New Ralph Lauren

Yet Another Attempt by Ralph Lauren to Extend the Polo Brand, for God Knows What Reason

Which brings us to the Rugby label, not a Polo label like Polo Jeans or Polo Sport but not that far from it either. The key item here are rugby shirts, in Polo the key item is, of course, the pique polo shirt. With Polo various attempts to posit rugby shirts existed most to no avail as again these appealed to die hard fans only, while the polo shirt was a more conservative take on sports attire that everyone had to have in their wardrobe. It makes a lot of sense; create a brand around the rugby shirt and create a presence for more than a few hallmark items in the Ralph Lauren catalogue; we can only hope that this works at the end of the day.

The logos have changed, and there are items like a 1930 pullover. Quite honestly so far the label appears to be Polo Ralph Lauren with the rugged take of Abercrombie and Fitch at a lower price point. It could successfully win over Abercrombie and Fitch die hards because it is so similiar and priced as competively at that brand is. Yet seeing that A&F failed to extend their brand with the Ezra Fitch label which seems to be DOA for all intensive purposes, it isn't really clear exactly why Ralph Lauren is doing this.

If nothing else Ralph Lauren is either truly extending his brand, or in the case or the Purple Label line, simply being redundant by reinterpreting other labels work. Seeing that Ralph Lauren is playing catch up, yet again, with a fourth attempt at winning over another market we really don't expect to see Rugby around for long. The Collection, Purple and Black Label lines, and Polo is primarily what the Ralph Lauren brand consists of and perhaps all that is should consist of in the near future. Anything else seems to be a vain attempt at extending a brand that for all intensive purposes, has grown about as far as it conceivably can.