Ralph Lauren and the American dream
In one of the final acts of the Biden Administration, the outgoing president selected a roster of notables to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The award in its current form was created by John F. Kennedy as America’s highest civilian honor and is awarded at the discretion of the president. As you might imagine, it has led to an idiosyncratic list of recipients over the decades.
But if any American is deserving of the award for cultural impact it’s hard to argue with the selection of the legendary Ralph Lauren, whose career spans almost the entirety of the existence of the award itself. Lauren is the first clothing designer to receive the award, and it’s hard to find an American who doesn’t know the name Ralph Lauren. The Polo horse logo is ubiquitous, certainly one of the most successful branding campaigns in all of history, on a level with Coca-Cola. However, “Ralph Lauren” itself exists as a disembodied entity in many people’s minds, completely divorced from any real or actual person.
Ralph Lauren is a real person, however, someone who embodies the modern ideal of the American dream and whose aesthetic has become synonymous with an idealized vision of America itself. Ralph Lifshitz was born in 1939 in the Bronx to Polish Jewish immigrants. Following his older brother’s lead, Ralph anglicized his name to Lauren as a teenager.
After a stint in the army, Lauren began his career in clothing as a Brooks Brothers sales associate. This was when Brooks Brothers, along with traditional shop J. Press, was still the go-to for the Northeastern white shoe elite. Jackets and suits were not displayed on hangers. They were folded and stacked on tables that filled the sales floor. A Brooks associate had an encyclopedic knowledge of every aspect of the products. They knew the proper “look” and acted as indispensable guides in navigating the ten-story store at 346 Madison Avenue. It was a far cry from a modern airport Brooks Brothers.
Lauren absorbed that tradition into his very bones. By 1967 Lauren would launch his own line of ties, christening his line “Polo.” Soon he introduced his version of the button-down collar oxford shirt, a distinctively American collar Brooks Brothers pioneered they called the “polo collar.” It is now as synonymous with Ralph Lauren in the popular mind as it ever was with Brooks Brothers.
Ralph Lauren Polo blossomed as a brand within a great tradition of men’s clothiers, not simply Brooks and Press, but small, independent men’s stores that stocked brands in a similar American style. Ties were by Rivetz and Beau Brummell (both companies Lauren worked for), shirts by Hathaway, trousers by Corbin, and suits and sport coats by Southwick, H. Freeman, and Norman Hilton. These were the haberdasher stores where men in every town in America would shop for business wear—the places where fathers took their sons to meet their preferred salesman and buy their first blazer and tie. Ralph Lauren would eclipse them all, eventually opening a Ralph Lauren Mansion just a few blocks down Madison Avenue from Brooks Brothers where he started (the legendary Brooks location at 346 is now closed, but the RL Mansion remains).
Lauren stepped into that tradition, distilled it, and recast it with a romantic and cinematic flair. A perfect example of Lauren’s vision was presented in his wardrobe for 1974’s The Great Gatsby with Robert Redford. It captured not only the legacy of mid-century America’s Brooks Brothers, but also an idyllic vision of pre-war America, influenced by the golden age of cinema.
Lauren exemplified it himself with his choice of jacket and tie in receiving his Presidential Medal of Freedom. Lauren wore a simple and elegant knit tie paired with a herringbone tweed sport coat. The sport coat had three buttons rolled to two, a peculiarly American design perfected by Brooks Brothers and J. Press. But Lauren had added pocket flaps and a ticket pocket to the jacket; his stylish tweak to the classic. As a fashion designer, Lauren wasn’t chasing the avant-garde; he was giving America a perfected version of itself.
Menswear designer and clothing writer Alan Flusser well describes what makes Lauren great in his Abrams Press book on Ralph Lauren: “Although Ralph’s runway shows did not always provide the rush of edgy spectacle lusted after by Gotham’s self-proclaimed fashion illuminati, for anyone interested in how history’s most legendary dressers–the Hepburn girls, the Duke of Windsor, Babe Paley, Fred Astaire, Coco Chanel–liked wearing their fashion, Ralph was the hottest ticket in town.”
Ralph cast his style inspiration net wide, drawing heavily from the same English style that also had inspired Brooks Brothers for so many years. But his heart was always American, which Lauren demonstrated through his western-themed prestige line RRL (Double RL), named after his own 16,000-acre Colorado ranch. Based on cowboys and American workwear, the collection contained pieces inspired by pure Americana: Cowichan sweaters, American motorcycle jackets, heavy thick denim, and pre-war athletic gear.
The RL vision rippled throughout the world. Growing up in Canada, actor Laird Mackintosh, best known for playing the role of the Phantom on Broadway’s The Phantom of the Opera, has been a lifelong devotee of the Ralph Lauren look. When asked about being drawn to Ralph Lauren’s style, Mackintosh explains, “I became aware of Ralph Lauren when the company was in what I would describe as the ‘golden era’: the early to mid-1980s. This was the time of the Safari and Thoroughbred campaigns (1984) which absolutely bowled me over. To me, still the most inspired and perfectly realized vision of RL’s aesthetic.”
In addition to his acting and touring, Mackintosh took his love of Ralph Lauren and began an online business selling vintage Ralph Lauren clothing. He says, “My business began organically out of my collecting,…a love of vintage Polo pieces but also realizing that we are all seeking to raise the quality of our experience in small but meaningful ways.” Mackintosh is appealing to a growing high-end vintage market for those who have embraced the Ralph Lauren ethos that led to his Medal of Freedom.
In my area of Central Kentucky, Crittenden Rawlings founded an eponymous line of menswear after retiring from a clothing career that included a stint with Ralph Lauren Polo in its early days. Rawlings also worked at legendary clothiers like Norman Hilton and served as president of Chicago’s iconic Oxxford Clothes.
Crit opened a small Kentucky flagship shop, beautifully appointed in the tradition of independent men’s stores, and fully embracing the Anglo-American aesthetic popularized by Ralph Lauren. If Ralph Lauren opened a boutique in the horse country of Kentucky it would look a lot like the Crittenden Rawlings store in historic Midway. It is something of a 21st-century embodiment of the early 80s Thoroughbred Collection that caught Laird Mackintosh’s eye. Sadly, Rawlings himself passed away in 2022, but his shop and its aesthetic continue, coming full circle by reinvigorating the independent small-town haberdasher tradition.
Alan Flusser well sums up the impact of Lauren, “Ralph forged a bulwark against the culture’s deteriorating taste level by championing time-honored style over fashion’s more provisional solutions. Reinvigorating the public’s interest in well-bred taste and quality, he ended up democratizing it more profoundly than any of his peers—and maybe more than anyone in modern history.” Flusser offers no faint praise, but it is hard to argue with the assessment.
Last year when the U.S.A. Olympians walked in the opening ceremonies in Paris, each was wearing a specially designed Ralph Lauren Olympic uniform. Since 2008, Ralph Lauren has determined the look that America presents to the world in the most high profile of all international events. It is a fitting culmination to a career that has focused relentlessly on showing America at its best.
Alan Cornett is a former assistant to Russell Kirk, the host of Cultural Debris podcast, and enjoys books, bluegrass, basketball, bourbon, and Wendell Berry. Alan lives in Lexington, Kentucky.
