Back to the Future
It starts with a reindeer sweater. Or maybe a team jacket. Or any of the countless hand-me-downs Ralph inherited from his two older brothers as a child. These items arrived in perfect condition. Not mint condition, mind you—but perfectly broken-in. It wasn’t how they were designed or crafted but how they had been worn. They had character. They told a story. And in turn, they made Ralph feel like a character in one of the many movies he adored—the movies that would eventually become the dreams he designed as a grown-up.
As a kid in the Bronx without much money, Ralph procured similarly pre-perfected clothing from local army-navy shops. (Including at least one fateful piece that ultimately inspired one of his signature collections. More on that later.) These early forays augured a lifelong love of all things vintage: clothes, cars, furniture, and more. This love has inspired him for more than a half-century, through all phases of his career, now coming full circle as vintage Polo pieces—themselves inspired by the beautiful garments of yesteryear—come online through a dedicated Polo Vintage shop, which will be restocked frequently with timely archival pieces.
“I like things that are worn,” Ralph has said, a sentiment that applies to both his personal style and design philosophy. “I have old plaid and denim shirts full of holes and tears. They’ve been patched and mended; they’re falling apart, but I’m not throwing them away. Every time I wear one, I love the way it feels.” He went on to compare the way these clothes feel to driving an old pickup truck. “It’s a little dented and the paint’s a little faded, but that patina is evidence of a history of work and a kind of honesty, which to me is very American,” he said.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that nearly every major development in Polo history was, in some shape or form, inspired by Ralph’s love of all things vintage. When Ralph noticed that people loved the way his iconic Polo shirt looked after breaking it in, he introduced the Weathered Polo Shirt, which arrived looking as if you had already had it awhile. His first womenswear line was inspired by an old tweed riding jacket he had bought for his wife, Ricky. His groundbreaking Madison Avenue flagship has long featured vintage décor that, in some cases, can be taken home by an interested buyer. And when he opened his first children’s store in 1993, he stocked it with vintage pieces, just like the ones he dressed his own kids in, which in turn inspired his designs. (“We found one-of-a-kind vintage flannel shirts and hand-knit sweaters, patched jeans, and antique belts and cowboy boots,” he said. “We dressed our children the way we dressed ourselves.”)
His first explorations of Westernwear in the ’70s were inspired by a vintage cowboy hat given to him by a friend. (That hat later played a supporting role in an iconic ad depicting a tux-clad man walking through the snow with the tagline, “Style, not fashion.”) Polo’s first fragrance? Packaged in a beautiful green bottle inspired by a vintage flask. Ralph’s iconic 1984 Safari collection? Connected to a jacket he purchased as a teenager at the aforementioned army-navy surplus store. And then for Ralph Lauren Home, Ralph has designed patched denim chairs, chambray bedsheets, and a channeled leather bed inspired by the upholstery of a vintage car from his collection.
Even the brand’s very first creation—Polo’s signature wide neckties—were inspired by those from the ’30s and were an antidote to the Mad Men–era skinny neckwear that ruled the late ’60s. (Naturally, Mr. Lauren sold those ties while wearing a vintage bomber jacket and driving a 1961 Morgan, the first of his many old-school automobiles.) And vintage continues to inspire: A recent pair of corduroy shirts is modeled after a pair Ralph wore at summer camp as a teen, an extension of Polo’s prep roots, which Ralph studied through old yearbooks from Ivy League colleges.
Naturally, Ralph practices what he preaches. In his personal wardrobe, nothing gets thrown out—holes are patched, rips are embraced, and faded fabrics are a feature, not a bug. It’s an ethos he borrowed from the English. “In America, if you discover a hole in a sweater, you throw it out,” he has said. “In England, you put a patch on it and pass it on to your child.” Perhaps the most obvious example is the tweed jacket he’s had since 1971 and has worn regularly at his runway shows in the decades since, proving that, even with elbow patches and wear, a well-worn item can look just as good, if not better, as it ages.
And it’s not just aesthetics. Many vintage items hail from a golden era of craftsmanship—another of Ralph’s loves—when things were made by hand, or at least by machines that were operated by a human being overseeing every detail and stitch. Ralph has often emulated that craftsmanship with his own vintage-inspired designs, creating new goods that felt anything but. For example, Ralph pioneered distressed jeans in the ’80s, inventing proprietary washing and manufacturing techniques (like sanforizing) to create denim that looked as if it had been handed down from, well, your older brother.
Old-world style and craftsmanship are the backbone, too, of Ralph’s famous car collection. With the notable exception of his McLaren F1 and a RUF or two, none are new—in fact, nearly all of them predate 1967, when he introduced the world to Polo, and each embodies old-world style and craftsmanship. Tellingly, when asked to describe his experience driving these older cars, he spoke of them as if they were living, breathing individuals: “These cars have moods that change with the weather, or with the driver’s own moods. I can drive a certain car one day with great pleasure, and the next day I’ll be disappointed that the experience isn’t as good as the day before.”
In other words, the cars have character from their previous lives, just like an old tweed jacket or vintage flask or hand-me-down sweater that your older brother wore and treasured. And character, perhaps above all, is what vintage goods evoke for Ralph. “When you wear an old military jacket, there’s some sort of connection to those qualities—to being strong, to being tough, to being a warrior,” he has said. And you could express a similar sentiment to, say, cowboy boots and cowboys, beat-up leather jackets and golden age aviators, and tweed jackets and the effortless style of an old-world movie star. It’s not that the clothes transform who you are, but they transcend who you are, allowing you to be the best version of yourself.
And besides, where do characters reside but in stories, the kind of stories that Ralph has been telling through Polo for years? In a sense, these stories, and these characters, are now being told to a new generation, with the online vintage shop. Pieces that have previously been part of someone else’s story can now be part of yours, having already played their part (and taken their inspiration) from a half-real, half-imagined past.
The fact that these clothes live on today—that they feel as relevant in 2024 as they did when they were designed—speaks to the timelessness that is perhaps the core Polo value. It’s a timelessness born of functional beauty, as Mr. Lauren might say. That is, these clothes were made to be worn, not just at a particular time and place, but in our time and our place, whenever and wherever that might be. Each one has a beauty, a craft, and, above all, a story that endures and is meant to be passed on. That story might begin with a sweater, but it doesn’t end there.
