At golden hour in the Hamptons, Jude Law was deep in conversation with First Lady Jill Biden as Usher , draped in lemony linen, scooted past them to watch a group of equestrians lope around a primly manicured field. Elsewhere around the Water Mill horse stables that served as the venue for Thursday evening's Ralph Lauren spring/summer 2025 runway show, the swimmer Bobby Finke took selfie after selfie with other guests – he was, by my count, the first fashion week attendee of the season to accessorise his look with an Olympic gold medal. For a world builder par excellence like Ralph Lauren, no detail escapes his touch: his vintage automobiles were parked around the grounds, and the equestrian riders, of course, wore crisp white Polo shirts .
The post-show dinner was held in a replica of New York 's Polo Bar painstakingly constructed in a tent, a process that took five weeks for a one-night-only martini-fuelled blowout. “Ralph lives his life at a certain level, and he curates that feeling within the clothes and in the experience,” Usher noted, after posing for a photo with the First Lady.” Plus: “Our birthday is on the same day! October 14.
We're Libras.” What wasn't included in Ralph's airtight vision of Americana last night was a feeling that is often inescapable at New York Fashion Week, which officially starts today: anxiety. It's no secret that for years, American fashion has played the role of follower rather than leader.
Season after season, the brightest stateside designers flee for Paris at the earliest opportunity, while American menswear labels co-opt soft Italian codes of luxury. NYFW has been shrinking, not growing, as international editors and buyers skip it to extend their summer holidays. This season, however, feels different.
Right now, New York is crawling with international A-list designers. Alaïa and Off-White brought their catwalks from Paris to the Big Apple, and the likes of Jonathan Anderson , Simon Porte Jacquemus , Sacai's Chitose Abe, newly-installed Uniqlo head Claire Waight Keller, and Zegna's Alessandro Sartori are in town for events and activations, a tacit acknowledgement that you ignore New York's cultural clout at your own peril. Asking whether Ralph Lauren is relevant at any given time sort of misses the point – the brand’s appeal is its consistency.
But the RL formula is clearly resonating right now. Ralph Lauren owned the summer by kitting out the US Olympics squad, and the brand is currently a front-and-centre sponsor at a particularly thrilling US Open tournament that has become a fashion event in its own right. Coupled with a presidential election that has gone from grim march to joyful sprint, that tinge of embarrassment that often accompanies Americana has all but dissipated.
As we took our seats along the white-washed runway, David Lauren (Ralph's son and the company's chief branding and innovation officer) reflected on Ralph Lauren's role in this tentatively patriotic moment. “I think America is hungry for optimism, and America is hungry for heroes, and America is hungry for a sense of leadership and a sense of love and community,” he said. “And I think what we do at Ralph Lauren is tell a story of a better America, an America you want to be a part of.
” The world of Ralph contains many different territories: there's the blue blooded boardroom, the Aspen ranch cowboy ranch, the prep school campus. “I'm a RRL devotee myself,” said a suede jacket-clad Cole Sprouse before the show began. “But I'm into the Hamptons horsiness, too.
” A few days before the show, RL reps emailed over Ralph Lauren's explanation of why he chose to pitch his tent out East this season: “The Hamptons possess the sort of atmosphere that transports you to another time and place. There are artist colonies dotted along the beach, polo fields, and pasturelands that stretch across the peninsula. It's a place of inspiration where some of my best memories were made.
It’s a place of romance and magic that I wanted to share with everyone.” As dusk filled the sky and horses chomped grass just off the runway, out came exquisitely rumpled linen dinner jackets and prep-lord paisley trousers , formalwear – lately one of the brand's strongest categories – for a summer Friday. The model Lucky Blue Smith looked decidedly unhurried, winking at his wife Nara Smith as he floated by the front row in a soft gold-button double-breasted blazer , languid cream trousers, and velvet loafers , paired with a banker-collar shirt and plaid tie.
It was, Smith told me, “one of Ralph's looks that he wore in the past.” Said Lauren of the collection, “I looked back at old photos of Ricky and our children, our summers in the Hamptons wearing chambray shirts, weathered jeans , frayed chinos and overalls..
. there was a very informal American attitude in that kind of living and dressing that is at the heart of this collection. The elegance of Savile Row-inspired tailoring applied to relaxed silhouettes.
It’s all about an easy, comfortable and timeless style.” About midway through the parade, which featured an 120-strong cast and lasted for over 20 minutes, Lauren proposed an amusing and even poignant version of American attitude, when models hit the runway alongside smiling and waving children, decked out in their own matchy-matchy miniature looks. Some of the models looked barely old enough to be in college, much less parents – or maybe that was the youthful exuberance of the quintessentially-Ralph styling, which saw a bright yellow fireman's jacket paired with a madras blazer and twill painter paints, and blaze orange trousers under a tie-dye cable-knit in a memorable show-closing burst of colour.
RL has a huge children's business, a clear commercial imperative behind including tyke-sized clothing on the runway, but for all the runway theatrics we’ll see this season, it will be hard to beat the spectacle of Ralph Lauren's diverse and adorable neo-prep families. The message landed: following the show, First Lady Biden was heard explaining that she “saw America” on the runway. “This might sound a little odd for being at a fashion show, but I was kind of touched by it,” concurred Justin Theroux .
“Ralph is obviously aspirational, but there was a version of family that he presented that I thought was beautiful and wonderful. And I'm not even a Hamptons guy!” he added. If his son is correct that we're hungry for heroes, the crowd recognised one in Ralph Lauren when the 84-year-old icon came out for his bow, smiling and clapping and blowing kisses to the assembled.
Even in old age, Lauren's outfits are highly scrutinised by devotees of his famously rule-breaking style for insights into which direction his weathervane might be pointing next. On Thursday night, he left nothing to interpretation in a white moto jacket. Embroidered across the front? “USA.
”.
