Collection of One: The Rugby by Ralph Lauren Rugby
Personal Effects
Getting dressed can’t all be calculations. If you don’t save room for things that are highly personal (even sentimental) to you, you are not dressing fully as yourself. Lack of self-expression can be the problem with a wardrobe made up of all new purchases, or in buying complete looks all from the same designer. It’s the same with home furnishings—an entire living room with furniture and accents from one store says very little about the occupant (and this isn’t about price point either, a room that is all Ikea, CB2 or Restoration Hardware can all be equally boring in this regard; it might actually get worse the higher the price point, actually). For this same reason, an expressive wardrobe can’t all be things you’ve exhaustively researched and/or commissioned, especially for pieces you are wearing for you (i.e., during the non-working hours). This principle can be seen at play in my custom rugby shirt from Ralph Lauren’s now vanished label, Rugby.
This was a gift from my lovely wife in…2010 or 2011 maybe? I don’t have reliable photographic evidence going back that far, but I know it’s pre-2012 (when the sub-brand closed). I also know this Rugby version replaced a more generic rugby in the same colors/pattern I had purchased from a Marshall’s (Dress for Less), which was by Polo and was a sort of rugby-inspired hoodie popover. This is a much better, focused execution of the rugby shirt it replaced, with better materials and finishing all around. One thing pictures can’t capture is how good this garment feels to wear —it’s a heavier cotton with ribbed cuffs that never lose their shape, no matter how often you wear the sleeves pushed up on the forearms, and a contrasting collar that can always be counted on to be in perfect disarray. You might be surprised by the following assessment, but it was a perfect gift, made even better by the fact that it could only be given by someone that knows me exceedingly well.
Why did I want one of these? A perfectly reasonable question. It’s a little convoluted, so to condense the history as much as possible:
(i) My household did not have a football team growing up. We were sitting in the Southern California market of the early to mid 90s, but the Chargers, the Raiders and the Rams had all abandoned Los Angeles by then, and so my dad held a grudge about that.1 SuperBowls were watched with dutiful apathy, and anyone could really root for any team at any time (or throughout the season). Watching games, I usually favored the underdogs. It meant the possible thrill/surprise in the event they might gain the lead or even win. Over time, rooting for the worst team in a league (or a given match up) became my sports fandom formula, with a second and crucial modifier added later on: obscurity. The less people thought or cared about a given team, the better (which was usually a follow on effect of having a bad record, being an expansion team, etc.). As a result, all of my favorite teams always had a winning (to me) combination of the worst records in their division, alongside being completely overlooked or forgotten by actual fans of the sport (the Tampa Bay Devil Rays? The Pittsburgh Pirates? Oh yeah, them). This meant my favorite NFL teams at various times were the Arizona Cardinals, the Cincinnati Bengals, the Jacksonville Jaguars (I held onto that one for a long time) and the Detroit Lions (although Thanksgiving Day games reduce their obscurity). Today, it would probably be the Cleveland Browns. For the Premier League? I now own a West Bromwich Albion jersey (also a gift from my wife, who seems to encourage this sports fandom poseurism for reasons I don’t understand). Tour de France? Maybe EF Education-Easypost, it’s TBD. Formula 1? Probably Williams or Alfa Romeo. To close out the history here, I briefly decided I was done with the NFL altogether when I was 12 (which was a good move, one I didn’t come back to until 2020). I decided to take up an interest in rugby teams instead and have one of them as my favorite sports team. I chose Auckland (I know this is very “lol random” phantom humor in retrospect, but I’ll give myself the kindness of pointing out few of us had an amazing sense of humor as preteens). Nothing could really come of an Auckland Rugby fandom in the days of dial up internet (was I going to order a jersey? where/how was I going to watch a game?), but there was a proto-ironic interest in rugby as an alternative to the doldrums of American football early on for me; and
(ii) at University, I attended a friend’s birthday party at his family’s winery, as one does (the casual exposure to social and asset classes previously unimagined by me was one of the true educations of University). The family home was set in the middle of their vineyard in idyllic wine country. From this and other experiences, I also understand the allure (and folly) of wanting to own and run a small winery (these seem invariably to be cash burning operations with amazing aesthetics). At the party, the celebrant’s then-girlfriend, in a misguided but well-meaning gesture, had purchased and presented a custom “Make Your Own” rugby shirt from Ralph Lauren Rugby to him, complete with his last name emblazoned on the back. I don’t know what the host made of the gift (or whether the relationship lasted), but I immediately wanted one.
