The Effortless Appeal of Ralph Lauren🏇

Salut !

I cannot explain how inspired I feel right now! It's actually been a while since I've last had this strong of a feeling of inspiration – and it's wonderful and invigorating.

You guessed it by the title of this email, my source of inspiration at the moment is the one and only Ralph Lauren. His name and the brand it represents has always been quite high on my list of inspirations, but now that I watched the documentary of his life and career Very Ralph (2019, HBO), I am completely sold. I won't even try to explain what this sort of inspiration feels like, but I can try to point out a few ideas that were new to me and what it is in his aesthetics that appeals to me so much.

What I learned:

• Ralph's wife Ricky Lauren is effortlessly elegant and she is his muse. They met when they were very young while living in Bronx and Ricky has supported Ralph ever since and helped him to make his dreams come true. Thanks to their collaborative effort they have built a life that they love starting from very modest origins, and it's all very cute. This couple and their life is perhaps the example par excellence of the 'American dream' come true.
• It's safe to say that Ralph Lauren has done many revolutionary things throughout his career, but maybe the biggest one of them all is the fact that he was basically the first to create such a powerful lifestyle brand. He isn't just selling clothes – he sells outfits that belong to a specific style that is associated to a specific environment, and then he communicates that lifestyle through very smart, cool and wholesome ad campaigns. His brand is a perfect reflection of the facets of his personal style that he expresses depending on whether he is in New York, in another city or in one of his estates. Essentially, the magic of the brand lies in Ralph's holistic perception of the world and his aesthetic dreams.
• I had forgotten that he started off with selling ties for men through his 'Polo' brand, but then created a whole new look for men with suits and shoes and the rest. As we know, he didn't stop there though, and he went on to create women's and children's collections and of course his impressive home collection. It was surprising though that he said in the documentary that designing womenswear felt like a stretch to him in the beginning, because he was so used to designing items for men that he knows he'd like to wear himself. But aren't we glad that he decided to continue his women's collection despite his early doubts!
• I didn't know before how much he draws his inspiration from the glamorous Hollywood films of the 1930's and 40's, especially the looks of Cary Grant and Fred Astaire, as well as from Steve McQueen and Paul Newman from the 50's and 60's. He really identified with them and in a way wanted to emulate a similar style in his own life.
• I had not realized before that Ralph has a lisp sometimes when he speaks!

What inspires me:

• I loved seeing all of the old photos and footage of Ralph's own personal style in the documentary, and I find his combinations of outfits so imaginative and intriguing. He knows how to break style codes with taste, and how to achieve a put-together, but nonchalant and effortless look. He mixes items that are associated with high and low social class; the pristine and the rugged; as well as fresh colors and luxurious neutrals. All in all, I'd say he's a very chic man. His style is masculine, yet refined and inventive, but not show-off-y.
• It's evident that the aesthetic things in life are very important to him because he has centered his life around this desire to make his aesthetic visions come true. What brings depth to this desire is that he has wanted for others to be inspired with him through his business, and that he wants to live in his aesthetic dreams with his wife and his family. He lives the scenes of his life in the sets and sceneries he loves; him being the the protagonist and his family members his brilliant co-stars that make it all worthwhile.✨

There we go! I hope you find his life's work and the message of his brand as inspiring as I do. And if you're not yet that familiar with it, I suggest you watch the documentary and visit one of his flagship stores, and you'll get the idea of what his inner world looks like.😏

Have a stylish week!

Bisous,

Elle

❣️Recent delights

• All this talk about RL brought to mind this fun interview of Carlos Dominguez-Ortiz that I watched earlier this summer. Carlos is one of the leading menswear influencers on Instagram (@carlos_domord) and his personal style has been so inspiring to me over the last year or so, so I was really happy to hear him talk about his earlier career and his style inspirations – of which the biggest one is Ralph Lauren. The only problem is that the interview is in Spanish and he speaks really fast! Fortunately, I manage to understand enough of what he says thanks to the couple of years of Spanish lessons that I took in high school and my understanding of the French language. I also noticed that it helped a lot to put the subtitles (CC=closed caption) on from the upper right corner of the Youtube video so that I could also see the words that he was speaking.🇪🇸
• I had ordered a dreamy Ralph Lauren stretch piqué button down shirt in light blue from Vinted (see picture above) and it finally arrived in the mail. What a perfect timing with this air of RL inspiration that I'm having! Now I can emulate some of Ralph's relaxed and cool allure myself while wearing this shirt.🤭