0:00

chapter six.

0:03

Trends are often described with the

0:05

metaphor of a pendulum swinging

0:07

radically back and forth. minimalism

0:10

to maximalism, and then back to minimalism,

0:13

pastels, to bold colors, and back

0:15

to pastels, preppy, to funky,

0:17

then back to preppy. one extreme

0:20

than the other. And

0:22

arguably this view of pendulum

0:25

swinging change is

0:27

very American.

0:27

You know, think in the west,

0:30

the ideal for the last few centuries

0:33

with artistic innovation has been more

0:35

or less the idea of the avant garde, which

0:37

is that you need to radically innovate

0:40

at all times. w David Marks,

0:42

author of omatora. So whatever

0:44

the standard is, you should go the complete

0:47

opposite and destroy every

0:50

kind of assumption in convention

0:52

that exists in order to really find the truth.

0:54

And then once that's established, the

0:56

next group comes along and says, oh, we have to radically

0:59

innovate upon that radical innovation.

1:03

But

1:03

in all the years that David Marks has

1:05

lived and studied in Japan, he's noticed

1:08

There's another way to look at innovation, one

1:10

that's not a reactionary pendulum

1:13

that

1:13

might seem on its surface.

1:17

a bit slower and

1:18

more conservative.

1:20

Yeah. So in Japan, especially

1:23

around traditional crafts and

1:25

martial arts. There's an idea of cutout which

1:27

is a form. And

1:29

for every kind of school that you join,

1:32

of Cariente or Ikebana or whatever

1:34

it is, there's a kata. There's a way of doing things.

1:36

And what you're doing as a student

1:39

is learning how to perfectly

1:41

imitate that kata, and that's it.

1:43

For

1:44

example, when I was learning how to do

1:46

Sumier ink painting, I started

1:48

painting one kind of flower over

1:50

and over again. And it wasn't even based off the real

1:53

flower. I was just copying other

1:55

paintings that masters made, following

1:57

their form

1:58

over and over

1:59

until I got the stroke just right.

2:02

And

2:03

was only then that I could move on

2:05

and paint something other than this one flower.

2:08

So David Marks argues that this is

2:10

functionally what Kenzke issues who did for

2:12

fashion. He took Ivy

2:14

this messy carefree unstudied American

2:16

style and I earned it out into rigid

2:19

rules and guidelines and instructions

2:21

to follow. And he laid out all

2:23

those rules in the magazine men's club

2:26

and in the pages of take Ivy and

2:28

basically created a form that

2:31

anyone could copy. He

2:33

made a kata, BIBILE

2:35

Kata. Ashizu was teaching an entirely

2:38

new way to have style. He

2:40

was showing the youth of Japan what to wear.

2:42

What Ivy League style did for Japan

2:45

is it introduced a fashionable

2:48

set of ready to wear clothing

2:51

that was affordable enough for

2:53

young people to wear and not rebellious

2:55

enough for parents to freak out anymore.

2:58

Ivy style close, thanks to take

3:00

Ivy in all the publicity campaigns from Hashizu

3:02

and VAN jacket, were

3:03

finally acceptable to wear.

3:05

So after sixty five parents kinda get used

3:08

to the idea that their kids are gonna be consumers

3:10

and they're gonna be fashionable. In other words,

3:12

Ivy, kick down the door.

3:14

From that point forward, American style,

3:16

especially this Ivy League style in Japan, just starts

3:19

having incredible momentum in Japan,

3:22

and it really kicks off basically youth

3:24

fashion and the entire casual

3:26

clothing industry. David

3:27

Marks says that new retailers

3:30

and designers

3:30

began to open in Japan, to

3:32

sell more preppy clothes sure, but also

3:34

to expand way beyond them. Then it's

3:36

like, okay, we could also sell fancy

3:39

French double breasted suits. We can sell

3:41

jeans. Many of these retailers had

3:43

started by copying the

3:45

Ivy Cata and then moved

3:47

on to sell

3:48

other kinds of styles.

3:49

Van jacket did not make jeans, and

3:51

so companies started to produce jeans

3:53

and they saw that as a market opening. And

3:56

rapidly, by the nineteen seventies, there

3:58

are multiple trends happening

3:59

all at the same time in Japan.

4:02

There are hippies and rock abilities and punks

4:04

and all these different looks all over.

4:07

But almost all of these trends were

4:10

reacting to or against

4:12

Van jacket. Even some of the trends that

4:15

you would consider to be anti van

4:17

or anti ivy league, like the there's a fifties

4:19

rock and roll boom. you know, the guy who

4:22

founded that, really wanted to work

4:24

at Vanc jacket, and he failed the entrance exam.

4:26

An exam. And so there's so

4:28

many times when people have made the style

4:30

that's not Ivy League style, and it's often

4:32

because they were denied working at Vant jacket.

4:34

So van jacket was

4:37

this huge Genesis point. Everything in

4:39

Japanese fashion in the seventies seemed to be related

4:41

to Ivy or working against Ivy or incorporating

4:44

Ivy

4:45

to the point where

4:46

the American preppy brands suddenly

4:48

realized, oh my god. We

4:51

have this brand new market we had

4:53

never even considered. We were

4:55

the first American menswear

4:58

retailer that licensed in Japan.

5:00

That's Richard Press, grandson of

5:02

Jacoby Press the autonomous founder of

5:04

the ultra preppy brand j press.

5:07

And in nineteen seventy four,

5:10

j press made a deal with the brand

5:12

onward, Kashiyama. what they did

5:14

is they took j press departments in

5:16

department stores throughout Japan,

5:18

and it took off. So

5:21

I had never heard of j press before doing

5:23

the story in the states their audience was

5:25

always quite small and niche

5:27

and somewhat elite. But when

5:29

Richard Press would go to Japan, he would

5:31

get this hero's welcome. I

5:33

was a a Justin Bieber celebrity

5:36

there. Like, people scream it.

