RALPH LAUREN: AMERICA’S POET LAUREATE OF FASHION
As we scan the horizon for a deeper understanding of America, what it was, what it is and what it can be, we are often met by a miasmic haze of confusion. The America I grew up admiring, the America of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, of Bob Dylan and Lou Reed, of Jackson Pollock and Jean-Michel Basquiat, of Salinger and Steinbeck, a country where the downtrodden were heroic and the go-getter could rise to the top, seems to have regressed and transformed beyond recognition. In its place stands a land divided. But it was one evening in New York, on September 12, 2017, that I was finally reminded of the poetic grandeur of America, the extraordinary inclusiveness and egalitarianism of the country I grew up in. I was reminded of all this, of the best aspects of an amazing country, by the man that I consider America’s poet laureate of fashion, Ralph Lauren. Though to affix the label ‘fashion’ to what he does flirts with reckless miscomprehension.
Mr. Lauren, as I refer to him, distils and communicates a sense of breathtaking optimism and of the American dream, which he is a living example of, through the garments he makes. This is a vision unaffected by the capriciousness of trend. What he creates is powerful and eternal. It unites the best parts of American culture, from its most rural to its most cosmopolitan, into a vision for classic elegance and intemporal style. The setting for his Fall 2017 Runway Collection fashion show was unique, and a powerful reminder of the authenticity underlying
