Mister Americana

A new book celebrates Ralph Lauren's outsize impact on style.

- VÉRONIQUE HYLAND

When David Lauren was very young, he used to tote around a Polaroid camera at his father's fashion shows.

“I was standing on my seat at seven years old,” he recalls, “taking pictures, and the models would stop on the runway because with Polaroid film, you only get, I don’t know, 6 or 10 pictures in a pack. They waited for me to restock my Polaroid and get the jam out!”

Sadly, those Polaroids have long since disappeared into the archival ether. But Lauren’s memories recently got a refresher as the Ralph Lauren team pored over more than a half-century’s worth of runway imagery—some of which hadn’t been seen by the design team in 50 years—in preparation for Ralph Lauren Catwalk, the newest volume in a Yale University Press series that includes works on Prada and Chanel.

The book kicks off with a fall 1972 presentation featuring tweedy, menswear-inspired womenswear that is very Annie Hall avant la lettre. (Five years later, Diane Keaton would go on to wear some of the designer’s pieces, sourced from her own wardrobe, in the film.) “Timeless” is a moving target, but the tweed jackets and fringed Western skirts Lauren designed in his early years could easily be on a runway today.