5:38

Screaming and a lot of interviews

5:41

and television. had a ball

5:43

there. And so this

5:46

synchronicity happens, where

5:48

at the same time on opposite sides

5:50

of the world, Ivy is

5:52

coming into style. Preppy

5:54

is slowly making its way

5:56

back all throughout the seventies into

5:59

the eighties.

5:59

and it's forming a conceptual bridge

6:02

between the United States and Japan

6:05

that had never existed before. as

6:08

David Mark's writes in his book, Amatura,

6:11

Preppy remains important today

6:14

as the landmark moment when

6:16

Japanese culture began to experience

6:19

global trends in real time.

6:22

And so

6:22

you'd think this would be van jacket's moment.

6:25

Right? But

6:26

almost exactly as Preppy

6:28

is winding up to its big global

6:31

crescendo, then

6:32

jacket couldn't really handle it. They

6:34

overextend themselves and they had some investors who

6:37

just wanted them to be gigantic and so they just

6:39

started selling clothing everywhere and it was

6:41

all garbage. Van jacket had basically

6:43

started to scramble for more revenue by expanding

6:45

into every conceivable area.

6:48

They opened a flower shop called Greenhouse.

6:50

They opened an interior goods store called

6:52

Orange House. They opened a theater called

6:54

Van ninety nine Hall. Revenue

6:57

was up. But as

6:59

David Marks puts it, the brand

7:01

was being drained of their cache.

7:04

He writes

7:05

The company that teenagers once saved

7:07

up for years to buy was now sold

7:10

to suburban mothers and supermarkets looking

7:12

for a bargain on tube socks. Warehouses

7:15

of unsold van jacket

7:17

clothes were marked down on

7:19

super sale. Everything started collapsing

7:22

the brand was getting devalued. And

7:24

so the brand was bankrupt.

7:26

On April six, nineteen seventy

7:29

eight, Kensukeutics announced the

7:31

company's bankruptcy.

7:34

The company issues you started in nineteen

7:36

fifty one that

7:37

he popularized on

7:38

the streets of Ginsa, The

7:40

company whose image he traveled

7:42

all the way to America to rehabilitate. It

7:44

finally went under. It was one of the biggest

7:47

bankruptcies in post war Japan. In

7:49

nineteen seventy eight, this was the

7:51

largest bankruptcy ever for an

7:53

apparel company and the fifth largest

7:55

of any Japanese company in the post

7:57

war period. it was a big embarrassment. And

8:00

Kenski, she's had to apologize. And

8:02

police followed him home from the press conference

8:04

thinking he was gonna take his own life. I mean, it was

8:06

really bad. Kenseki

8:07

issues who retired from the apparel

8:09

business. In

8:11

an interview in nineteen eighty, he said,

8:13

I have absolutely no

8:16

interest in clothing right now.

8:19

But his legacy was continuing

8:21

to march on without him. because

8:24

once van jacket was gone and out

8:26

of business, everyone started

8:28

remembering the company very,

8:31

very fondly. this new generation

8:33

of young people was like, you know what's cool? I feel like style

8:35

is cool. Like this brand that just imploded. The

8:38

Vanned Jacket bankruptcy he left a

8:40

huge hole in the Ivy

8:42

market. And sure Jay

8:44

Press was around, but that was really only as like little

8:46

sections in existing department stores.

8:49

And

8:50

so who came in to meet the demand

8:52

for Ivy style? But

8:54

Brooks Brothers.

8:57

In nineteen seventy nine, the year

9:00

after van jacket shuttered. Brooks

9:02

Brothers opened a flagship store

9:04

in Tokyo.

9:05

on the same street as van jacket's

9:08

old headquarters. This

9:10

was Brooks Brothers first ever location

9:13

outside of the United States. And within

9:15

one year, they had ten thousand

9:17

steady Japanese customers. Who

9:19

are all elated, they could finally buy

9:22

the authentic clothes from take IV.

9:24

Brooks Brothers came in hoping to store,

9:26

Raul. Lauren opened to store. This

9:29

preppy market in Japan created

9:31

by van jacket and then by

9:33

van jackets explosion allowed

9:35

American brands to expand their

9:37

businesses out to Asia, which

9:39

many

9:39

of them had never really considered as

9:42

a possibility.

9:44

And simultaneously, the

9:46

Ivy Carter was expanding. Because

9:48

when van jacket exploded, it

9:51

became a supernova.

9:53

Little bits of van jacket spread out

9:56

all over the Japanese apparel industry

9:58

because after the bankruptcy, about a

9:59

thousand or so really well trained

10:02

people at van jacket went into

10:04

other Japanese clothing companies. And a

10:06

company who had someone from van jacket

10:08

treated them like a god.

10:10

All those disciples of

10:12

Ashizu were still working. And

10:14

into the nineteen eighties, wildly

10:16

new organic iterations of

10:19

prepi began to bloom all

10:21

over Japan, like Yokohama Traditional.

10:23

And then we had shibuya

10:26

Kaju, which is another preppy

10:28

style, and it was more

10:30

sort of like a unisex version

10:32

of preppy. Professor Masafumi Mandon

10:35

specializes in all the varieties of these

10:37

Ivy looks. Shiva Casual became

10:40

popular in the late 1980s to

10:42

early 1990s and then

10:45

it tender into French casual, which

10:47

is more focusing on French items

10:49

like la costa and stuff. So Ivy

10:52

forged off and branched out

10:54

and continued to evolve in Japan.

10:57

And nothing illustrated this better.

