It was a long road to Ralph Lauren’s spring 2025 show in Bridgehampton. Really, though: at 2:30 p.m., I boarded a sprinter van in Midtown Manhattan organized by the brand with eight other fashion editors. By 3 p.m., it still hadn't left. And at ten past the hour, as we began to inch down Madison Avenue, I knew we were going to be late for the brand’s desired 6:30 p.m. start time. I just didn’t know how late. Because the only thing worse than the New York City traffic we were currently in? Long Island Expressway traffic—the exact highway we were trying to turn onto.
Two hours later, and we’d only made it ten miles. (Earlier in the week, my editors asked me to live blog my journey on the new Vogue app. One of them asked why I hadn’t really posted yet. I sent her a video of us stuck outside a Hooters in Queens.) The mood on my bus, which had started out lighthearted and jovial, began to turn. We’d run out of small talk and unlike a cocktail party, there was nowhere to politely excuse ourselves. Plus, water had begun to drip from our air conditioning. The editor getting dripped on asked the driver if he could help. He offered to pull over. “We aren’t stopping,” someone hissed. (Ok, fine. It was me. I hissed!) So instead she took the plastic Ralph’s bag of snacks they’d given us and used it as a makeshift bucket to collects the water, like we were in Grandpa Joe’s house from Charlie and The Chocolate Factory.
Then, the texts started arriving. We knew that the more important show attendees had been offered alternate (or to put it less politely, better) modes of transportation to the Hamptons in the form of helicopters and private cars. However, we didn’t know that they were already there. It turns out they’d arrived hours ago, and were wondering: Where the hell are they? And here’s the thing about fashion shows. A designer will wait for his front row VIPs to arrive. But the bus people? They do not usually wait for bus people.
So then it became a slight panic about whether or not we were going to miss the show entirely. (“Did we want to stop to use the bathroom?” The bus driver asked. We all shouted back “no” in unison.) After a hard right turn in Quogue, we sprung another leak in the back. “I need a cigarette,” the editor in front of me murmured. Yet at 6:51 p.m., our traveling Titanic finally reached our destination.
Technically, the show was held at Khalily Stables, a 19-acre equestrian center in Bridgehampton. (In 2023, it was listed for sale for a cool $16 million, with 18 horse stalls and one bathroom.) But as we pulled in beyond the hedges and down a tree-lined drive, it was cleared we’d entered another world entirely: Ralphampton.
In Ralphampton, impeccably dressed equestrians trot elegantly around a riding field lined with a white picket fence. In Ralphampton, every car is a vintage Jaguar or Mercedes. In Ralphampton, the hottest man you’ve ever seen in your life will offer to walk you across the grounds arm-in-arm while his bright blue eyes lock with yours. Your illusion will be brutally shattered when you have to ask him where the porta-potty is. (The driver was right. You should have stopped!)
But then it returns! Because walking out of said port-a-potty is Laura Dern, in head-to-toe Ralph Lauren and ’70s-style sunglasses. She cracks a joke while walking out. You do not hear it because your hearing is shot (you blame the Green Day concert you went to when you were 12) but you laugh anyway. Because in Ralphampton, of course you have an inside joke with Laura Dern.
By 7:01 p.m., all guests have been ushered into a white tent on the grounds. Ralph Lauren laid it out so everyone got a front-row seat. Even the bus people.
A cacophony of flashbulbs goes off for Tom Hiddleston. Somewhere, someone tells me, is Dr. Jill Biden and her granddaughter Finnegan. I crane to try to get a look, but the lights dim and the music starts—the distinct signs that a show is about to begin.
Ralph Lauren opens with Mia Armstrong in high-waisted white shorts, a Western belt, and a blue suede jacket. She was followed by men in pinstripe jackets and women in everything from slouchy white trousers to sequined blue ombré evening gowns. (“As befit the Hamptons setting, the clothes he sent out tonight tapped a beachy, breezy vein in his work,” Vogue’s Nicole Phelps wrote in her review. “There was something for any and every East End occasion, whether calico and lace for a poolside barbecue, or a midnight blue slip dress for her and an ivory linen dinner jacket for him to wear at a black-tie fundraiser. He also made room for some western suede and leather fringe—we were in horse country, after all.”) Slowly but surely, the supermodel star-power arrived in full force: Naomi Campbell strutted down in a pearl skirt, Christy Turlington-Burns in a tailcoat and jeans. Quannah Chasinghorse and Lucky Blue Smith soon followed. (His wife, Nara, filmed him as he walked by—and despite all the tradwife comments, she was dressed in a decidedly modern dark suit.)
