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In the show notes for Ralph Lauren’s Fall/Winter 2026 ready-to-wear show, the 86-year-old designer made it clear he’s still passionate about adventure. And, in his collection, which had an air of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian via the windswept pages of Wuthering Heights, he was true to his word. At once luxurious, rugged and steeped in a particularly American gothic drama, Lauren summoned a woman who was “a renegade spirit” with an enduring spirit of adventure and style. Gigi Hadid opened the show in a look that immediately flooded the ELLE group chat: a donnegal tweed bustier paired with a column skirt, cinched simply with a chain-link belt that recalled cathedral ironwork on a warrior’s girdle.
It was a first look into a runway steeped in tactile and conceptual contrasts. Velvets and silks layered with metallic accents that gleamed like chain mail, and earth-toned leathers that looked worn by travel and sometimes fire against delicate finishes.
The Jack Shainman Gallery walls were transformed with forest murals that enhanced this feeling of a lone ranger emerging from the shadows.
Across the runway, medieval metallics emerged in unexpected forms — a sheer hooded tunic that shimmered as chain mail worn under starlight, velvet jumpsuits with glinting mesh sleeves, and gowns threaded with armour-like metalwork. These pieces weren’t costume; they were couture enacted with a gothic sensibility, as if the spirit of an epic poem found its way into Ralph Lauren’s DNA.
Lauren’s perennial codes — riding boots, tailored trenches, oversized belts — were present, but reframed. Barrel-leg leather pants and sweeping scarves hinted at sinister cowboys you might encounter in one of McCarthy’s deserts, while brooches and antique-like fastenings lent an air of romantic antiquity to otherwise contemporary tailoring.
It wasn’t just fabric and silhouette that carried this narrative. In the front row, Lana Del Rey presided, the ultimate muse for the American Gothic. Despite being an 11-time Grammy award winner Lana Del Rey has remained a master of self-mythology, maintaining the feel and mystique of a touring folk singer despite being one of the most instantly recognisable musicians in America. Her soft cowboy boots, leather jacket and sheer white skirt — accompanied by her alligator tour guide husband — seemed emblematic of a woman who has lived stories worth telling.
This was Ralph Lauren at his best: a collection that was imaginative and evocative, yet entirely wearable for our own daily battles.
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