Ralph Lauren’s Polofest Was a Fashion Obsessive’s Dream

Courtesy Polo Ralph Lauren

In October, Bazaar is celebrating our obsessions—how they delight us, connect us, and keep us going. Tune in each day for a new story, or go here to read them all.

Few brands carry a sense of fandom and lore like Ralph Lauren. Followers of the brand approach it with a disciple-like devotion. They collect the clothes, swap stories, build kinship and community globally, and embrace a Polo way of life. To mark the brand’s 60th anniversary, Ralph Lauren recently assembled fans, collectors, and sellers for Polofest, its inaugural festival celebrating all things Polo in the heart of Shibuya, Tokyo.

Polofest was a three-day event celebrating the brand’s history and its deep connection with Japan from the people who know it best. The festival saw celebrities side by side with vintage Polo collectors rifling through rails looking for rare and archival Polo items brought there by 17 of the world’s biggest Ralph Lauren sellers. Brand enthusiasts and cultural voices shared the stage on panels that discussed topics like The Cult of Collecting and Why Tokyo Matters. Vintage photographs of Ralph Lauren that span decades of him visiting and working in Japan were shown as part of a mini exhibition at the festival’s entrance. The event was the first in a series of global activations that will celebrate Ralph Lauren’s impact on style, culture, and lifestyle over the next year.

Courtesy Polo Ralph Lauren

Courtesy Polo Ralph Lauren

Japan’s love of Americana dates back to the 1960s, when Japanese youth subcultures—most notably a Ginza–based style tribe known as the Miyuki-Zoku—began hanging around Tokyo’s Miyuki-dori, one of the city’s big shopping streets. They were obsessed with American collegiate fashion—button-down shirts and tailored blazers—long before Ralph Lauren officially landed.

But when the brand did land, in 1976, opening the first Polo Ralph Lauren store in partnership with department store Seibu, it was an immediate hit. Japanese fashion obsessives were taken with the robust construction, fabric aging, and inbuilt patina that was expected from American garments. Then in the 1980s, the look evolved into the Kir Kaji (clean casual) movement, where double-breasted blue blazers, tennis sweaters, and, of course, the Polo shirt became emblematic of a preppy American look that Japan was keen to emulate.

Closer to home, Brooklyn had given birth to the Lo-Lifes, a movement of kids who were such fans of Ralph Lauren that they often shoplifted items if they couldn’t afford them. (The “Lo” in their name was, of course, taken from the word “Polo.”) This passionate fandom helped cement the hype around the brand in the 1980s and 1990s—hype that has endured until today.

Courtesy Polo Ralph Lauren

Even as the brand has expanded Lauren’s work beyond its preppy roots to include his varied visions of American life—western, streetwear, collegiate, prep, and beyond—the fandom around him has only grown. Many can be clothiers, but very few can lay claim to creating an entire culture and community around their work.

OutKast’s André 3000, who attended Polofest and sat with Esquire’s Michael Sebastian in conversation, noted, “Ralph Lauren wasn’t necessarily from the world that he ended up creating. If you are not from it, you want to make it the best. So I think other cultures, they look at America and they love it so much—they love rock ’n’ roll so much, they love rap so much—that they care for it in a certain way, and that’s how you have Ralph Lauren. You gotta have somebody who loves it.”

Watch below as Bazaar’s executive digital director Lynette Nylander reports on the ground from Polofest.

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