Ralph Lauren on craftsmanship, cinematic inspiration, and making classic cool

Above: Ralph Lauren in 1985.

F. Scott Fitzgerald may be the American writer most closely associated with Ralph Lauren—the designer created the costumes for the 1974 movie of The Great Gatsby, and it’s almost reflex while rereading the novel to imagine the characters with RL cable-knit sweaters tossed over their shoulders (colors may vary) as they roam lawns lit with Modern Hurricanes, dining at tables set with Garden Vine dinner plates, marking time with Brennan desk clocks. But in an era when Ralph Lauren Christmas has become a TikTok sensation with almost a million views, when the line for Ralph’s coffee stretches a block down Madison, when vintage Polo is a young-creative-cool-kid signifier, when a party to celebrate a new Ralph Lauren Home fabric line becomes the most elegant invite in Paris, “borne back ceaselessly into the past” seems off, doesn’t it?

Perhaps we turn to another Ivy League–educated American writer for our RL literary lens. T.S. Eliot: “Time present and time past/Are both perhaps present in time future/And time future contained in time past.” A few stanzas later in the “Burnt Norton” section of Eliot’s Four Quartets, he calls this state of eternal present “the still point of the turning world.” How better to explain why a brand rooted in heritage and classic design and craftsmanship (the Home collection was founded in 1983 and was the first from an American fashion house) has also become so deeply and clearly of the moment? How else to decipher the warmth and comfort so many generations currently feel buttoning a white Purple Label oxford or slipping into a bed dressed in the new Meadow Lane patchwork plaid shams?

“For me,” Lauren himself tells Elle Decor, “it’s always about a sense of timelessness, but with a modern and fresh twist. I think that is why my collections resonate today. My personal homes are an expression of the way I live my life, and a place of refuge for me and my family. They offer a true sense of warmth and comfort, and it’s important that my collection for the home also conveys this. Now more than ever it’s what people are looking for. I think we are all drawn to spaces that feel authentic and lived-in and that offer a true sense of comfort with furnishings that get better with age.”

This season that philosophy is brought to life in the batiks and chambrays and needlepoints of the Meadow Lane collection. There is that signature sense of timelessness: traditional weaves of heirloom quality, classic crisp cotton ticking, homespun embroidery, vintage shirting patterns. Are they linens and wallcoverings that have been passed down, or more recent additions to a collection? That you can’t tell is, of course, the point. “It’s always about warmth,” Lauren says, “an eclectic mix of pieces that feel collected over time. And craftsmanship has also always been important. I have a great appreciation for artisans and things that are made by hand—heirloom-quality pieces that become more beautiful with age.”

Wearing Ralph Lauren, or living with it as bed linens or wallcoverings or a chair’s slipcover, always makes you feel as if you’re playing a part in a larger and longer narrative. Maybe you’re Cary Grant or Grace Kelly or Katharine Hepburn; maybe Faye Dunaway or Steve McQueen. You might also feel the style of Ralph and Ricky Lauren guiding you, images of the couple in the Hamptons or in Colorado or in Jamaica or in a country estate on a loop in your mind’s eye. But ultimately, and this is perhaps the key to it all, the story is always ultimately about you.

“I’ve always been inspired by movies,” the designer says, “so I write through my clothes. I create the characters that are central to the story, and then I imagine the homes and environments they would live in and the mood of their life there. I create a complete world that tells a personal story. This has always been a part of my process: I am a storyteller. I am always thinking about the person or family that would live in the worlds I am creating, and when you see the collections you should be able to imagine a place for yourself.”

The story of the Meadow Lane collection, named after one of the most coveted summer addresses in the world, begins with a simple idea. The dream “of the romance and charm of a seaside cottage—its carefree summer days and relaxed evenings spent with family and friends. The palette is evocative of the ocean and surf, blue skies and sandy beaches, sun-faded denim and worn chambray, the essence of summer by the sea.”

The lure of that moodboard is increasingly potent. The art of layering evident in the patterns and textiles in the collection, and on display in every room of a Ralph Lauren store, is not limited to the pleasures of placing eyelet on top of damask, finished with a lace trim. What seems to be driving the passion of this Ralph Lauren moment is the palimpsest each piece offers, past on top of present, present on top of past, and the future always floating promisingly there somewhere between them. And doesn’t that “still point in a turning world” sound eternally alluring—now more than ever?

This story originally appeared in the April 2026 issue of Elle Decor. SUBSCRIBE

Location:

Share :