Last June, at Ralph Lauren’s seasonal presentation in Milan, the crowd was younger, more looksmaxxed, more TikToky than usual. Then the house that Ralph built, at over 55 years in business, appeared to be leaning into an unforeseen popularity on TikTok, Gen Z’s app of choice. In recent years, users have held Ralph Lauren up as part of the old money trend — a simplistic distillation of affluent aesthetics that interprets dressing rich as dressing like Chevy Chase’s character in “Caddyshack.” Whatever spurred young people to drift toward tucked polos and pleated khakis again, Ralph Lauren reaped the benefits. In the days leading up to men’s fashion week in Milan, I received a news release from the resale platform StockX disclosing that sales of Polo Ralph Lauren on the site were up 600 percent in 2024. It credited the rise to the “emergence of Ralphcore on TikTok,” where “a new generation of consumers has embraced and even redefined what the label stands for.” On Saturday, though, the crowd at the latest unveiling of Mr. Lauren’s suity Purple Label line was more all-business, more establishment. Leather-jacketed editors and turtlenecked department-store buyers filled the palazzo’s cream-carpeted rooms, not mustachioed 20- and 30-something TikTokers capturing content. Was the company putting some distance from TikTokers just before the app’s looming ban? Perhaps so. On Saturday, the presentation, which the company stressed was a “press day,” fell a day before TikTok was set to become verboten for American users.
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