Checking in with Ralph

Last Friday I had a quick errand to do after work that brought me over to Newbury Street. I don't have occasion to shop in the city that much anymore, so I decided to walk around for a bit.

One store I enjoy stopping into every now and then just for the atmosphere is Ralph Lauren's plush, overstuffed townhouse. (Trivia: way back in 1988 I had a job in the building next door, but there was no Ralph store there at the time; I have no recollection of what was, and it may not have even been used for retail space.) Turns out Ralph was having a pretty good sale, with selected items an extra 25% off the already-reduced prices.

I don't buy or wear a lot of Polo clothing, mainly because of the gaudy logos, and truthfully, for the past year or so I have paid very little attention to what they were selling. (I think this is also partly due to the fact that I hardly ever go to Macy's or Lord & Taylor anymore.) But I do like some of the stuff Ralph does, and it never hurts to look.

As it turned out, I found a nice shirt, blue with a white and red check pattern, that had a button-flap pocket with no logo. The flap-pocket thing has been having a moment of sorts (not just workshirts with two pockets, but also casual sport shirts with just one), and I kind of like how it looks. It was already marked down to almost half of its original $125 price (really, who pays full price for this stuff?) and the extra 25% brought it down to nearly 60% of the original price. That's how I like to shop.

(FYI: if you're looking to take advantage of the extra discount and happen to be looking for something in particular, some of what's on the Ralph web site isn't in the stores, and vice versa, so check both if you can.)

Ralph also used to have a smaller store in Copley Place that I used to check out when I was in that vicinity (typically passing through on my way home from work). One particular thing I liked about that store was that they carried a small selection of clothes from Ralph's RRL line, which has kind of a rugged vibe that I like. RRL is pretty difficult to come by—department stores don't generally carry it, and it's not available on the Ralph web site. That store closed last year, and I was surprised to find that there's no RRL representation in the Newbury Street store. I mentioned it to a staffer, who said the Barneys in Copley Place carries a very small amount of RRL, but he and I agreed that it's negligible.

There are a couple of free-standing RRL stores in New York, on Bleecker Street in the West Village and on Prince Street in Soho. Both stores are fairly tiny spaces, but the line isn't that big anyway. I stopped into the Prince St. store on my visit a couple of weeks ago and generally liked what I saw, except for the prices. It's kind of a drag that there's nowhere in this area to see RRL gear in person, but according to a post about chinos on Put This On last week, word is that RRL will be going online soon. I guess the desire to sell product has won out over the perceived exclusivity of limiting its availability.