Some years ago the usually circumspect New Yorker film critic David Denby released 144 pages of butthurt with the title Snark. One can’t blame him, of course; if I had to share a byline with a preening no-talent hack like Anthony Lane I’d go round the bend too. With this preface, I’m beginning occasional RJ swipes, short bursts of cattiness that dish out snark where snark is due.
By now the furor over Ralph Lauren’s made-in-China opening ceremony uniforms for the U.S. Olympic team has even reached unto the unholy and padded-walled caverns where your correspondent doth toil. (I refer to Ralph Lauren as the broader clothing company; the man himself has everything to gain from not being involved in his company’s cost-motivated business decisions and serving simply as the oblivious, Bugatti-driving figurehead of a now meaningless lifestyle trope.) It is predictable that the outfits would have been made in China, as almost all of Ralph Lauren’s many, demographically-targeted lines are now made there in large part to varying degrees of quality. It’s equally lamentable that, unlike other makers in similar circumstances with more foresight and less presumption, Ralph Lauren did not make an exception to its manufacturing policies and arrange to have these uniforms made in the United States in order to forestall this sort of attack. While Ralph Lauren probably provided the outfits free of charge to the team (if it actually charged it for this dreck, I’m sickened), as a gigantic and profitable clothing brand it could well have afforded any additional incremental cost and chalked them up to public relations. Instead, it faces this minor and, to me, misguided storm when the real issue is that anyone who cares about design should be furious with the outfits themselves.
Quite simply, Ralph Lauren’s 2012 Olympic uniforms are tasteless and vapid, with no apparent indication of American-ness apart from the unfortunate and, I hope, unintended implications that Americans are as lazy, superficial and intellectually void as the outfits themselves. Nothing about them reflects the rigor and focus necessary to become an Olympic athlete or betrays any conscious thought about America (as one could expect from team uniforms). Instead, we have screamingly high-camp berets, a cheap fashion aspiration to military chic, and the insulting insinuation, repeated from Ralph Lauren’s 2008 Olympic uniforms, that the wearers are ambassadors of the country of Polo (located on the continent of Premium Outlet Mall) rather than the United States. Had the actual designer in question – who appears to have been an intern hired under President Ford’s “Project Bootstrap” – had a little more wit, each athlete’s chest could sported huge logos for his or her particular sport rather than the gigantic and gigantically clichéd silhouetted polo player. But that would have been expecting the creativity of a Franco Moschino rather that of the outlet- and license-financed lifestyle brand that is RL.
Words by Réginald-Jérôme de Mans
Illustration by Ralph Lauren
Illustration by Ralph Lauren
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8 comments:
Name of magazine "The New Yorker".
Ever driven an antique Bugatti?
All true, yes, but I'm not accustomed to such base language at A Suitable Wardrobe.
My first question would be: 'What else would one expect from RL?' Love it, or hate it, the yacht club, country club, aristocratic aspirational style has been the stock-in-trade for years. Nothing new. It is the RL brand.
No design is going to make everyone happy. (I despise the in-your-face pony logo.) Is there another US company with design creds willing to make a ton of freebies?
Surely these outfits had some form of approval from US Olympic committee. (But their lips are sealed!)
Although RJ feels that 'Made-in-China' is a far lesser issue, I would disagree. In present economic circumstances, symbolically it IS a big deal. (Symbols DO matter!) More-over, it speaks to a kind of tone-deaf PR stupidity at RL. (The fall-out; entirely predictable.)
As for RJ comments: A bit vitriolic, though I can't help but admire the impassioned prose. Well articulated from a personal point of view. Hope he is not deterred from the occasional outburst!
What I found most frustrating were the members of Congress who lamented the Made in Chinese label, when such a label is only the definition of Americanism today. Ralph Lauren is a global company that pretends it is American because the "owner" is American. An American figureheads the company. Designers are throughout the world with movement to India if possible. Manufacture is in China or Vietnam. Profits go to accounts in the Caribbean.
Almost all of the Congressmen who claimed outrage or said the Olympic Committee should be embarrassed voted for "free trade" deals that undermined and in most cases completely destroyed US textile manufacture.
Only a handful of mens suits are made in the US now. The companies still exist, but most are made in China, Vietnam, or Latin America - formerly Mexico, but Mexico is becoming too expensive. Except for the small makers like Epaulet it's almost impossible to find any casual clothing made in the US.
What was just as foolish to me was one Congessman who said that they should have chose Hugo Boss because they have a plant in Ohio. Sure, choose a global German company, instead of a global American company. Maybe the uniforms could have been reminiscent of the Nazi SS uniforms that Hugo Boss himself designed. Kind of a throwback uniform. Throwbacks are as en vogue as global manufacture.
The Thing is that the olympics in London have been truly corrupted as regards backhanders and big business so Im totally not interested and like many boycotting the whole thing. As regards RL's take, well they are not great to be honest. Made in China means you endorse a kinda slavery
Mr. Freedman,
You had me until the last three sentences. Hugo Boss the man was, it seems, an enthusiastic member of the Nazi party, and used slave labor. Reprehensible. However, Hugo Boss the modern company has no such odious associations, beyond the unfortunate one of the name. I don't think it's fair to condemn the modern company for its historical associations that are no longer relevant (it reeks of reductio ad Hitlerum).
And while we all abhor what the Nazis did, it's hard to deny that they had some sharp uniforms. Just as our gracious host, Will, distinguishes between the political positions of the men he sometimes features and their clothes, I, too, distinguish between the National Socialist ideology and the uniforms they wore—the latter were non-sentient pieces of cloth, after all.
I'm sure they were freebies and the "statement" from the American Olympic committee implied as much. The fact is that it was massively presumptuous. RL through arrogance or a tin ear wasn't willing to go through the administrative hassle of getting this stuff made up in the US. One can fault the design but this is largely a matter of personal taste and apart from berets which are a bit camp the rest of it looks fairly routine RL/trad to me. I also have some sympathy with Eugene Freedman's comment about posturing congressmen who are apt to excoriate the consequences of decisions they themselves have made. I'm a free trader but this really was exceptionally dumb of Ralphie although it was probably one of his offspring or a mid rank functionary that handled this. The next time you go into one of his stores express your opinion to a staff member. It won't make much difference in the short term but the word will filter up.
The US uniforms could have been worse: they could have been as bad as the ones worn by Team GB!
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