Despite age and physical infirmity, Ralph Lauren managed to look dapper when receiving his recent Presidential Medal of Freedom. While everyone else wore staid, sober suits, Lauren showed up in a stylish grey tweed blazer and black knit tie. The choice was in keeping with his idea of American style, which mixes casual elements—the sporty tweed, the casual neckwear—with a dash of old-school formality.
To many under 40, however, the aging designer was just another fuddy duddy in a tie. Throughout his career, Lauren has mixed high and low style to great effect—witness the famous photos of him in a tuxedo jacket with jeans and cowboy boots, or wearing a denim shirt under a tweed jacket. These looks worked because older generations understood the difference between formal, business, and casual occasions and could appreciate someone who skillfully played with their conventions. They also made their way into his clothing empire, which mixed classic English, Italian, and American style with sportswear, workwear, and cowboy culture. Lauren brought this look to anyone in range of a department store where his immaculate displays evoked English country houses and Ivy League campuses.
As the designer for America’s 2024 Summer Olympic team and newly-minted recipient of a Medal of Freedom, Lauren is as successful as ever. In an era of ubiquitous sweatpants and sneakers, however, his vision of American style verges on obsolescence. His ever-popular polo ponies are in no danger of disappearing. But does America still care for tweed jackets, flannel trousers, and repp ties?
One of Lauren’s early career landmarks was dressing the male stars of the 1974 film version of The Great Gatsby, a fitting choice, as his own career is a sunnier version of the Gatsby arc. Born Ralph Lifshitz to an immigrant family in the Bronx, Lauren is not a product of the prep schools, country estates, and elite universities his designs reference. He never finished college and got his start as a tie salesman with Brooks Brothers, the legendary American clothier his own brand would eventually eclipse.
Like Gatsby, Lauren had a flashy reputation, at least in the stuffy world of traditional menswear. When he struck out on his own after a stint at Brooks, his first ties were noticeably thicker than the skinny ties that predominated. Old-school “trads” tend to look down their noses at ostentatious logos, but his signature polo pony is so successful that the term “polo shirt” has become part of our style lexicon.
There is also a Gatsby-esque, fake it till you make it quality to Lauren’s design sensibilities. Despite drawing inspiration from English aristocrats and New England WASPs, Lauren was not to the manor born. After borrowing the look and feel of old money, he started lifting ideas from other subcultures. Some of these designs, such as his Navajo-inspired sweaters, are quite beautiful. His artfully weathered sweatshirts that reference fake military units, on the other hand, are pretty cringe.
However, unlike Gatsby, Lauren’s career is in no danger of ending in sudden tragedy. Formal menswear may be in decline, but Polo bears and ponies are as ubiquitous as the Nike swoosh. Once an outsider, Lauren has ascended to the highest rungs of the American fashion firmament. On social media, fans affectionately refer to him as “Uncle Ralph.” According to the Washington Post, “nearly every emerging designer in New York name-checks Ralph Lauren as the designer they want to be and the business they want to build.” His rags-to-riches story is a quintessentially American one.
Only two black marks loom over Lauren’s valedictory moment. The first is the state of the American garment industry, which seems to be in terminal decline. Brooks Brothers, the brand that gave Lauren his start, dressed Lincoln in his inaugural topcoat, and tailored Teddy Roosevelt’s custom uniform for the Spanish-American War, barely survived a 2020 bankruptcy scare. Iconic American brands from Nike to Levis outsource most of their production overseas. The department stores and local tailors that once dressed Middle America have largely disappeared.
Check the tag on your polo shirt. Unless it’s a hand-me-down or a vintage piece, it was almost certainly produced abroad. Today, Ralph Lauren’s fashion empire only sources a few high-end items from the United States, Britain, and Italy. Most clothes from his mainline ‘Polo’ brand are produced in Asia.
Economic pressures are not solely to blame for the industry’s struggles. Perhaps it’s inevitable that cheaper foreign factories would come to dominate casual, mass-produced clothes like jeans, t-shirts, and sneakers, although the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, which removed textile tariffs between Mexico, Canada, and the United States, and the WTO’s decision in the same year to require members to remove textile import quotas by 2005, surely didn’t help matters. Cultural forces deserve at least some of the blame for the steady erosion of made-in-America tailoring, however. From fancy restaurants to destination weddings, fewer and fewer people care enough to dress up for special occasions.
The decline of formality is the second mark against Lauren, who is now better known for his logos than his ties. American menswear has always been fairly relaxed, at least compared to our European cousins. We ditched the waist coat from the traditional three-piece suit and invented the sack jacket, which is less structured (and therefore easier to wear) than its stuffy British counterpart. We prefer slip-on loafers to lace-up oxfords. Lauren thrived in this stylistic grey zone. Many of his best looks mixed formal and casual pieces in a playful, subversive manner.
But subversion only works when there’s something to subvert. That’s why Lauren looks impossibly cool in a rugged denim shirt under a tweed jacket, while the sweatshirt-clad Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman looks like a slob. Wearing casual clothes in a formal setting is no longer daring or provocative. Rule breaking only excites when the rules actually matter.
Old-fashioned menswear survives, but its mainstream influence has waned dramatically. The most faithful adherents to classic American style can now be found in Japan, where the word “Ametora” is shorthand for “American traditional,” the mid 20th century university look that inspired so much of Lauren’s work. As formality recedes, tailored menswear has become the preserve of affluent hobbyists who can afford bespoke suits and bench-made shoes. This is the opposite of Lauren’s distinctly American sensibility, which promised well-made clothes for everyone.
That’s too bad. One reason Lauren’s blend of formal and casual style works is that the man has a sense of the moment. It takes a certain moxy to stroll down the red carpet in a tuxedo jacket and cowboy boots. Mere mortals should probably avoid Lauren’s bolder stylistic experiments, but we can all learn from his flair for celebrating a special occasion. For a night on the town, a well-cut suit or sport coat looks better than clothing meant for sports or lounging around the house. It’s also nice to mark an important event or personal milestone by dressing up. As Ralph Lauren takes a well-deserved victory lap, Americans should revisit what made his style great in the first place. The next time you go out to dinner, try wearing a jacket and tie. If the wedding invitation mentions “creative cocktail attire,” ignore the creative part and just wear a suit (or at least a sport coat). Do it for your date. Do it for your own self confidence. Do it for Uncle Ralph.