My own then-girlfriend astutely took note of all this. She designed and subsequently gave me this customized rugby shirt from the Ralph Lauren Rugby “Make Your Own” program at a later date:
In addition to fit and finish, I also love this shirt because my wife’s design is proper nonsense. She chose all of the patches and placements (although I recall her guiding design principle was to pick the least tacky/ugly options from what was available, which was no small task). We have “R.L.F.C.” - Rugby League (or Ralph Lauren) Football Club, perhaps. Then we have the skull and crossbones - not an errant reference to the Skull and Bones Society, but instead to the use of this symbol by early union rugby teams. What to make of the fanciful crest? I’m no heraldry expert (and like any Constitution-loving American, something of an anti-royalist) so I had to recognize the slim returns on any time I might invest learning about heraldic symbols and blazonry and outsourced accordingly. Thanks to the heraldry subreddit, I’ve been told it’s “[a]zure, a cross gules, a bordure of the same, in dexter chief a fleur-de-lys or.” Humorously, someone also thought it would be “funny if [the Ralph Lauren crest] turned out to be a registered Scottish CoA and they got monstered by the Lord Lyon.” A fascinating sentiment that seems to point to the existence of a special court system for getting your coat of arms registered. All very interesting (but also distasteful) to me. 2
The crest is probably a casual design reference to a specific student organization (maybe a sports club, fraternity, etc.), but which one? If it was just made up you’d think a designer would fill in the other quadrants with motifs as well. Instead we are left with a fleur-de-lis in the upper left only (the position of honor, called the dexter), and an enduring mystery in terms of what the designers were referencing or trying to evoke.3
As for the number 10, my wife reasoned the shirt was a gift for “a perfect ten.” For me, it’s the absurdity of the shirt on its own terms and the strange specificity of my history with the concept that earn it the perfect marks. Whatever the scoring criteria, the judges are biased, and that’s okay too.
The Ralph Lauren Rugby sub-brand was launched in 2004, and is no longer with us, having announced its closure at the end of 2012. Like some more serious-minded and accomplished menswear writers, I sort of miss it. The brand had an irreverence (and let’s be forthright, even a tackiness) that can be hard to get right. Fortunately, today we have Rowing Blazers successfully carrying that mantle (and their recent collaboration with Target will hopefully make more people aware of the brand, which makes some seriously fun clothing).
As far as rugby shirts go in the pantheon of menswear classics, it’s enough to say it’s a hard-wearing (but easy to wear) shirt that, like a lot of good sportswear, has mostly transcended its original connotations (for example, no one thinks you are pretending to be a phenomenal tennis player when you wear Lacoste). If you are comfortable with some amount of sports cosplay and like the purpose-built nature of these shirts, then you probably own one already. If it looks like prep school bully trash to you, then you already know you’re out. For those in need of more context, here’s G. Bruce Boyer on the history of the rugby shirt for Drake’s.
I also want to briefly highlight that this shirt is not something I would buy today, but that’s also why I like wearing it so much. Viewed as a whole, I agree it’s a piece of fakery - my last name and number on a sports jersey can create the misimpression that I played that sport (not that NFL fans ever have to worry about this with their custom jerseys). Maybe worse, it’s akin to a certain kind of bad/shameless branding you can now see encroaching everywhere (for example, the logos of certain brands like Original Penguin and Ralph Lauren get larger and larger every year, with automotive makers like Mercedes and Dodge also joining in the trend). We all have to make peace with our own comfort levels around this kind of badging.
If employed sincerely, this Ralph Lauren rugby would also probably be trying too hard to force an association that isn’t real. I’d be equally happy in a logo-less rugby shirt from Sid Mashburn or Drake’s today (as I have reached that middle age, there’s almost no utility in something looking “collegiate”), and my undergraduate university, while sometimes aspirationally (jokingly) labeled the “Georgetown of the West,” is certainly no ivy. It’s all a little bit of stolen valor, but no worse I think than wearing a dive watch for laying out by the pool, or wanting to dress a little bit like a cowboy sometimes.
