On Tuesday morning, Ralph Lauren exclusively previewed three looks from his spring women’s collection for WWD, each of which touched on important pillars of his megawatt business including tailoring, glamour, ease and plenty of high craft.
The following afternoon, the designer opened the doors to his intimate runway show, held for the third time at the Jack Shainman Gallery in downtown Manhattan with the likes of Viola Davis, Eiza González, Rachel Brosnahan, Ariana DeBose, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo and more sitting front row.
While in previous seasons the designer opted to decorate the space with vintage furnishings or hand-painted, lush green tapestries, he emphasized and embraced the space’s bright white marble architecture, with wall-covering painted tapestries and crisp white fabric-covered benches to match.
You May Also Like
It set the stage for his wider collection — one rooted in modern takes on romance, sensuality and certainly his hallmarks, grounded in a mostly white and navy palette. Consumers have been turning to the brand for nearly 60 years for Lauren’s takes on the American West, preppy and sportswear, but for spring 2027 he put a sexier, youthful spin on it, all while nodding to decades-spanning fashions, including Edwardian silhouettes, Fortuny-esque gowns and today’s utility-bent styles.
The show kicked off with the idea of looking at vintage and historical silhouettes and reworking them for today with said youthful appeal and sexiness, as seen through a fine cotton jacquard tie-back corset shirt atop slightly low-slung white pants with midcalf to hem side buttons. This led into shrunken Old World floral jacquard jackets; a drapey gold overpainted and embroidered wrap tank, and midriff-baring frilled tops piled beneath tailored jackets.
Although utterly feminine, many of these vintage-like layers were grounded with utility pants, distressed jeans and technical parachute cotton bottoms, leaning into his signature rugged and refined look alongside a Marabou feather-decorated denim cotton workwear jacket, a sleek white leather jacket with fully smocked back and a cool ombré shearling woven vest, to name a few.
Craft-forward is the best way to describe Lauren’s luxury women’s collections, and boy were there plenty of new techniques imbued in the spring lineup. Backstage before the show, one could see the slightly raised, dimensional florals decorating his soft gold floral jacquard jacket and strapless gown. The effects were not hand-painted, but rather digitally printed onto the garments. Even his “simplest” of signature looks, a T-shirt and slip-style skirt, was crafted of knit tiered ruffles, the latter decorated in a special floral embroidery crafted in resin yarn. Talk about luxury.
In eveningwear, he continued to evolve techniques through knotted or “Spritz and tumble” rumpled hand-painted lightweight frocks while amping up sensuality through sheer gowns embroidered with micro hand-painted sequins, draped silk lamé numbers or body-hugging dresses with sensual cutouts and open backs.
To round out the lineup, Lauren peppered in true menswear suits, made in an Italian men’s factory for the woman’s body. It was a kismet touch to another strong side of his business, as Lauren was on Wednesday revealed as an American Menswear Designer of the Year nominee for the upcoming 2026 CFDA Fashion Awards.
Spring was a true mix of the timeless, fresh look his customers continue to seek, but with new sexy, invigorating styles that raised his design vernacular and craftsmanship to the next level.
