ralph lauren

Where am I going with this recent riff on women attaining modernity in dress? I’d like to know what other women think about the long road to dress reform. The issue of fashion is ours to discuss, and there are still some ambiguities in where we are heading. Feminine pleasure in dresses is still strong, and rightfully so. Women deserve all the clothing options they desire. What matters, however, is that their choices are healthy ones. I make no secret of my disdain for stiletto heels. It doesn’t matter how “sexy” a woman looks in them—they still can seriously maim the foot and harm one’s posture.

What does emerge from investigation of the 20s and 30s is how women enjoyed the freedoms they now possessed: to wear shorter skirts, shed a corset, bob their hair, and don a realistic swimsuit. The pursuit of women’s rights in Europe and America played a key role in shaping dress reform. A solid academic study, Reforming women’s fashion, 1850-1920: politics, health and art, gives supporting evidence for these social changes.

What do scholars say about current dress reform? Fashion designers now employ novel ways of using corsets. Liberating ourselves from imposed fashions, like the constricting corsets and girdles of earlier decades means we can reinvestigate those items as new fashion statements. Irony has become part of our fashion birthright, I guess.

p.s. Hail to Ralph Lauren for bankrolling the conservation and restoration of the original flag that hung over Fort McHenry in 1812 and prompted the creation of our national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner." He did this to the tune of $13 million!

Reading The Fashion Conspiracy reminded me how the fashion industry has produced its own versions of the Cinderella story. Moving from conspiracies to happy-ever-after stories, I was struck again by the career beginnings of a young guy from the Bronx named Ralph Lifshitz, son of an Orthodox Jewish immigrant from Minsk. He lived in the Mosholu Parkway section and attended DeWitt Clinton High School in New York City. By this time, he’d changed his last name to Lauren. From the very beginning of his modest start in the clothing trade, he preferred the preppie style.

His rise to fashion designer stardom is straight out of the best fiction, and was undoubtedly based on hard work. Ralph Lauren had a persistent dream that became reality. “We sell a way of life” was his mantra, and in this he has been wildly successful. What I like about his brand is the consistency of its visualization, down to selling a fantasy lifestyle (how many polo players do you know?). The Art Reading Room has two biographies on his life and work, but the more recent title says it all - Ralph Lauren: the man, the vision, the style. Perhaps I also have a bit of a bias towards a designer who uses Southwestern Native American textile themes in his leisure clothes. I still remember the Fashion Week in the late 1990s when his models all wore exquisite turquoise squash blossom necklaces and heavy silver concho belts...

[Recite to the tune of Who Let The Dogs Out? by The Baja Men:]

Another year is almost over and we can be glad 

To forget those designs that proved quite bad.

Jackets reduced to three-quarters’ size,

Elephant leg pants that widen our thighs.

Pursed with handles way too small,

Cruel stiletto heels that make us too tall.

Lots of new talent from the fashion schools,

But, in the end, Ralph Lauren still rules!

Throw the duds out! Throw the duds out!

Woof-woof-woof, woof woof…

It’s time for the fashion industry to forget the decade,

Of miserable 70s looks that they continue to parade.

Try something better, like 20s verve,

C’mon, designers, find a new learning curve.

Re-introducing the cloche hat is right on track,

Good things can be found when you look back.

Vintage is good, and retro is best,

If you need a vision, you can always look west.

Throw the duds out! Throw the duds out!

Woof-woof-woof-woof…

On product design, the situation remains bleak,

Hair dressing containers are guaranteed to leak.

Packaging created just for the sake of change,

Those conditioner bottles are absolutely insane.

Opening on the bottom so they won’t stand up,

Or those lotion bottles with lids way too abrupt.

Does every celebrity in the world need a perfume?

Half of the scents make one vacate the room.

Too many styles that make us look like a vulture-

If you want a culprit, just look at pop culture…

Throw the duds out! Throw the duds out!

Give us good design!

Woof-woof-woof, woof woof…