Ralph Lauren to celebrate his 50th anniversary with Central Park show

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Jul 24, 2018

Ralph Lauren has unveiled plans to celebrate his house’s 50th anniversary with a runway show and gala dinner inside Central Park during the next New York fashion season.

The show, which is scheduled for Friday, September 7, will be held on the spectacular Bethesda Terrace – a noted viewing point over the surrounding parkland - and benefit the Central Park Conservancy. It is a private nonprofit organization that helps restore and manage Central Park, and is responsible for three quarters of the Park’s annual $65 million budget.
 
The goal is “to render homage to his hometown of New York, the epicenter of American and world fashion, and to the industry which he has led for five decades,” the house said in a release.

The New York designer has long been a fan of the great 843-acre Manhattan park. A decade ago, Lauren staged his 40th anniversary show inside Central Park, with a black-tie dinner party  in the Conservancy Garden in 2008. In September 2014, Ralph entered the fourth fashion dimension, by launching a new era in runway events with a digitally enhanced show projected onto soaring jets of water over the main lake of Central Park, to trumpet a new Polo era for the global brand.

Earlier that day, Lauren also opened the first purely Polo flagship, a four-floor boutique on Fifth Avenue - which has since closed, shuttering its doors in 2014 - in what was a major new step by the house at the time, overseen by Ralph’s heir apparent, eldest son David. However, that boutique closed last year.

After college and serving in the United States Army, the designer founded the Ralph Lauren Corporation in 1967 with a line of men's ties. This June, the 78-year-old, Bronx-born Lauren was the recipient of the first CFDA Members Salute by fellow American designers, including Thom Browne, Michael Kors, Tommy Hilfiger, Jason Wu and Donna Karan, commemorating his career.