By Gabriela Afanador
Thursday 10, September 2026
Photo via @ralphlauren on instagram
Ralph Lauren staged the Spring 2027 Ready to Wear show on September 9, a full day before New York Fashion Week officially began, inside the Clock Tower Building in Tribeca, a Renaissance Revival landmark with the kind of clean, light filled architecture that felt like a real shift for the brand. Past ready to wear shows have leaned on dark wood, layered rugs, and old world salon furniture, so this stripped back, architectural setting stood out immediately. Guests sat on long ivory benches inside the bright gallery, facing tall white doors that the models walked out from, and everyone who arrived was handed small bouquets of white tulips, delphinium, and hydrangeas on the way in, a soft, welcoming touch before the show even started.
The music moved the same way the clothes did, opening with the romantic sound of “I Found My Love in Portofino” before shifting into The Police’s “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic,” carrying the whole room from something nostalgic into something with more energy. That shift in the music turned out to be a pretty good preview of the whole show, romance at the start that slowly picked up momentum and edge as it went on. In his own notes on the collection, Ralph described the season as an irreverent take on romance, one built around ingenuity, originality, and personal character rather than anything too costume like or precious. A lot of that came from his wife Ricky, whose own personal style, equestrian pieces, worn in denim, tailoring worn loose and easy, has shaped so much of the collection’s balance between structure and ease. You could feel that influence throughout, in how comfortable and unforced even the most formal pieces looked once they hit the runway.
The Brand
Ralph Lauren has always been one of my favorite brands, if not my favorite. What sets Ralph apart for me is how elegant the clothes are without ever losing how wearable and versatile they stay, and how consistently true the brand remains to its own identity season after season. The fit of everything, the structure, the tailoring, is done with a level of care that shows up the moment you look closely, on both the men’s and women’s sides. There is a kind of quiet confidence to Ralph Lauren clothing that I don’t see nearly as often in other houses, the sense that everything was made specifically to flatter the person wearing it rather than to make a loud statement on its own. It is a brand that never seems to chase what is happening elsewhere in fashion, and that restraint is exactly what makes it feel so timeless season after season.
What I appreciate most about this brand is that it never feels like it is trying to prove anything. So many houses right now seem to be reaching for shock value or spectacle to stay relevant, and Ralph Lauren has never needed that. The confidence here comes from craftsmanship and from a very clear point of view about what elegance actually looks like, tailored but never stiff, romantic but never costumey. That is a hard balance to hold onto for decades, and this collection proved the brand still knows exactly how to do it.
The show opened with an all white look, a boned poplin top with lace up detailing paired with relaxed white trousers. I’m not usually drawn to that corset style, it can read a bit much on a runway, but here it was done thoughtfully, more structural than showy, even if it wasn’t one of my personal favorites from the collection. From there the show moved through four distinct chapters, tailoring first, then a playful stretch that mixed cutaway vests and trucker jackets with distressed denim, then a section built around aged, weathered textures, before closing into full eveningwear. Nothing broke sharply between one chapter and the next, the whole thing eased forward gradually the way a real day of dressing might, from crisp morning structure into something looser and more romantic by night.
The Clothes
The palette stayed mostly neutral throughout, navy and white carrying most of the collection, with small touches of blue, pink, and red showing up here and there to break it up. There were a lot of beautifully cut trousers running through the whole show, alongside the flowing, bohemian style shirts Ralph Lauren does so well, and a strong run of gala ready dresses toward the end. The house’s signature silk shirts showed up in a few different forms, some tucked into tailoring, some left open and loose, and the flowier evening dresses were some of the most beautiful pieces in the whole collection.
Photo via @ralphlauren on instagram
What I didn’t get to earlier, and what deserves real attention, is how much texture and playfulness ran through the middle of this show. Feathers turned up in a few unexpected places, trimmed along the collar and cuffs of a denim jacket in soft white plumage, and worked into other pieces where you would least expect something so delicate sitting against something so utilitarian. That kind of pairing, rough workwear denim against something as soft as marabou, is exactly the sort of playful contrast Ralph does so well without ever losing the elegance underneath it. The denim itself went through some real treatment too, distressed and shredded in places, then hand painted with a chalky, almost plaster like finish that took the fabric somewhere far more artistic than a typical pair of worn in jeans. Even the embroidery on some of the formal skirts was dipped in that same chalky treatment before being stitched, so the floral needlework came out looking a little weathered, like it had been found rather than made new.
There was a real richness to the fabrics too once you got past the denim. Seersucker, usually reserved for something much more casual, was tailored into cutaway waistcoats and formal jackets, which gave those pieces a texture you don’t often see in eveningwear. Velvet went through a burnout process that thinned the pile unevenly, giving certain coats and robes an antique, almost faded quality rather than a flat, uniform sheen. One shearling vest was engineered so the sheepskin was sliced into fine ribbons and woven across an open structure, which kept all the warmth and texture of shearling without any of the usual bulk, a small detail but one that says a lot about how much thought went into even the outerwear.
