Lauren paint.

Having envisaged the lifestyle, Lauren now lives it. He's rich, has a photogenic family and the jet-set life.

Classic American sportswear: Easy living in the most luxurious fabrics - stretch cashmere, silks and cottons. Stealth-wealth wardrobe mainstays for life in the 21st century.

Perfectly preppie: From pastels to primary hues, be it on land, sea or by air, Lauren creates clothes made for those who live (or aspire to live) an elegant life.

A uniquely sporty long sleeve rugby by Ralph Lauren. Cut from fine jersey, this piece is both softer and more rugged than the average polo shirt.