“The Great Gatsby” (1976 — 2012) / Ralph Lauren FW 2012

To watch the movie trailer “the great gatsby” 1976

To watch the full col­lec­tion go to Ralph Lauren FW 2012

To know more about Ralph Lauren

The main char­ac­ters, Daisy Buchanan & Jay Gatsby, are the inspi­ra­tion of the Ralph Lauren FW 2012 col­lec­tion. Perfect tim­ing because a new ver­sion of the film will come out in December. Starring Leonardo Di Caprio & Carey Mulligan.

The plot: she is a spoiled rich girl and he is a self made mogul who pre­tends to be one of the rich that pop­u­late Daisy’s world, but has hum­ble origins.

This inspi­ra­tion has a per­sonal rela­tion­ship to Ralph Lauren’s life. He IS the Great Gatsby of fash­ion. Ralph is jew­ish and grew up in the Bronx but his hum­ble ori­gins didn’t pre­vent him to cre­ate an empire based on the WASP lifestyle (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant), a cul­ture he def­i­nitely hadn’t inher­ited. He even changed his name, the same way Jay Gatsby did.

The Flapper Dress:  the Flappers were a “new breed” of young Western women in the 1920s who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, lis­tened to jazz, and flaunted their dis­dain for what was then con­sid­ered accept­able behav­ior. Flappers were seen as brash for wear­ing exces­sive makeup, drink­ing, treat­ing sex in a casual man­ner, smok­ing, dri­ving auto­mo­biles and oth­er­wise flout­ing social and sex­ual norms.

Women in men’s suits: casual ensem­bles like bor­rowed from a husband’s closet. Tuxedos, tai­lored three piece suits, tapered trousers and ties. We can also see the influenece of sports like ten­nis, horse rid­ing and hunt­ing in the use of wool jack­ets with cheks or her­ring­bone prints, cardi­gans woven with fair Isle and argyle motifs & rid­ing johd­purs.

Accessories: Crystal details, fur boas mas­cu­line hats & cloche hats.  Special Thanks to Leonor Valenzuena.