11:00

Then when in May of nineteen

11:02

eighty five, a large scale

11:04

shop for casual, classic clothes

11:07

opened in Hiroshima. It

11:09

was called

11:10

unique clothing warehouse. And

11:13

now it's Uniqlo, but, you know, the really

11:15

interesting thing is the Uniqlo founder Yani

11:17

Khan, his father ran a

11:19

shop that sold Vant jacket. It

11:21

was an Ivy League shop. Todashi

11:25

and I, the founder

11:25

of Uniqlo, who at various

11:27

points, has been the richest man in Japan,

11:30

knew all about Ivy. He had

11:32

learned from his father. who had learned

11:35

the rules of Kensuke Ishizu from

11:37

the Ivykata. I

11:39

think Ivy League style is way

11:41

more complicated than people leave it as.

11:43

At this point, it's absolutely not a trend. It is a

11:45

tradition. It is a tradition of

11:47

American clothing, and it

11:49

is a tradition of Japanese clothing.

11:53

And as Ivy grew and

11:55

spread in the eighties and nineties, American

11:58

Ivy also for worked off

11:59

in new and unpredictable ways.

12:05

Ways that are still evolving

12:07

all around us.

12:15

I

12:16

just wanted to say thank you so much

12:18

to everyone who has donated so far

12:20

to our annual radiotopia fundraiser. Seriously,

12:23

thank you. Thank you. Thank you. we

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and grants and individual donations

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12:31

And this show reaches thousands

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12:33

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12:39

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12:41

would

12:41

mean a lot. Like,

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dot f m,

12:57

and thank you.

13:03

So with me on this ride. Okay.

13:06

So we left it at this very

13:07

interesting moment in American fashion

13:09

in the nineteen eighties. We were at

13:11

this revolution that nobody really talks

13:13

about. the moment of great

13:16

refusal when the fashion industry

13:18

trying to get women into mini skirts and

13:20

corsets and poofy sleeves and they

13:22

didn't do it.

13:23

They didn't wanna go there. I

13:25

mean, it was just a huge slap in the face,

13:27

and this is the first time women actually,

13:29

you know, had some power. They didn't have

13:32

to be dictated what to wear.

13:34

They'd have to be fashion victims. They wore

13:36

what they wanted to wear, and they were not gonna wear those

13:38

short skirts. Because as women were

13:40

moving up in the workplace, that's

13:42

when they started to assert themselves. This

13:44

is veteran fashion journalist, Carrie Higgins.

13:47

She started the fashion bead at The Wall Street Journal

13:49

in nineteen eighty nine and is sort of legend

13:52

And this is a the exciting thing for me covering

13:54

this was is that I was there.

13:56

I was in the room where it happened door

13:59

during the era during

13:59

it happened, when so many things seismic

14:02

shift in fashion.

14:04

So the eighties was when

14:06

mainstream fashion really started

14:08

to get quite

14:09

safe and subdued. Trying

14:12

to pander to the practical consumers

14:14

of all genders. So you'd

14:17

really think this would be Brooks Brothers time to

14:19

shine. Okay. So let's talk about Brooks

14:21

Brothers. Okay. And when I started covering

14:23

this bead in nineteen eighty

14:25

nine. I remember at

14:27

that time they were owned by this

14:29

English company, Martin Spencer, which

14:31

was Departments. store. Marks and Spencer is

14:33

a department store chain that's

14:35

kind of like the British equivalent of

14:37

Macy's, sort of, but

14:38

they also sell food, whatever. It was just

14:41

kind of rising parent company

14:42

for Brooks Brothers when they bought it in

14:44

nineteen eighty eight. They paid a lot of money

14:46

for that brand I remember. Kind of a preposterous

14:49

amount of money. It was seven hundred fifty

14:51

million dollars. But

14:53

Brooks Brothers seemed to be a solid investment.

14:56

It had its own niche even when

14:58

Ralph Lauren was doing a lot

15:00

of the preppy thing. Brooks Brothers still had his

15:02

niche in for the traditional conservative

15:05

shopper or dresser.

15:07

they weren't gonna necessarily

15:08

go in the Ralph Lauren direction. They figured

15:10

that Brooks Brothers was great. Brooks Brothers represented

15:12

value. The clothes were really well made.

15:15

Brooksburgers not adding lot of fashion.

15:17

And for a lot

15:18

of men, that was perfect. So

15:20

they hadBrooksburgers in its

15:22

lane. But the thing that Mark

15:23

Spencer didn't do was

15:26

is that

15:26

it seems like they just stayed stagnant

15:28

because

15:29

The attitude was if it

15:31

ain't broke, don't fix it. It has an image.

15:33

It has a following. We just need to

15:35

keep it going. Marksen

15:38

Spencer just sort of thought Brooks Brothers could

15:41

chug along on its own. They didn't

15:42

really nurture it. And

15:44

at the time, Terry

15:45

Higgins talked with a lot of die hard Brooks

15:47

brother's consumers who really felt the quality

15:49

had gone down. They liked their books brothers'

15:51

clothes the exact same way and they could tell those

15:53

shirts were not the same. Something was different. and

15:56

Marks and Spencer little by little,

15:58

the

15:58

the clothes just did not

15:59

measure up. You know, Brooks

16:02

used to be a place where, okay, it was more conservative.

16:04

and safe. Menswear designer and Ralph

16:06

Lauren biographer Alan Flusser. So

16:09

if you put on something, you know, you could feel

16:11

fairly secure that you weren't gonna be laughed

16:13

at.

16:13

Brooks Brothers wasn't supposed to be a

16:16

stylish retailer. The whole point

16:18

of Brooks was that you were able to resist

16:20

trends and just wear these high quality

16:23

clothes forever. And

16:24

without the quality, you weren't protected

16:27

in any way. You're more protected. in

16:30

Ralph Lauren. Protect it? Protect

16:32

it in sense that the

16:34

image that you went for, let's say, is an

16:36

Ivy League image. Okay. You're

16:38

more likely to come out of it wearing something

16:40

with Ralph Lauren than you'd wore in Brooks

16:43

Brothers.

