NOW MORE THAN EVER

How has Ralph Lauren remained perfectly timeless while also becoming, as they say, the moment? As a new home collection debuts, we learned the secret to it all directly from the man himself.

- By STELLENE VOLANDES

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 Tik Tok sensation with almost a million views, when the line for Ralph's coffee stretches a block down Madison, when vintage Polo is a young-creativecool-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?

A Medina lounge chair with classic linen cushions and a navy Highland throw blanket from the spring 2026 Meadow Lane collection. All clothes by Ralph Lauren. Opposite: Ralph Lauren in 1985; the spring 2006 Villa America collection, photographed by François Halard.