The Modern Romantics
Review of Ralph Lauren Fall 2025 Fashion Show
By Mackenzie Richard
THE COLLECTION
THE VIBE
What does modern romanticism look like in an era that prizes individuality over uniformity, subtlety over spectacle? For Fall 2025, Ralph Lauren posed that very question with a collection titled The Modern Romantics—a nuanced meditation on sensuality, strength, and personal style. At its core, the collection celebrated aesthetic independence, where the tension between softness and structure, past and present, felt less like contradiction and more like a personal manifesto.
Lauren’s vision is not about rewriting the rules—it’s about showing how women today are rewriting them for themselves. Rather than offering escapism, this collection explored romanticism grounded in reality: frilled white shirts reimagined for downtown polish, leather bustiers juxtaposed with camel tailoring, and lace softened by hand-distressed outerwear. These women are not asking for permission to dress with emotion—they’re simply doing it. And perhaps that’s the clearest indicator of the Ralph Lauren woman’s evolution: not in rebellion, but in refinement.
THE DIRECTION
THE WRAP UP
This season’s “beautiful tensions”—masculine and feminine, rugged and refined, utilitarian and ultra-glamorous—felt less like a new direction for the house and more like a deliberate sharpening of its signature codes. There’s a quiet confidence in taking the elements you know and elevating them through craftsmanship, fit, and thoughtful juxtaposition. Whether it was a boilersuit lined in silk or a ruffled halter gown spiraled in graduated silk knit, the pieces offered tactile luxury with emotional depth.
And yet, for all its polished elegance, the collection never lost touch with the Ralph Lauren ethos: American sophistication with a personal twist. In showing by daylight for the first time in recent seasons, Mr. Lauren allowed light to play against the seductive darkness of the clothes—a metaphor, perhaps, for the balance today’s woman is constantly navigating.
In a season where romance risks becoming costume, Ralph Lauren reminded us that the most compelling kind of romanticism is the kind you live in—modern, self-assured, and quietly defiant.
