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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 this fashion week in Milan, I received a news release from the resale platform StockX disclosing that sales of Polo Ralph Lauren were up 600 percent on the site 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.”
This season, though, on Saturday, the first day of men’s shows, 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. (Notably the presentation, which the company stressed was a “press day,” fell a day before TikTok was set to become verboten for American users.)
But there was also a pleasing symmetry between that guest list and the subdued collection, which was a walkabout through the label’s time-tested hits. You could close your eyes, think the name Ralph Lauren and picture nearly everything on offer: Glen check double-breasted suits, an olive green parka, beefy British-tinged overcoats, a rollneck sweater and a Fair Isle ski cardigan.
Several standouts, like an Italian-made suede blazer with braided lapels, bespoke a maturity well beyond the TikTok years. As a whole, the collection was a reminder that Ralph never needs to chase. The brand can make some comely sweaters and reliable coats and the shoppers will come to them — whether on TikTok or whatever fleeting app may come next.
Mr. Lauren’s line wasn’t the only one in which some core Ralph attributes reared up. During the Philipp Plein runway show, held at the soon-to-open Plein Hotel, a chandelier and black marble cathedral with the sensibility of a Miami strip club, Mr. Plein sent out what could only be called his version of the well-known Polo Bear sweater: a trio of knits depicting a cutesy bear dressed as a bellhop, a cabana-shirted beachgoer and a tuxedoed gentleman.
Those sweaters were just about where the Ralph Lauren comparisons ceased. If Mr. Lauren’s label is a “Great Gatsby” vision of men’s wear, Mr. Plein’s is more “Grand Theft Auto.” His collection featured a crystal-studded blazer (worn shirtless, natch), distressed jeans and a duffle bag drenched in contortions of the Budweiser logo that read “Plein.”
While this particular show was lighter on the camera-baiting chaos of some of Mr. Plein’s previous presentations (this is, after all, a designer who has sprinkled his runways with Jet Skis, robots and Mad Max monster trucks), he still squeezed in a performance by the rapper French Montana, dressed in a studded Plein leather jacket. The performance, of course, was posted on TikTok by the next morning.
The atmosphere had been far more placid earlier in the day at the presentation of Brunello Cucinelli, the Italian cashmere comandante whose label, much like Mr. Lauren’s, has been hailed on TikTok as a new money staple.
When asked about the trend, Mr. Cucinelli, the Plato of pleated pants, sidestepped a direct answer and instead gave a philosophical response. “I came from a farming family, a family of peasants, and now I have become a wealthy man, but my life hasn’t changed at all,” he said. “I can spend time with the old money and get along with those who do not have that kind of money.”
His clothes are for men who do have that kind of money. Days before the presentation, the label reported $1.3 billion in revenue last year, an increase of more than 12 percent. And 37 percent of the company’s business revenue is now generated in the United States.
“If the Americans do not appreciate the collection, then that’s trouble for you,” he said. “Americans need to like it.”
So what is Mr. Cucinelli pitching to those American shoppers? This season, a shearling jacket in a cunning cloudlike gray, a denimlike double-breasted blazer and a ruby red dinner jacket with a satin lapel that appeared tailor-made for a Lunar New Year party.
Leaving the presentation, I passed through a three-deep tunnel of young people — largely young women — waiting outside the building’s stone archway. They were anticipating the arrival of the Chinese actor Li Yun Rui, whose name rang no bells for the American press corps.
When he showed up later and Mr. Cucinelli walked out to embrace him, shouts rang out and phones went up. TikTok or no, brands will always find a way to be seen.
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