NEW YORK, United States — One thing you could never accuse Ralph Lauren of is uncertainty. Compare him to fashion’s other imperial silverbacks Armani and Lagerfeld and he stands as solid and dependable as a stately home. Not for him the mercurial fancies of wayward creativity. Curiously, though, he closed his show with two pieces, a one-shouldered, full-skirted gown and a long skirt hitched high on one thigh, in gold Mikado that had all the liquescence of mercury.
Before them, though, had come a parade of classic Lauren-isms: fifty shades of beige cashmere in everything from twinsets to topcoats; the leanly elegant man-styling borrowed from the 1930’s movies he loves so much; Old England meeting New Mexico; dandy dressing; and Karlie Kloss in a black velvet column with a coiling frill of white which put one in mind of John Singer Sargent painting Mary Queen of Scots. Which obviously never happened, although Ralph Lauren is probably the only designer in New York who could seed your mind with such an image.
