November 7, 2005--Ralph Lauren: We Love You Yeah, Yeah, Yeah

In an attempt to attract younger, hipper readers (customers) the NY Times recently added a column, “Critical Shopper,” to its new “Thursday Style” section. It is in fact a weekly review of a new store—sort of equivalent to a film or book review, but about shopping. I guess the assumption is that the demographics they are seeking are more interested in clothes than books. Could be, but it is not necessarily good news that on a recent Thursday the “Critical Shopper” review was more trenchant and meaningful than that day’s book review (see both linked below).

The book reviewed by Janet Maslin is Bob Spitz’s 983 page The Beatles: The Biography; the store was the new Ralph Lauren Rugby on University Place.

Maslin writes that Spitz wants to “elevate the Beatles’ story to the realm of serious history . . . . It means to meld the forces of personality, culture and art into a broad and emblematic story.” And the book succeeds by “emerging as a consolidating and newly illuminating work.” Eager to get a sense of this illumination, since she claims the nearly 500 books already published about the Beatles failed to rise above the level of anecdote and gossip, I read on since for sure there is no subject much better suited to shedding light on that critical intersection between personality, culture, and art.

So what a disappointment when the illumination Maslin supplies consists mainly of anecdotes and gossip! For example, we learn that it took three pianos and 10 hands to hit “the walloping E chord at the end of “A Day in the Life.’” Ah, yes, but which hands on which pianos? If one wants to be definitive, that too should be illuminated. And we also learn that Spitz “captures the frightening fishbowl sensation of their being imprisoned by fans’ hysteria and critical acclaim.” I suppose he must have just rented the DVD of the 1964 Hard Day’s Night.

Let’s see in contrast what the Critical Shopper illuminates on University Place. Rugby, we learn, is Ralph Lauren’s attempt to find a niche among the preppy 15- to 25-year-olds who are currently being served by American Eagle and Abercrombie & Fitch. Rugby also wants to appeal to the rough-hewn hipster in these 15 year olds, and thus the store includes a raunchy framed photo of Jack Kerouac, who I suspect managed to get his lumberjack shirts for a buck and a half in a Army-Navy surplus store.

But, shopping aside (beyond learning that Ralph’s fabrics are an unnatural blend of “viscose, polyester, and elastane,”) the critical shopper, Alex Kuczynski, notes that as with other Lauren lines, Rugby too has its own iconographic motif that attempts to situate itself in the larger culture—omnipresent skulls and crossbones. Including on khaki pants ($78) which in other settings for other demographics would instead be repeating martini glasses, golf clubs, or dachshunds.

But then we get a social history of the skull and bones, from memento mori tombstone decorations that signify the “fleeting nature of human life” (what every 15 year old wants to be reminded about) to the Jolly Roger pirate flag to a version of your basic propaganda symbol in Nazi Germany.

Kuczynski concludes: “Leave it to Ralph Lauren to take a symbol that once signified mortality, intimidation, defiance and fear and slap it on a polo shirt for the ultimate in consumer appeasement: the kids want to look like rebels, but the parents control the purse strings.” Well put. Are you listening Janet Maslin?

Maybe though, the kids and their parents are aspiring for something more than parentally-controlled rebelliousness: Ever hear of Skull and Bones up at Yale??