“Spring 2027 is an irreverent take on romance that creates a new elegance,” Lauren said, “It’s about ways of dressing that celebrate ingenuity, originality, and character.” With blonde models sporting middle parts and Sting’s “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” reverberating in the background, there was a tinge of romance and optimism in the air, a welcome perspective on the eve of the 25th anniversary of 9/11 and following July’s lackluster semiquincentennial celebrations of the United States.
There was a terrific lamé dress in indigo blue, the kind one could easily imagine as a red carpet look on a pop star like Carpenter.. There were corsets in cotton lace and low-slung jeans and denim workwear trimmed with feathers or accessorized with lots of golden necklaces. It was all beautiful and romantic, less preppy than prim, and quintessentially American. And yet, it felt less like an ode to individuality than a celebration of Ralph Lauren. Which is fair enough—do we need Lauren to do and be more, to redraw the blueprint that he provided for contemporary American style?
The American way of dressing, sportswear and pragmatism, has also been trending on European runways, including Celine and Dior.
It seems to have inspired the next generation of designers to attempt to reclaim what’s theirs. Quoting Lord Tennyson via email, Jack Carlson, the new-ish designer behind J. Press, the prep outfitter founded not too far from Yale University over a century ago, illustrated this point: “Men may come and men may go, but I go on forever.”
“It may ebb and flow on runways and moodboards, but J. Press is and will always be ‘the real thing,’” he said, answering a question about American prep but applying it to his label.
At his show, also on Wednesday, Carlson iterated on the original spirit of prep with nods to that very Ralph men’s styling. Much of it worked because it felt instinctual, like a bright orange parka worn over a black suit—a New Yorker leaving work on a rainy day to attend a sort of black tie gala—but some of it felt more two-dimensional, like dressing for a TikTok. The soundtrack started with the sound of a classic American ballad, and transitioned abruptly into “Safe and Sound” by the Californian synth-pop duo Capital Cities, whose sound is representative of the Obama-era Millennial pop-timism of the 2010s. In a way, that is what Carlson is trying to do on the runway: mediate between American tradition and its present, even if with some too-sharp turns along the way.