Then came the kids. Models appearing to range from four to 14 showed off Ralph Lauren’s Polo line. Some did so hesitantly; others, with all the confidence in the world. One little girl, practically skipping, waved the entire time down the runway. Lauren often had them holding the hands of adults, presenting the image of a beautiful nuclear family walking down the runway and into the sunset. (Oh, there was also a man holding a white horse in the background the entire time.)
Here’s where I make a confession. I was indoctrinated early into the Ralph Lauren ideal of Americana. As a teenager, I worked at a boutique on the main street of one of the wealthiest towns in America. It sold Juicy Couture tracksuits, bedazzled True Religion jeans, and neon tank tops by a brand called Sugarlips. I’d spend hours upon hours refolding it all after customers discarded them on display tables or in dressing rooms. During my lunch break, I’d eat the sandwich I brought from home on a bench outside the store. Across the street was the Ralph Lauren mansion. In between bites, I watched the women who walked in. They were tall and wore clothes that never appeared wrinkled. Their hair glimmered and their smiles did too. When they spoke, it reminded me of The Great Gatsby quote I’d recently read in English class: “Her voice is full of money.” Mine, meanwhile, felt like it was full of minimum-wage paychecks.
One afternoon, two girls I knew from school walked in. They giggled in the dressing room as they tried on what felt like everything in the store while loudly complaining that they hated it all. “Do you think we should hang those back up? One asked the other as they left it all strewn across the floor. “I mean, it’s literally her job,” she said.
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After I finished cleaning up their mess, I told my manager I was clocking out. I walked out onto the avenue and straight into Ralph Lauren. At first, I just looked at all the beautiful things—the patchwork skirts, the suede blazers, the cable-knit sweaters, and wide-leg pants, which the salespeople knew I couldn’t afford and yet kindly let me browse in peace anyway. Yet in a corner discreetly labeled “sale,” I stumbled upon a trench coat somehow in my size and somehow 70% off. It was two months' worth of paychecks. But after a deep breath, I took it up to the cash register.
Fourteen years later, that trench coat still hangs in my closet. And as I looked around the front row at Ralph Lauren—not at the influencers or brand ambassadors, but the women who got invited because they’re actually buying the brand—it felt like none of them were wearing the current season. Instead, they were wearing something they’d owned and loved for years. A blazer, a sweater, a dress—a sartorial symbol of the life they wanted, and maybe even got. Because here’s the thing about Ralph. You wear his clothes not just because they’re well-made. You wear his clothes because they make you feel like you’re wearing the American dream itself: one where you spend your summer on 19 manicured acres of a Hamptons Estate; where every day is warm enough to wear a linen dress, but every night cool enough to wear a cashmere sweater.
Ralph Lauren didn’t take a bow as far, as I could see. (Which admittedly wasn’t far—the crowd, by that point, had flooded the aisle in a standing ovation.) Instead, he just stood at the entrance to a barn with his wife Ricky and Naomi Campbell by his side. When Ricky ushered him inside, it was a sign for all of us to come to.
If the pre-show was Ralphampton, the post-show was The Polo Barn. The brand built a complete recreation of their New York restaurant in the equestrian space, down to the paintings, booths, and menus. (They even brought in their beloved maître d’, Nelly Moudime, from New York.) Jude Law milled about, sipping martinis. (“Do we think he does gin or vodka?” my friend wondered.) Lucky and Nara walked everywhere together arm-in-arm. The First Lady and her granddaughter mingled with the Lauren family. As more and more negronis got ordered from the bar, more and more people gathered the courage to ask Olympian swimmer Bobby Finke if they could try on his gold medal. He kindly obliged every request.
The menu that night offered everyone the choice of Montauk black bass or the Polo Bar’s famous burger. I don’t have the numbers, but I’d guess that the number of burger orders outnumbered the bass at around 10 to one—all of us deep down knew that this was a night where you just had to go full throttle into Lauren-land.
However, all great nights must come to an end. The first wave of celebrities departed just as dessert was served. The private car people began right after. As I left, I took one last, longing look at The Polo Barn, now almost empty, except for Laura Dern holding court at her table. I thought about how impressive it was that they built all of this. This being, sure, the restaurant. But also the brand—the one that arguably has, and will continue, to be considered the epitome of American fashion to the world. And then I thought something else: Oh my god, I have to get back on that bus.
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