16:43

Alan argues that it was Ralph who saved

16:46

Ivy. And

16:47

not only because he just kept the look alive

16:49

and sexy and appealing, but he remained committed

16:51

to high quality while Brooks was losing it.

16:53

Yeah. Ralph will always be sometimes

16:56

more, sometimes less the conduit for

16:58

that kind of look, which amongst

17:01

certain gentility is

17:03

reassuring. And while Ralph continued

17:05

the Ivy tradition, he

17:07

had also been expanding beyond

17:09

it. Most people think of Ralph

17:10

as you know, this kind of highly league,

17:13

not to modern, old world

17:16

stuff. But that's not who he

17:18

has been for an awful long time. different

17:20

collections,

17:20

took them in different areas.

17:23

Terry Akins watched Ralph Lauren's

17:25

world expand in every fashion

17:27

show and every ad campaign. into

17:30

southwestern cowboy or Nantucket

17:32

sailor or Colorado

17:34

skier or rugged hiker. But

17:36

he was all about America Kanna, and

17:38

it was a Hollywood

17:39

America. His view of the west

17:41

is that way. It's a it's a romanticized,

17:44

filmic kind of idea

17:47

of what the old west was like.

17:49

Designer Jeffrey Banks. You know, it's the kind of

17:51

thing that people embrace. They love it. you

17:53

know, because it's it's like a movie.

17:55

Ralph

17:58

Lauren had spent his career perfecting

17:59

a sort of cosplay.

18:02

when Ralph puts on cowboy gear,

18:04

he feels like he's a cowboy. When he wears,

18:07

you know, tweed, he thinks he's the duke of

18:09

Marlboro, you know. And

18:11

because he managed to do

18:12

each of these looks so well.

18:16

They really felt genuine. He

18:18

didn't go to an Ivy League school. You

18:20

know, he went to city college and he didn't even

18:22

finish city college. But,

18:24

you know, when he dressed a particular

18:26

way, it made him feel like he

18:28

belonged, you know. And you put the velvet slippers

18:31

on with his initials on the front.

18:33

And if that made him feel good,

18:35

that that made him

18:36

look good and feel good and feel like

18:38

you belong to that world. What's wrong

18:41

with that? What's

18:42

wrong with that? And

18:44

if Ralph's world was a movie,

18:47

Ralph himself was not only the director.

18:51

he was also

18:52

the star. Because

18:54

sure lot of his ads had models.

18:56

But Terry

18:57

Agin says the images of Ralph him

18:59

self with

19:00

his young family were instrumental

19:02

in giving the brand personality. Prior

19:05

to the Ralph Lauren lifestyle, which really

19:07

worked out, was Ralph's family.

19:10

Ralph and Ricky, his beautiful

19:12

wife. They're three gorgeous kids.

19:14

We grew up with them. We saw these kids

19:16

when they were riding on their bicycles, and

19:19

you see them on the beach, and you'd see them on

19:21

the ranch in Colorado. I mean,

19:23

Ralph Wong really did let you inside to

19:25

his world. And Ralph's

19:27

world became physically manifested when

19:29

he took over a massive French Renaissance

19:31

revival mansion in nineteen eighty three

19:34

and converted it into his New York flagship

19:36

store. Oh, there's a portrait of the Duke of

19:38

Windsor on his twelfth wedding anniversary. It

19:41

almost feels like epcot in there. The

19:43

decor and all the accessories and even the music

19:45

changes when you leave the preppy section

19:47

and enter the safari part or the cowboy

19:49

wings like the last time trading post. It's

19:52

statues of buffalo everywhere. All

19:55

these worlds are different, but they are all still

19:57

Ralph. Like, you could take something from the preppy

19:59

part and mix with something from the southwestern part

20:02

and throw on a motorcycle jacket and

20:03

still feel as Alan Flusser said,

20:06

protected.

20:07

Ralph has taught people about how

20:09

to put different kinds of expensive,

20:12

inexpensive designer vintage

20:15

clothes together. which

20:18

is how sophisticated people

20:20

have always dressed. This is a version

20:22

of the shabby chic that the preppy handbook

20:24

advocated for, that take Ivy

20:26

admired clothes that look a little

20:28

worn in, a little thrown on that

20:30

look like they have a little history to them. But

20:32

the flare comes from mixing genres

20:35

and archetypes. a tweed jacket

20:37

with jeans, you know, or

20:39

in some interesting shirt and tie

20:41

or whatever. Ralph was always pushing the

20:44

envelope of taste. And

20:46

it was just very sumptuous and exciting,

20:48

and people really identified with that.

20:51

Everybody identified with it, not just

20:53

white people, but there was a whole group

20:55

of young black kids who really thought that

20:57

Ralph Lauren was the ultimate in cool.

21:02

in the aftermath of the consumer revolution

21:05

when designers could no longer dictate

21:07

trends. It was a bunch of consumers.

21:10

Kids, really, who

21:11

helped shake up Ralph's world and

21:14

transform Ivy into

21:16

a version that is arguably

21:18

way more significant today.

21:28

By the way, if you wanna see pictures

21:30

of any of the clothes

21:30

I talk about on the show, including the

21:32

genes of the future, along with show notes,

21:35

links, and complete transcripts,

21:37

go to articles of interest dot

21:39

substack dot com. That's right.

21:41

It's a newsletter, articles of interest

21:44

dot substack dot com.

21:46

lol

21:48

Who the hell knows

21:50

how to play polo? What

21:53

the hell is polo?

