FWD101 Model walks the runway at the Ralph Lauren show during Spring 2010 Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York on Thursday, Sept. 17, 2009.
FWD102 Model walks the runway at the Ralph Lauren show during Spring 2010 Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York on Thursday, Sept. 17, 2009.
A model presents a creation from the Ralph Lauren Spring 2010 collection during New York Fashion Week, September 17, 2009.
A model presents a creation from the Anna Sui Spring 2010 collection during New York Fashion Week September 16, 2009. (Reuters Photo)
The spring 2010 collection of Ralph Lauren is presented during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, in New York, Thursday, Sept. 17, 2009.
Eight days and some 150 shows into the New York fashion season, it was left to Ralph Lauren to be the first American designer to address the economic recession, in a show on Thursday, Sept. 17,that managed to be workerist and wonderful at the same time.
This was patricians meets "Paper Moon" in a spring 2010 collection whose key fabric was denim, or silky variations of it, in a show where one-third of the models wore Depression era flat caps.
But Lauren's is a denim used in torn jeans kitted out in crystals.
Even his pinstripes look faintly misprinted, as women got to go to work in their grandfathers' shirts, or denim overalls so worn they have six-inch holes at the knees. For a date, women throw on pink floral dresses, completing their outfit with white socks, granny shoes and handkerchiefs tied around their neck.
Halfway through the show, a trio of models appeared in chalk stripe men's double-breasted suits like the gangster molls of Paul Newman and Robert Redford in "The Sting."
The designer did mingle in some classy faded pink gauze cottons looks and a series of metallic lame gowns that were decidedly uptown.
Great fashion should be a mirror of society, and it's been pretty remarkable that the collections shown in Manhattan this season had practically no reference to the fact that many in the audience at most shows are living through the worst economic conditions of their lifetime. Lauren, however, addressed the issue head on, finding a certain nobility with people's struggles, and "our optimism that tomorrow will be a better day."
"I am inspired by the character of the worker, the farmer, the cowboy, the pioneer women of the prairies living authentically through challenging times," the designer continued in his program notes.
Lauren took his bow in denim shirt and jeans paired with an erratic pinstripe blazer, completing his long stroll down the catwalk of Skylight Studio as Bob Dylan screeched out "Like a Rolling Stone." Aptly, for this is one designer who is gathering no moss.
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