Humanism 101: Polo Ralph Lauren x Oak Bluffs: A Portrait of the American Dream
Writing about the Ralph Lauren Pre-Fall 2025 Campaign in early July, I noted that the Ralph Lauren name — and especially Polo Ralph Lauren — carries great symbolism and respect in the Black community.
Two Humanists: Cucinelli and Lauren
My retraction comes from this early July 2025 statement in this post:
No one articulates humanist values like Brunello Cucinelli, but Ralph is way up there delivering major marketing changes but without a visual bullhorn.
With the release of Polo Ralph Lauren’s new Oak BluffCollection, its second collaboration with Morehouse College and Spelman College and their research and archival teams, I’m ending the competition in my mind between the two designers, great brand builders and global good guys. They are equal in my mind as global humanists after today.
Polo Ralph Lauren [IG] returns to home base for its Fall 2024 campaign. New York is the city that launched Ralph and his men’s ties, made by Beau Brummell, in 1967. Menswear followed shortly, launched in 1968.
New York City is deeply embedded in Ralph Lauren’s brand DNA.
All of these sentiments and many more infuse the new Polo Ralph Lauren campaign lensed by Lachlan Bailey [IG], with film produced by Jacob Sutton.
Ralph Lauren Vintage
The campaign also includes items from the Ralph Lauren Vintage Collection, available for the first time in September 2024 on its e-commerce site and in select stores around the world.
Top model Vivienne Rohner joins colleagues Cherokee Jack, Christine Munezero,Joshua Seth and Juhyung Kang in a Polo Ralph Lauren Holiday 2023 celebration. Meryl Griffith and Michel Botbol style Polo’s mix of urbane, relaxed glam and casual style pedigree, lensed by Steven Pan [IG].
These Polo Ralph Lauren Women Campaign 2023 images are a complement to our earlier Polo Ralph Lauren Men Fall 2023 Campaign post, shot by Richard Phibbs at the famous Goodwood Motor Circuit racetrack, located in the English countryside around West Sussex.
AOC believes that Annemarieke Van Drimmelen [IG] shot the women’s campaign.
As an American — and long before I launched Anne of Carversville in 2007 — Ralph Lauren represented the American dream to me. Lauren has successfully woven America’s stories into the very fabric of his brand, creating a unique narrative like no other American designer.
Today, an older, wiser, and a more empathetic Ralph Lauren stands at the crossroads of American democracy. In the same moment, I am pouring over the details of American history on a daily basis and grabbing every creative opportunity to talk about them.
When you put Polo Ralph Lauren together with Richard Phibbs [IG] as photographer, Anne’s day is derailed as I decide what to write. Poor Phibbs. He always inspires deep thinking at AOC.
AOC totally supports taking some liberties with campaign visuals, but I also sense an obligation for AOC to share facts of history along the way. Ralph Lauren has mastered this art of visual inclusivity and Richard Phibbs has some of the keenest instincts I know about when taking this path of “how history could have been if only there were more of us and fewer of them.”
Ralph Lauren’s 2023 US Open collection is courtside on Monday, August 28 thru Sunday September 10 at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, New York.
Skirts and/or Shorts for the Ball Crew
Ball girls made their debut at the US Open in 1977, an encouraging factoid until you learn that ball girls first ‘worked Wimbledon’ in 1920.
Ah yes. It’s a long road to women’s emancipation, even when you’re chasing balls around the tennis court in a grand slam event.
AOC finds the French much more emancipated for women than America these days. But the French Open didn’t get ball girls until 1984; and the Australian Open was also in the early 1980s.
Ralph Lauren, Team USA and the Road to Paris 2024
AOC expects LVMH to help deliver another spectacle for the ages, as a premium partner of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
I’m not sure how they will top the June 20, 2023 Pharrell Williams debut for Louis Vuitton Men — a night that rocked Paris with sounds of ‘Joy’.