21:55

who's got pony? Like,

21:58

if if you understand

21:59

how he freaked that thing,

22:02

it it was just the perfect I mean, how

22:04

do you name this line croquet?

22:07

Would would it be around fifty years later?

22:09

No.

22:10

On any given day, Dallas

22:12

Penn is usually wearing Ralph Lauren.

22:14

There are people that are throwing through

22:17

Polo Ralph Lauren collectors. You're

22:19

among them. Me amongst me amongst him.

22:21

I am a low head. I am a low head.

22:24

So

22:24

low head is a big general category. Anyone

22:26

can be a low head. You too can be a low head if you

22:28

like Ralph Lauren and you want to collect or appreciate

22:31

Ralph Lauren clothes. There are low heads all

22:33

over the world. But in New

22:35

York City, there were once very specific

22:37

crews that were under that banner. There

22:39

are low lives. Now low is

22:42

a collective that

22:44

was formed from two collectors.

22:47

They they were actually boosting collectors. A

22:49

lot of Dallas's classmates in the eighties would just

22:51

hop on the subway and go to the Ritzy

22:54

boutiques in Manhattan to steal clothes.

22:56

So the United shoplifters Association

22:59

and Ralphy's kids.

23:01

And they were from two parts of

23:03

Brooklyn, Brownsville, and

23:06

crown heights and they came

23:08

together

23:09

to form low lives. I wasn't

23:12

a good thief, but I have friends

23:14

that boosted. and

23:15

my friends that boosted were very good

23:18

at it. So for them, me

23:20

giving them twenty five dollars when they cost fifty,

23:23

that was the deal. you

23:24

know, and I bought enough from them that they would chugging

23:26

even less. Initially,

23:27

teenage Dallas was way more excited

23:29

about getting good deals on stolen Gucci

23:31

jackets and exotic foreign designers.

23:34

Well, I wasn't really can tell you something? I

23:36

wasn't super Inter Ralph,

23:38

like that back then. Dallas already

23:40

had some polo stuff, but they were, like, gifts from his

23:42

grandma. Like, okay. I get it.

23:44

Grandma wants me to, you know, wear

23:47

sweaters and slacks and stuff like

23:49

that, you know, so I wasn't, you

23:51

know, at that time that probably

23:53

wasn't my channel. I was probably looking for

23:55

something more sporty with a little more

23:57

a swag, a little more drip. And Polo

23:59

was stayed

24:01

But one day in nineteen eighty six

24:04

when Dallas was riding on subway, he

24:07

saw another kid about his age,

24:09

wearing something really spectacular.

24:13

The first time I encountered I was transfixed

24:15

by it.

24:16

I was I I was

24:18

hypnotized by a kid wearing

24:20

a jacket. Dallas couldn't believe

24:22

that this bright loud jacket

24:25

said Ralph Lauren on it. All

24:28

I can say is that this jacket, it

24:30

was like everything in around me was

24:32

grayscale, but this

24:34

jacket all I could see was his jacket,

24:37

and I had to have it, and

24:40

I ran after him with my friends. we're

24:42

gonna get this guy's jacket. Like,

24:45

take it from him. Yeah. We're gonna take it

24:47

from him. Really? We're gonna take it from. when

24:50

the E Train opened up, and

24:53

we ran after him. He

24:56

ran up that escalator. He almost ran up

24:58

the the the rubber handrail, and

25:00

we chased him and he got away. Like,

25:03

that was the first time I'd ever seen

25:05

that, oh, this brand just doesn't

25:07

make boring stuff. this

25:09

brand's making things that have zodiac

25:12

color and And

25:14

like, all, you know, all the sound effects

25:16

are going off. So what

25:18

I felt was really quiet and

25:21

boring was in

25:23

fact not the case. So

25:25

it made me look at the stuff

25:27

my grandma had given me. And

25:29

like, oh, wait a minute. This is hot. This is

25:32

fire. And

25:33

Ralph is the brand that stayed

25:35

with Dallas as

25:36

he grew up. And not just the sporty colorful

25:38

stuff, like the really traditional Ivy

25:41

things, You know what? It's

25:43

it's funny because as a teenager, I I

25:45

love the loud stuff. I love the loud

25:47

stuff because as a teenager, you're just loud.

25:49

But as you get more mature, I

25:52

really fall back on a lot of the prep

25:54

things because they're clean. They're

25:56

symmetrical. they're inviting

25:59

and they're accessible.

25:59

symbol And

26:01

a lot of Dallas'

26:01

favorite grills could be right out of take

26:04

Ivy. They're like mid century

26:06

prep. it will start with this. Oh,

26:08

that's very crappy. Oh,

26:10

I mean, this is Wait.

26:12

Can you just keep it in the in the plastic?

26:15

It that's didn't how it was being stored. Yes.

26:18

Beautiful knit. Beautiful pullover

26:21

v neck. sweater, a hundred

26:24

percent wool. Let's turn

26:26

it inside out. This is really the

26:28

proof.

26:29

in a polo roushelan item.

26:32

When you turn it inside out, you

26:34

check the scenes. See

26:37

how was this built? Oh, this is beautiful.

26:41

Each season when Ralph puts out

26:43

new capsules, Dallas is looking for the

26:45

items of the highest

26:46

quality. I always I

26:48

always in a capsule I always look

26:50

for the heirloom status

26:53

item. Now the other things in that capsule

26:56

may not be on that level. You

26:58

know, the capsule may have fifty pieces

27:00

total, thirty that hit state side,

27:03

some that hit the EU. some

27:05

that hit Japan.

27:07

So I I made a network of people

27:09

who are all around United States

27:11

and out of the states also. in

27:13

Europe,

27:14

in Asia. So that's

27:16

the real that's become the real hunt.

