The World of Ralph Lauren
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The key to all this is the almost tangible wish-fulfillment that is harmonious
with so much about consumption and marketing: the desire to belong. Whether it
is the notion of belonging to a family or a “feel good” lifestyle, Lauren makes it
accessible. Unlike couture, this is not about distinction or exclusion but about in
clusion (Agins 85). According to none other than Martha Stewart, “When people
buy his products, it gives them the feeling of having class and stature. They’re
buying a piece of his world” (In Caminiti 439).4 And so much of it is for sale.
In one main sense, clothing — or fashion5 — affords the viewer/ wearer/
purchaser status. This operates on both overt and subliminal levels. The purchase
of a polo shirt becomes a surrogate (albeit a false one) for entry into a world of
wealth, taste and distinction. This has always been so — in particular since the
court life of the fourteenth century — and continues to be the case today. Fashion,
like the driving of certain cars or the wearing of a particular wristwatch, provides
a sartorial shorthand for what the wearer wishes to be or be thought of. As Alison
Lurie observes, “to choose clothes, either in a store or at home, is to define and
describe ourselves” (5). By merging a fantasy world of Gatsbian plenty into the
mass tastes of consumers, Ralph Lauren — the man, the empire, and the ads —
tantalizes and entices the consumer into an environment that is barred from most,
yet is purchasable to a degree. If fashion is about making one “feel special”, pro
viding an opportunity for “play-acting” and lifting individuals “into a world of
luxury or pseudo-luxury, beyond work, drudgery, bills, and the humdrum every
day” (Leach 91), then Lauren has succeeded.
So effectively is this accomplished that the consumer becomes caught up in a
world of Veblenian consumption. What this can mean is that simply having just
one article is not enough. The lone polo shirt in the closet “hangs” in diametric
contradiction to the rules of plenty. A form of addiction takes