Ralph Lauren will again be outfitting Team USA for the Paris 2024 games— giving us two global citizens companies, who share Anne of Carversville’s values.
For Ralph Lauren’s exciting achievements in committing to the Cradle to Cradle Certified Gold Cashmere Sweater, coupled with other significant achievements in sustainable materials and products, Ralph Lauren earned a prime spot on Fast Company’s 2023 Top 10 list of the most 540 most innovative companies in North America, across all sectors.
Ralph Lauren redesigned its signature cashmere sweaters to receive certification from Cradle to Cradle, a nonprofit that helped the company meet C2C’s standards for using safe materials, employing fair labor practices, and enabling the garment to be recycled into a new one.
The full 2023 Ralph Lauren Global Citizenship & Sustainability Report and ESG Supplement are available for download on the Company’s website. AOC is reading the report and feels compelled to cite more calls-to-action for the Ralph Lauren Corporation beyond the press release.
The support by Ralph Lauren brands of HBCUs and especially Morehouse and Spelman Colleges continues at an accelerated level. Equally impressive is an accelerated commitment to indigenous communities in America. Of all the severely-impacted humans who have been part of the glorious American experiment, indigenous peoples have experienced the dark side of American excellence and high standards.
Rising [star] model Cherokee Jack appears in Polo Ralph Lauren ads, lensed by Sharif Hamza [IG]. The country clothes include denim, workshirts and timeless outerwear — “made to be worn and made to last.”
Some or all of the collection are produced in partnership with The New Denim Project an innovative textile group based in Guatemala.
Finely crafted from upcycled materials, this denim collection is designed to reduce the use of virgin cotton by incorporating cloth scraps into new yarns and fabrics.
A breeze is blowing through fashion collections and marketing as humans adjust to pre-pandemic life. Not that reality is faraway, mind you, or that a decade of streetwear’s dominance is over.
Coincidentally, posting images of the just launched on September 15 Polo Originals collection by Ralph Lauren comes on the heels of sharing incredibly-glamorous images of the spring 2023 glamorous Schiaparelli collection.
I can imagine critics calling the Ralph Lauren Polo Originals campaign a celebration of robber baron wealth. Photographer Richard Phibbs [IG] made harmonious artistry out of these images starring Hamid Onifade, Hugh Laughton-Scott, Kit Butler, Rishi Robin.
To me, I see a modern, honoring nod to traditions and classics — to wellmade clothes that are designed to last.
Polo Ralph Lauren shares its Fall 2022 campaign with models Devi Rae, Mathilda Gvarliani and Najiyah Imani. Ralph Lauren’s Jack Becht is creative director with images by Alasdair McLellan [IG].
The entire Ralph Lauren business is working on ways to communicate its values in our larger society and culture for over a decade.with an acknowledgment that human connections must be part of the Ralph Lauren DNA.
Today Ralph Lauren views itself as a change agent in solving problems and also embracing the complexity of the real American experience and history for different groups of people.
Polo Ralph Lauren Womens Fall 2022 Accessories Campaign enlists models Amrit and Coralie Jean-Francois. Photographer Alasdair McLellan [IG] is behind the lens, working with Jack Becht, SVP, Creative Director Ralph Lauren.
Campaign films are a dime a dozen. This one is worth watching.
For L’Oréal, the fragrance licensee for Ralph Lauren, the launch of the genderless fragrance Polo Earth represents a “new way of working,” according to Alex Choueiri, global brand president of Ralph Lauren Fragrances.
Sustainability For Real
“It’s the first product where we pushed sustainability, and as much as we could, we focused on every element of the mix to make it as sustainable as possible,” Choueiri said. ““The fragrance industry has this habit of putting a lot of glass to make a product look luxurious and beautiful, but if we’re really serious about wanting to minimize the environmental impact, it should be as light as possible without breaking. The heat to create a bottle has a carbon footprint, and you want to minimize that.”
