Ralph Lauren is having something of a moment at the moment. He was named women’s wear designer of the year at the 2025 Council of Fashion Designers of America awards. A Ralph Lauren Christmas became the aspirational aesthetic of the last holiday season. And the outfits the brand made for the U.S. Olympic team, with their vintage Aspen vibe, were among the best looks at the opening ceremony for the Milan-Cortina Games.
Mr. Lauren’s cinematic vision of the world, with its sanded edges, plush environments and wholehearted faith in mythic aristocracies, increasingly offers its own form of comfort clothing. So the fact that he went deep into another dimension of the Ralph universe (which, almost 60 years into the brand, has as many narrative strands going as the Marvel Cinematic Universe) for his fall 2026 show was understandable.
He transformed the soaring bank hall of the Clock Tower Building in Lower Manhattan with its marble Corinthian columns and coffered ceiling into a palatial woodland retreat, as if Balmoral had been airlifted to TriBeCa. There were 36 very large, slightly worn Oriental rugs carpeting the floor, and the walls were hung with hand-painted scenes of windswept woodlands. There were benches and armchairs covered in tweed, tapestry and tartan as well as aged, cracked leather.
There was Anne Hathaway, straight off “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” Morgan Spector of “The Gilded Age” and Lana Del Rey. If a stag had emerged from backstage to canter down the runway, it would not have been a surprise.
Instead, out came beaten-up knee-high riding boots fit for Robin Hood and supple brown leather corsets. Tailored tapestry jackets (shades of Scarlett O’Hara ripping her curtains off the walls to make a dress) and paisley ties and cravats. Woody tweeds. Jackets had peplums and vaguely leg o’ mutton sleeves.
A long royal blue velvet dress came with a studded leather circlet at the neck; a halter-neck gown had a chain-mail capelet attached and a leather horseshoe belt slung around the hips; a hooded chain-mail tunic was studded with crystals. It was a little Maid Marian, a little Arthurian. Guinevere going stalking at the Carlyle.
Mr. Lauren has always stood slightly outside fashion, holding fast to his enchanted views of American history and American style no matter what is going on in the world outside. That can be frustrating and sometimes seem out of touch — there’s no question that many of these clothes seem to have dropped in from Ralph collections past — but it can also be a gesture of faith, and even subversion.
At a time when the Trumpian version of nouveau riche is dominating imagery, with its gilt and ersatz shine, Mr. Lauren offers a different picture. One in which Camelot could come to Bedford (where Mr. Lauren has a country place), with all of the once-and-future promise that implies.
Vanessa Friedman has been the fashion director and chief fashion critic for The Times since 2014.
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