27:19

And another part of the hunt is slowly amassing

27:21

the right garments to complete a certain

27:23

look. Like that beautiful, crappy

27:25

pullover that Dallas showed me is just one

27:28

part of this Ivy outfit he's working on, and

27:30

he doesn't have all the parts yet. I haven't actually

27:32

worn this sweater yet in this fit.

27:34

What am I waiting for? Probably,

27:37

I need a hat. The hat

27:39

would have to be burgundy

27:42

or navy because it's gonna it's

27:44

gonna rhyme more for that collar right here.

27:46

We need rhyme. Well, I mean,

27:49

clothing can reference itself

27:51

with other pieces, a plaid

27:53

hit on a hat. can

27:55

reference a plaid collar on a shirt

27:57

or plaid somewhere else. So

27:59

there's it's about having

28:02

the items reference and speak to each

28:04

other. and kinda say, hey, yeah, we're

28:06

not from the same season, but

28:08

we are all cousins. We're all family

28:10

here. That that's rhyming for

28:12

me. And that's the particular

28:15

attraction of Ralph because

28:16

he references his own world and his

28:18

own past enough times that he's constantly

28:21

revisiting and reissuing and reworking

28:23

his own motifs. You

28:25

can find a lot that rhymes. I hold

28:27

on to Ralph because it does change

28:29

but just like the Earth flying

28:32

around the sun when it comes back around,

28:35

it's little different. but

28:37

it remembers itself. It has

28:40

a thumbprint that repeats

28:42

itself. It's self referential

28:45

enough where it's like man,

28:47

having something from twenty

28:49

twenty two that connects to something

28:51

from nineteen ninety two. That's,

28:54

you know, that's a jam right there. That's

28:56

a jam. And when you put them together and

28:59

other people see the connection, for

29:01

lot of fans, the the height

29:04

of the brand stretches

29:07

from eighty

29:08

seven to ninety

29:11

seven roughly.

29:12

So the things that were released

29:14

in that period touch points

29:17

because they crossed over into into

29:19

music. And for some

29:21

people, Wuhtang video

29:23

was like they have

29:24

favorite rap video and

29:27

inside this Wu Tang video, Rae Kwan wore

29:29

this windbreaker. Rae Kwan wore this really

29:31

brightly colored sporty Ralph Lauren

29:33

windbreaker in the video for the Wu Tang song,

29:36

can it be also simple?

29:47

The windbreaker says snow beach on the

29:49

front of it and clearly it was supposed to be for, like, skiing

29:52

or snowboarding, but Requan is wearing

29:54

it on the street.

29:55

He's taking that Ralph Lauren fantasy world

29:57

and grounding it back into reality.

29:59

here is someone who was looked at as

30:02

one of the stars, superstars

30:05

of hip hop. and he

30:07

wore this jacket. I mean,

30:09

it's called a Rayquon snow beach now.

30:12

But Ralph doesn't call it. No. Ralph doesn't

30:14

call it that. But, I mean, that that that's not his

30:16

job anyway. His job is to make it

30:18

and people they do what they do with

30:20

it. If Ralph had updated

30:23

Ivy, what

30:24

updated Ralph was

30:26

street wear.

30:28

The reason why it's gonna

30:30

call it street wear because people saw

30:32

people on the street wearing it. Terry Higgins

30:34

says this style movement had to

30:36

happen in cities.

30:38

In places

30:39

where you could actually see people walking

30:41

down the street, wearing clothes in

30:43

their own unique ways. You

30:45

had to have just ordinary people

30:48

who were out all the times, who would

30:51

save up all their money to by like a Ralph

30:53

Lauren polo shirt or

30:55

a sweater or whatever, and

30:56

then they take it and mix it with

30:58

their jeans, with their cheap

31:00

jeans that they got of pennies or whatever. And then

31:02

they kinda then they might

31:03

turn the collar different way

31:05

or or turn the hoodie or or or

31:08

tie a sweater around their waist,

31:10

or they would take it and make it their own look.

31:13

So I don't wanna make it sound like Ivy

31:15

is solely responsible for street

31:17

wear, but Ivy really is a

31:19

significant component of it. the

31:21

importance of street wear and

31:23

how it's fed into Ivy

31:25

and the other way around is that

31:27

it's kept Let's say edgy, he's kept

31:29

it fresh, he's kept it young. Jason

31:31

Jewell's author of Black Ivy. What

31:34

what streetwear has done? is

31:36

is constantly changing. It's constantly

31:38

useful. But also it's constantly aspirational.

31:40

And that's another element that reinvigorates.

31:44

Ivy style. And streetwear presented

31:46

an extra aspirational version of

31:48

Ivy that was decidedly different from a kind

31:50

in the preppy handbook. because it wasn't

31:52

stained and torn like an old money

31:54

college student. In hip hop

31:56

style, we want to be fresh. And

31:59

being fresh

31:59

is above all,

32:02

being clean, not having smudges,

32:04

not having scuffs, and I haven't

32:06

ripped so tears. It was the same basics,

32:09

same colored shirts, just

32:11

worn in a totally new

32:13

way. Hip Hop was like, hey, we're gonna

32:15

freak this sample. We're

32:17

gonna have you bobbing your head to this

32:19

song and we just took

32:21

a piece of it. we just took a we

32:24

just sampled it. And

32:25

Ralph Lauren, at first,

32:27

did not let on that he knew about this

32:29

new way his clothes were being worn.

32:31

Do you know if he knew about, like, the low heads

32:33

and the low lives? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

32:36

Yeah. I he definitely knows

32:38

about that. I mean, didn't know

32:40

that was the name for for for this group.

32:42

But yeah. Absolutely. Designer

32:44

Jeffrey Banks used to work with Ralph Lauren.