Photo via @ralphlauren on instagram
What struck me most was how the collection kept shifting between two very different moods, sharp menswear inspired tailoring on one side and soft, almost undone romance on the other, without ever feeling like two separate shows stitched together. That balance is hard to get right, and it is one of the things Ralph Lauren has always done better than almost anyone else. The trousers in particular deserve their own mention, because there were so many strong versions of them throughout the show, some cut wide and relaxed, some closer to the body, sitting low across the hip in a way that felt borrowed from casualwear rather than traditional tailoring, with buttons running the entire length of the outer seam on some pairs so the hem could actually be released and the leg allowed to fall differently over the shoe. That kind of ease is something a lot of tailoring gets wrong, either too stiff to move naturally in or too loose to look intentional, and this collection found that middle ground almost every single time. The bohemian shirts carried a similar spirit, unbuttoned just enough, tucked loosely rather than perfectly, giving even the most polished pieces a sense that the woman wearing them had put herself together rather than been dressed by someone else.
Photo via @ralphlauren on instagram
My favorite look by far was look 45, the trousers, the sandals, and that incredible open necked blouse in a goldish green tone that moved so beautifully as the model walked. It is hard to think of a better top in the entire show, the drape and the movement of that fabric were something else, and it is exactly the kind of piece that makes this brand feel so special to me. It is the kind of top that does not need anything else around it to make a statement, and yet paired with those trousers and those simple sandals, the whole look felt effortless in a way that is genuinely difficult to design. There was also something lovely about how relaxed the footwear stayed throughout, flat sandals and simple slides instead of tall heels, which gave even the most formal looks a kind of ease that suited the whole mood of the collection.
The construction behind the show matched everything I loved about how it looked. Some of the tailoring, including two sharp pantsuits, was made in the house’s own atelier in Italy, using floating chest canvas and hand padded lapels the traditional way, while the softer, more fluid pieces were built to move with the body instead of holding a rigid shape. One white leather jacket had an entire back yoke worked in dense, hand stitched smocking, which is the kind of detail you only notice up close but changes how a piece feels in motion. Evening skirts went through a laundering process that gave them a relaxed, lived in wrinkle instead of a stiff pressed finish, and one of the evening gowns was built from a single piece of fabric wrapped in one spiraling seam around the body, which is such a clever, quiet kind of engineering. Even the sequins were treated differently than usual, coated in a matte finish so they caught the light softly rather than glaring under it.
Small details like these are what make a Ralph Lauren collection feel considered rather than just pretty. A rumpled skirt or a slightly imperfect finish is never an accident here, it is built in on purpose, because the whole point of this collection was to make romance feel lived in rather than staged. That is a harder thing to pull off than it looks, since most designers either go too polished or too undone, and this collection found the exact middle point between the two. It takes real confidence to intentionally rumple a beautiful fabric or soften a sequin’s shine, because the easy choice is always to let something shine as brightly and look as pristine as possible. Choosing restraint instead, choosing to let a garment look worn in and personal rather than brand new, says a lot about what this collection was actually trying to communicate about romance and elegance.
The house also introduced a new bag, the Madison, a clean, structured tote in polished leather, alongside updated versions of the signature Ralph saddle bag, shown here in hand burnished leather, aged brocade, and navy alligator. Accessories throughout leaned into loosely tied cummerbunds, fringed scarves, and wide unknotted neckties layered over the shirting, a direct callback to the hand cut neckties that started the Polo label all the way back in 1967, all styled with that same relaxed confidence that ran through the rest of the show. Oversized fabric corsage brooches were pinned to lapels here and there, ruffled collars borrowed from old French court dress showed up layered under jackets, and a few wide brim straw hats mixed in a kind of European holiday feeling with the more American, preppy foundation of the rest of the collection. Nothing pulled too tight, nothing styled too perfectly, everything looking like it had been put on by someone who trusted her own instincts.
The Close
Ralph Lauren himself closed out the show walking out in sunglasses and a varsity jacket before greeting his wife Ricky, who has clearly shaped so much of this collection’s spirit, with a kiss. It felt like the most fitting way this particular collection could have ended, personal rather than performed, which is really what the whole show had been about from the opening look.
Overall I really loved this collection, start to finish. Every woman on that runway looked genuinely beautiful in what she was wearing, and that comes down to how well the clothes were made for them rather than anything about the women themselves. That is what Ralph Lauren does better than almost anyone, clothes built with enough care that they make whoever is wearing them look and feel their best, season after season, without ever needing to shout to do it. This collection did not try to reinvent what the brand stands for, and it did not need to. It simply reminded everyone why the house has stayed this relevant for so long, by doing what it has always done, only a little looser, a little more personal, and a little more romantic than before.