Before mood boards were a thing, Ralph Lauren was already making them, just in print, and with a budget.
Flip through any campaign from the 80s or 90s and you’ll find the same ingredients. Sun-faded linen, old money estates, a Golden Retriever somewhere in the frame.
At the time, Ralph Lauren figured out you could sell a feeling, and the sales proved it. Instead of selling clothes they sold a weekend in the Hamptons, sailing on a wooden yacht and a family that had owned land for generations. Ralph understood that if he inspire others they could have this life, then the product would sell itself. Most of these were shot on film with natural light and minimal posing, often using big names as the face of their campaigns.
Decades on, we’re all still adding them to our Pinterest boards.
April 1989 // Hard not to see a little Talented Mr. Ripley in this trio
June 1991 // Big dress shirts. Tucked ties. Full 90s opulence. You’re in.
February 1988 // Leather Ralph Lauren chaps. There is no higher invention.
April 1989 // An answer, finally, to what ladies who lunch do when they’re not lunching. Note that her schnauzers are reading a coffee table book
August 1987 // Cowboy Ralph is a twangy Americana counterpart to his usual city-mouse self.
August 1999 // Baby Gisele in a powder-blue cashmere coat — a visual summation of everything the aughts were about to becom
March 1983 // His name is absolutely Tripp.
1980s // Somewhere a grandfather is very proud.