32:46

He did what he's always done. which is

32:49

stuck to his own vision and

32:51

stuck to his own style. He

32:53

he he never pandered the

32:56

way some other designers who

32:58

shall remain painless, did.

33:03

Tommy Hilfiger was from Upstate New York.

33:05

from city called Elmira. He was

33:07

from a working class background and had grown

33:09

up around a lot of different kids of a

33:11

lot of different races.

33:13

that was also something that was about this brand.

33:15

And it wasn't, like, a Bonneton

33:16

where it was just a, you

33:19

know, a photo set but it was actually

33:21

they had people of color

33:23

in all different areas of their

33:25

company. It's just part of the ethos of

33:27

the company, and and the reason why it worked is because

33:29

it was authentic. Tommy Hilfiger started

33:31

his company in nineteen eighty five,

33:34

and already by nineteen ninety seven

33:36

as Terry Higgins writes, Hill figure

33:38

and Ralph Lauren had a toe to

33:40

toe rivalry. These companies

33:42

at that point were almost exactly the

33:44

same size. in sales, which

33:46

was really incredible considering that

33:48

Ralph Lauren had been around seventeen years

33:51

longer than Tommy Hilfiger. Why how

33:53

did that happen? Because Tommy Hilfiger came

33:55

up with another version of preppy,

33:57

but his

33:58

had a street wear look to

33:59

it, and he did tap into

34:02

that hip hop

34:02

crowd in a big way.

34:04

And it was just because he had the big logos.

34:06

Everybody said, why were his logos so big? because

34:08

it was Tommy was, like, the the Tommy,

34:10

the letters were as big as, like, the e on the i

34:12

chart. And the reason why he did

34:15

this was because in the store before

34:17

he had his own department, he

34:19

was trying to find a way to actually

34:22

point people to the two or three circular

34:24

racks of clothes. For people to see them in

34:26

this

34:26

whole sea of sports wear on the floor,

34:29

he figured if we put a big logo there, at least

34:32

it'll be like an arrow that'll point

34:33

people to that section. So that was part

34:35

of it. It was it was just a marketing

34:37

strategy and Tommy Hilfiger had

34:40

another marketing strategy, which

34:42

was his brother,

34:44

Andy Hilfiger. And Andy

34:46

Hilfiger was working in lighting in

34:48

the music world. And he was always working

34:50

with the rappers and rock acts, and he

34:52

was giving away free clothes. And not

34:54

just a t shirt with a name on it, but, you know,

34:56

some really good

34:57

jackets and things with cool logos, and

35:00

the hill figures knew this would pay off. But if

35:02

you give enough

35:02

free stuff to enough cool people, someone

35:05

someday is gonna wear something. And

35:07

sure enough, in

35:08

nineteen ninety four, the

35:10

payoff came.

35:11

Snoop doggy dog.

35:14

Snoop dog was on Saturday

35:17

Night Live, and he wore

35:19

something of Tommy Hilfigers. A

35:22

red and navy striped rugby

35:24

shirt that said Tommy in massive

35:26

letters. Admittedly, a very cool

35:29

shirt. That Monday, their phone,

35:31

like, lit up. Everybody was saying, I wanna

35:33

get that from my store. and so then they realized,

35:35

wow, this connection between music

35:39

and fashion was really a

35:41

winning formula. I didn't

35:43

remember going to fashion shows, and

35:45

Tommy always had music at the shows, live

35:47

music. In fact, that's John.

35:50

Puffy Combs was a model and one

35:52

of Tommy's Fashion Show. Tommy had

35:54

all these hip hop guys. And eventually

35:56

when Russell Simmons wanted to start fat farming,

35:59

Sean Holmes wanted to start Sean John.

36:01

They turned to Tommy Hilfiger from mentorship. I

36:03

remember. At that time, hip

36:05

hop at the beginning, hip hop at music

36:07

and not crossed over completely to

36:10

the mainstream. So as it was

36:12

starting cross over, timing was there

36:14

early. because the the the funny thing was

36:16

is that a lot of people didn't acknowledge that

36:19

some

36:19

of the biggest consumers

36:20

of hip hop music were white.

36:22

kids.

36:23

But, you know, I you would hear people

36:26

say, oh, you know, that is get to when

36:28

it was foolish to think

36:30

that black consumers were gonna somehow

36:33

solely the brand because mainstream still

36:35

meant white. Although

36:36

Ralph Lauren did in the mid nineties,

36:39

hire a black

36:39

model to be the face of his brand.

36:41

Ralph did hire Tyson. Tyson

36:44

Bedford. But only after Tommy.

36:45

Yeah. But the thing was is that Tyson

36:48

Bedford dark skin

36:50

handsome exotic black man

36:52

with Ralph Lauren. This was a big deal,

36:55

and he was in all the ads, not

36:57

just in the sportswear ads, they had

36:59

him in suits. And often in all the ads,

37:01

he was the only model in the ad. So it

37:03

wasn't like he was just part of a group.

37:06

And a lot of black people were really excited.

37:08

I remember when that happened. But did

37:10

this changed the way his clothes

37:12

looked or the way he approached his

37:14

clientele?

37:16

No. It didn't. Back then. No.

37:18

Ralph did not intentionally release

37:20

anything that was meant to look like

37:22

street wear. In

37:23

the nineties, Ralph did not

37:26

acknowledge it. smart move to not acknowledge

37:28

it. Again, this is aspirational

37:31

apparel.

37:33

Alright. This is aspirational apparel.

37:36

And to be honest with you,

37:40

you know,

37:42

no one's really aspiring to be black. Not

37:45

not in the way not in the way

37:47

not in the way America would would would

37:50

would treat you. No. Not not like that.

37:52

What

37:52

do you mean? It's not like you are trying

37:54

to look white. No.

