Layering a bounty of lush textures and rich colors in your home to decorate for the holidays might be an annual tradition, but this year it has a name: Ralph Lauren Christmas.
These now-annual declarations of the must-have holiday trend make for fun social media fodder, and they also reflect back our current cultural fascinations and concerns. Much like last year’s Tacky Christmas, this year’s aesthetic forgoes minimalism and dials up the nostalgia and warmth. It’s more about heirlooms and keepsakes of years past, rather than buying new or covering everything in beige spray paint.
But it harks back even further in time than Tacky Christmas, trading the vintage electric decor and the tinsel of the 20th century for the plaid blankets, velvet and green garland that recall the very start of modern Christmas tradition — just as much Charles Dickens as Ralph Lauren. It’s traditional, it’s tech-free, it’s equal parts cozy and sumptuous. And there are a lot of bows.
Ashleigh Cox, a yuletide-loving content creator in Kent, England, began making videos about Ralph Lauren Christmas last spring. “I started looking at the Ralph Lauren home collections of the late ’80s and ’90s and how comforting I found that and how cozy it was,” she says. “And so I was like, ‘That’s what I want to tap into.’”
And now, people seem to be taking a long gulp of Ralph Lauren Christmas. Kristen Scharer, designer and founder at Kristen Scharer Interiors in Columbus, Ohio, says the trend is everywhere. “It’s very much the epitome of what I think a lot of people picture to be Christmas decor but ramped up maybe an extra couple notches,” she says.
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We’re talking lush greenery — starting with an ample tree and strands of garland — beneath layers of classic tartan, velvet, wool and leather; dark wood, brass and candles; and splashes of jewel tones such as burgundy, deep green and navy. Think “Miracle on 34th Street” or “Home Alone” as touchstones.
Its popularity underscores the broader shift away from grays and neutrals toward warmer tones and saturated colors. (No Sad Beige Christmas here.)
Cox wants to be clear: “I don’t necessarily think the idea is to go into the Ralph Lauren store and buy it.” For her, consumerism is not the point. (Though, of course, some content creators share tips about how to achieve the look on the cheap with purchases from online retailers.)
Instead, she sees the aesthetic as an elevated version of “something that’s curated and collected over time. … It’s supposed to be something that’s kind of long-lasting and durable.”
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Even if this isn’t the Christmas you actually grew up with, it’s the kind of holiday bonanza that burrows its way into our collective imagination.
“I’ve researched a lot into the origins of Christmas and Christmas traditions and how [Charles] Dickens seems to have invented most of it,” says Hilary Davidson, an associate professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology. With “A Christmas Carol,” “he was consciously creating a nostalgia for the Christmases he remembered from the very early 19th century, so there’s all these layers of imagination.”
The notion that this year’s Noel aesthetic gestures at a past we might aspire toward, even if we didn’t live it, is fitting for the name, Davidson says: “Ralph Lauren in itself is nostalgia for a kind of invented pasts.”
(Ralph Lauren declined to comment for this story.)
Jen Smith, a content creator in the South Shore of Massachusetts, has been tickled to see people use photos of her holiday decor to illustrate the trend because “it really isn’t a trend for me,” she says. “It really aligns to how I decorate all year round.”
Smith bought her tartan ribbon years ago, long before people started talking about Ralph Lauren Christmas. (Smith just really likes tartan: She wallpapered her bedroom in a maroon version of the pattern.) “I know that next year I’m not going to grow tired of it,” she says. She might choose to repurpose the ribbon or situate it differently, but “I’ll continue to feel excited when I pull it out.”
Rather than trying to load up on tartan, velvet and other items associated with the trend, Smith recommends focusing on the process: the layering.
“It is really about incorporating things you love, the pieces that feel meaningful,” Smith says. “The most timeless homes come from layering that matters, not buying new.”
Despite its moniker’s luxe pedigree, people can adopt Ralph Lauren Christmas without a complete overhaul of their annual decorations. Indeed, the idea of creating something that symbolizes luxury without breaking the bank is part of the appeal.
Colleen Lettich Hyde, creative director of interiors at ODE Design in Falls Church, Virginia, appreciates a trend that people can achieve at different price points. “And I think this is one that you can,” she says. “I mean, you could go completely over-the-top with this, but you also can like lean into this with changing the minimal things with how you’ve decorated [in the past] and it looks beautiful.”
The budget isn’t the only element on a sliding scale. Just how much you tart up your living room in tartan is up to you, too.
“You can take it really far where it’s like really maximalist, or it can still be kind of restrained,” says Marea Clark, principal at Marea Clark Interiors in San Francisco. For the more understated version, “you have those touches of the velvets and the tartans and the bows where it doesn’t feel overwhelming.”
To add layers without making it look too busy, home in on “what I like to call a lead item,” Scharer says. The plaid is a good place to start — pick out the individual colors that make up the pattern and pull in elements that repeat those hues. “I’m going to pull in a red ribbon and I’m going to pull in blue ornaments,” or focus on the thin yellow stripe in the tartan.
Or, you know, let it look a little busy. While Ralph Lauren Christmas can appear quite tailored, it also allows for a more laid-back interpretation, says Nicole Salvesen, founder of Salvesen Graham in London. “You can bring in your own art and microtubules full of random decorations from the family over the years,” she says. “Bring those pieces in if you want to, and I think that layering of those textures enables you to do that.”
One major component of Ralph Lauren Christmas is the generous helping of bows. Then again, bows are basically always a staple ingredient in the holiday decoration cocktail, especially given their ubiquity in gift wrapping (which, if not technically the reason for the season, has certainly become a key component of it).
Putting a bow on something is “pretty much like you’re turning everything into a gift at Christmas,” Hyde says. To place a bow on a sconce or a banister or a door is a way of showing you’ve spruced it up, that it hasn’t escaped your attention.
For crafting content creator Laura Prietto, one of her goals this holiday season is to make “an abundance of bows.” Prietto, who lives in Tustin, California, already has a slew of ribbons in her crafting closet. “My whole goal with this was to not buy anything new and just use what I already have,” she says. “What kind of brings me personally the most joy is when I can say, ‘I already had these things and look what this created.’”
That’s part of the appeal of bows, which have “been with us for the entirety of human history,” Davidson says, because they’re so functional. And they’ve acquired a symbolic heft over time. “It’s a little bit crafty. It’s a bit folksy. No matter how fancy your bow is, I think somewhere it’s still got that slight element of ‘somebody made this bow,’” she says. “If you’ve got fabric that’s long enough, you can make a bow out of anything.” Then, when you’re done, you can just untie it for the next use.
Davidson notes that the yearning for this down-home, nostalgic look comes after a year filled with advances in artificial intelligence. “You often get this romantic response to technological changes,” she says.
For those who want to curl up under their tartan blankets all winter long, that’s an option, Hyde says. Even if you take down the most holiday-centric elements of your Ralph Lauren Christmas once the holiday season draws to a close, that still leaves many of the layers to keep you cozy in January.
The post What the Ralph Lauren Christmas trend reveals about our cultural moment appeared first on Washington Post.
