Ralph Lauren picked up the Menswear Designer of the Year Award at the CFDAs earlier this week. He also took home the organization’s first men’s prize in 1981. That means—if I have my dates right—he’s been at the top of American fashion since before this year’s other winners were born. In an industry built on change, renewing and maintaining a legacy can be as difficult as building one, but even as he approaches the brand’s 60th anniversary, Lauren still has fashion’s attention. PoloFest, the vintage marketplace the company organized in Tokyo last month, with its 5,000 specially selected archival Polo pieces and 10,000 visitors, is bound to spawn imitators across the business.
This pre-fall collection wasn’t designed to make that kind of noise, but it’s as rooted in the brand’s iconography as anything else it does. Take the glen plaid pantsuit in look 3—it’s based on a suit that Lauren himself frequently wears and made by tailors in Italy with the specialized techniques that give men’s suiting its sharp lines and structure. The track pants in look 1 are another Ralph tic; he’s always liked mixing casual and formal, low and high. Purple is the accent color here this season, as it is across so much of fashion, alongside minty green, though we can’t blame the prevailing currents. Lauren pays no heed to trends. Case in point: The silvery plunge-front halter top is a lift from his own 1990s archives.
