Tough and Refined

A look at how the art—and eternal now—of putting two surprisingly unexpected things together roars to life in this season of Polo Originals By Jay Fielden

The man in the photograph was dressed in a way that didn’t have any real precedent, not back then. It’s not that the different pieces he had on weren’t familiar; they were. The leather bomber, the denim jacket, the white workshirt worn with a tie—a silk knit yanked out of its predictable upper-crust context and, as a result, made all the more desirable. Each element was a perfected example of its kind, rather than a newfangled take reworked for the sake of affecting some trend of the vanishing moment. Inventing just to invent clearly wasn’t the intention. These impulses are the drivers of modern fashion. It’s why it comes and why it goes and why it is so often forgotten. The test of taste the man was interested in was greater, even harder—a test against time itself. The man, of course, was Ralph Lauren.