As for having not attended a prep school of any kind being a gating issue, I’ve never met anyone who swears off ivy-related fashions completely over those kinds of concerns about authenticity. That’s madness. It’s okay to indulge in clothing that approaches costume in small doses. Self-expression in your wardrobe is a worthy goal, and oddball pieces with a personal history help achieve that. And as it turns out, I was my favorite sports team the whole time.
Potpourri
Happenings
J Mueser now taking appointments for their LA visit, running from 11/7-11/11.
For those lucky enough to have tickets, there’s a talk happening 10/26 at Loyola Marymount University with navigator Nainoa Thompson of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, focused on the history of double hulled canoes and the ongoing 4 year project to circumnavigate the Pacific Ocean in one. The canoe used for the ongoing circumnavigation is on display in Marina del Rey until 10/30.
We’re about a year out from the 37th America’s Cup in Barcelona (opening ceremonies this August, with title race starting October 12, 2024), which now has its official sponsor: Luis Vuitton.
To Read/Watch
Glad to see I’m not the only person getting stuck in the internet mood of ten years ago. The Financial Times has an article on the pleasure of EDC (every day carry). Half preppers’ fantasy, half the pleasure of carrying and handling beautiful objects.
In writing about our ongoing efforts to talk to sperm whales, I signed up for the CETI mailing list. For the reading-averse, it turns out there’s a nice video companion to the excellent article in The New Yorker about their ongoing efforts.
Mr Porter has a great look at some of our most expensive colors. The current vogue vegetable dyes and other natural palettes are enjoying may help explain the ongoing dominance of expensive designer clothes in beige. Also made me aware of a great exhibition on the Victorians’ use of color, now on display through February, 2024 at The Ashmolean, a small but charming museum in Oxford.
One of my favorite recent headlines: Lockheed Martin, but Make it Fashion. The curious case of the world’s largest defense contractor letting its marks show up in South Korean menswear. The clothes aren’t good, but it makes Arrested Development’s Halliburton Teen gag seem like prophecy.
The future will have incredibly dumb corporate fragrances. I’m concerned about this considering how effectively I’ve seen fragrances work on me for branding purposes. The “Essence of Rosewood” for the Rosewood Hotel in London (the pinnacle, as compared perhaps to the nadir in terms of whatever citrus/vanilla aromas The Tropicana in Vegas was pumping through the vents in 2016), Bumble and Bumble’s SumoTech, Le Labo’s Santal 33, Santa Maria Novella’s Potpourri, Hawaiian Tropic sunscreen and Sticky Bumps Surfwax all come to mind.
On the subject of good brands leaving us and great rugby shirts, I couldn’t help but think of Best Made (now shambling around as part of a portfolio of other outdoor brands under the Duluth Trading banner). A layperson might only remember them as purveyors of American handmade $300 axes (now on sale!), that its metropolitan/young professional customer base certainly couldn’t actually use (and I wonder now about the propriety of decorating with what is essentially a murder weapon in waiting in your pre-COVID, white collar information worker office space in Century City or Manhattan). Credit to Michael Williams of A Continuous Lean for highlighting (way back in 2014) this talk given by Best Made’s founder in 2010. It highlights a thoughtful and principled approach to good design, quality and brand storytelling (none of which is invalidated by Best Made’s subsequent demise). It’s a long one, so if you just want to know “why axes?” you can jump to 33:20.
Speaking of vanished Ralph Lauren sub-brands, Red Clay Soul has a great look at a Ralph Lauren barn coat (our less arts-affiliated cousin to the continental French chore jacket). Not sure I’m ready to start monitoring eBay for “Ralph Lauren hunting” as the author suggests, but only because I’m afraid of what I’ll find (and buy).
I have a Barbour Lutz I’ve been trying out for a year (something lightweight for the rare occasion I find myself in cold places, to allow for layering, but less costume-y on me than say, a traditional paddock jacket). Good jacket, but a little short in length for my taste. Has me thinking about acquiring a more traditional fit model at some point. And here’s a nice video showing the factory restoration of a Barbour Beauchamp under their Repair and Rewax program (on a special heated rewaxing table):
My dad’s ability to fight asymmetrical wars against retailers that are essentially unaware of his existence is legendary; inspirational and cautionary parable at the same time. He left Costco for Sam’s Club permanently after an especially egregious (in his eyes) tire ordering experience.
No disrespect to those who enjoy heraldry. I’d like to think I at least traded for value in providing some small amusement to this community of enthusiasts (and as of press time they hadn’t really answered my question).