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Popular Culture Review
traditionally, historically, been played only by the very wealthy. Perhaps the crown
ing sanction of legitimacy came when the Metropolitan Museum was looking for a
sponsor for its exhibit, “Man and the Horse.” The natural and obvious choice was
Ralph Lauren’s Polo (Twitchell 217). The horse itself can straddle both ends of the
spectrum. It can be used in the traditional, elitist sense, as with the game polo, or it
can be harnessed in the more democratic sense, as with Chaps and the Ralph Lauren
focus on the west and the cowboy myth.
By cleverly reconstructing “little worlds” of luxury, accurate down to the cashmere throw and crystal letter opener, Lauren has been able to harness a version of
history that had been the preserve of the privileged few. Now, owing to Lauren
marketing techniques, one need not be a full-fledged blue blood, but someone
capable of spending the money in desire.
This straddling is harmonious with the way Ralph Lauren has always appro
priated real or mythologized historical tropes. Whether it is the New England “AllAmerican” family, the rugged modem day cowboy, the safari-like luxury or any
other “era,” the Ralph Lauren version of it is extremely appealing in a society that
values a material universe created from myth.
Seneca College
Mark Moss
Notes
1. Fussell writes (p. 73) “As all salesmen recognize, if you’re selling something it’s better for your
social class to be selling something archaic - like real wine or unpasteurized cheese or bread without
preservatives or Renaissance art objects or rare books. Selling something old, indeed, almost redeems
the class shame of selling anything at all.”
2. Seabrook continues: . . .’’from magazines, and books and movies about the British aristocracy, from
Noel Coward plays, from the Cecil Beaton outfits in My Fair Lady, from Cary Grant in The Philadelphia
Story and Grace Kelly in High Society, from The New Yorker.
3. Fussel quotes C. Wright Mills on a similar theme, the middle-class obsession with tourism: ‘Tourism
is popular with the middle class because it allows them to “buy the feeling, if only for a short time, of
higher status.” Class, p. 109.
4. Although fashion means “rapid change” and clothing suggests a basic need, I conflate the two for the
purposes of brevity.
Works Cited
Agins, Teri. The End o f Fashion: The Mass Marketing o f The Clothing Business. New York: William
Morrow and Company, 1999.
Caminiti, Susan. “Ralph Lauren: The Emperor has Clothes,” in Mary Lynn Damhorst, Kimberly A.
Miller, and Susan O. Michelman, editors, The Meanings o f Dress. New York: Fairchild Publications,
1999.
Collins, Jim. “No (Popular) Place Like Home?” In Jim Collins, editor, High-Pop: Making Culture into
Popular Entertainment. Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 2002.
Davis, Fred. Fashion, Culture, A nd Identity, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Fiori, Pamela, “Life Is But A Dream,” Town & Country, December 1996.
Fussel, Paul. Class: A Guide Through The American Status System. New York: Touchstone/Simon and
Schuster, 1983.