37:56

No. No. IIII

38:00

was trying to look free.

38:02

And and when I say this,

38:04

I mean, what what it really goes to

38:06

is someone who has

38:08

total command of

38:11

their time and resources.

38:14

I think

38:16

Polo Rafflerin has

38:18

always been made for working

38:21

class poor people

38:23

to feel a

38:25

bit of wealth and to feel a bit

38:27

of kind of a transference from

38:30

their current economic state

38:32

and what Polo speaks to is lifestyle

38:35

and the ability to kind of, you know,

38:37

do shit on your own terms. when

38:39

you want to.

38:40

Who knows how much we spend on

38:43

polls? He probably has an idea. He's

38:46

had to see references to his brand.

38:49

you know, through music, had

38:51

to. I I don't believe he ever he

38:53

did not. I think it was a smart

38:56

business move to not embrace

38:58

that because I feel like when when when

39:00

Tommy embraced it and

39:02

wrapped themselves around it,

39:04

it limited them. It

39:05

made them trendy.

39:07

but that was all back in the

39:09

nineties. Now when you fast forward

39:11

to today, I mean, everything is completely different.

39:14

Ralph Lauren now embraces and acknowledges

39:16

the low heads in the brand's history. I

39:18

just bought this retrospective book about the history

39:20

of the Ralph Lauren Polo shirt and they talked to prominent

39:23

low heads in it. And like this little wink,

39:25

Ralph reissued the snow beach jacket

39:27

in twenty eighteen, which was obviously in demand

39:29

because of Wu Tang fans. Ralph had to

39:31

acknowledge that when he

39:33

retroed and reintroduced the jacket,

39:36

had to roll it out and have a visit

39:38

from Rake won at the the store in Prince

39:40

Street. Well, in the battle I mean,

39:42

I don't know if it's fair to say in the battle between Ralph and

39:44

Tommy, it seems like Ralph

39:46

kind of won. Right? Well,

39:48

I I think they both won because People

39:51

don't see Tommy Hilfiger as much as

39:53

they used to. So people said,

39:55

oh, well, you know, Tommy's out. Well, what happened

39:57

was, and I actually wrote about this. is

39:59

that Tommy Hilfiger pulled

40:02

back,

40:03

and they regrouped, and they

40:05

reconstituted in Europe. The company

40:07

is based in Amsterdam. And

40:10

I actually went over to Amsterdam, and

40:12

I found all this Hilfiger

40:14

product

40:15

I also was just in Amsterdam recently,

40:17

and I saw so much Tommy everywhere.

40:20

And their look now is very classic

40:22

mid century collegiate Ivy. they

40:24

had a different product in Europe. It was more

40:26

expensive. They reconstituted.

40:29

So it took it in another direction because

40:32

street wear is just one direction. one

40:34

version of what PREPI evolved

40:37

into.

40:38

So so PREP really kind

40:40

of smashed that soup paradigm.

40:43

and what prep did was prep took

40:46

the jacket off. So now

40:49

you could wear a shirt tie in a sweater and

40:51

be professional. prep

40:53

pushed us to that.

40:55

Prep pushed us to that,

40:57

to wanting to be more comfortable all

41:00

the time in all contexts. So

41:03

it makes sense that prep would

41:05

also in the nineties morph

41:08

into business casual. Business

41:11

casual started

41:14

in the early nineties. It had

41:16

a lot to do with Silicon Valley. people

41:18

started dressing a lot more casually. And

41:21

when tech became a big deal, I mean, we

41:23

think of the the world's richest man

41:25

at that time was Bill Gates. fill gates

41:27

wore, a collared shirt, and khakis.

41:30

Because a lot of guys initially when they stopped

41:32

wearing suits, all they did was take off the jacket.

41:35

and they really didn't know what to do. They they would

41:37

wear a polo shirt and khakis,

41:39

and that became the

41:40

kind of business casual uniform. Business

41:43

casual was that version

41:45

of after hours leisure

41:47

ivy. A sort of milk toast

41:49

watered down way less fashionable

41:52

version of what the Kennedy's wore on vacation.

41:54

And into the nineties, khakis

41:57

and polos became the easy,

41:59

breezy

41:59

uniform of institutional power.

42:03

Everyone started dressing more casually and

42:05

it even went to places like IBM,

42:07

which was known for the button down shirt

42:10

and the tie and the really formal

42:12

business of IBM was really known for that. And

42:14

IBM went business casual, I

42:16

think, around nineteen ninety five. and

42:19

that was a big surprise that this was really

42:21

gonna be a permanent shift. In

42:24

the casual era, prep

42:26

was revived with new vigor Abercrombie

42:29

and Fitch had revamped in nineteen ninety

42:31

two to become a fratty version

42:33

of preppy. Vineyard Vines was founded

42:36

in nineteen ninety eight to become a country

42:38

club version of PREPI. And all the

42:40

while, Ralph Lauren was just growing bigger

42:42

and more ubiquitous. And

42:45

all these brands were selling Americana,

42:48

this vision of a carefree, all

42:51

natural, all American style.

42:54

oddly enough. Americans

42:58

were rapidly losing.

43:01

In the nineties to early odds, Americans

43:03

were becoming so casual, so

43:06

carefree, but they were forgetting exactly

43:09

how to dress. They

43:11

had to relearn what was appropriate and

43:13

what worked for their bodies and their lifestyles.

43:17

And

43:17

so many Americans would

43:19

seek out help from

43:21

Japan.

43:30

Article of interest is a proud member

43:32

of radiotopia from PRX, written,

43:34

cut and performed by Adrian Truffleman. Kelly

43:36

Prime edits all the scripts Ian costs

43:39

does mixing mastering and sound design. Jessica

43:41

Serrano checks all the facts. The

43:43

low