Ralph Lauren: RRL's vision of mercantile-era retail

While we Brits may have only just got out heritage-hungry mitts on Ralph Lauren's frontier-chic RRL collection this season (check out indie menswear traders Oi Polloi, The Bureau, and End Clothing for reference), those lucky Americans have had it since 1993.




It's still too early to even begin hoping for a London RRL flagship but Fashion Buyer UK couldn't help but give a sneaky peak of what the store could look like. The pics here were posted by the excellent US blog A Continuous Lean, whose editor Michael Williams was invited last month to preview the newly revamped Manhattan Rhinelander Mansion store at 72nd Street & Madison.




Dedicated to RRL, the third floor is an antiqued shrine to RRL's dustbowl-era Americana. Vintage haberdasher's cabinets, Victorian display cases and aged Persian rugs combine to create a rich mercantile-era backdrop for a collection that looks like it has stepped off the set of The Waltons.





Ralph Lauren's exquisite visual merchandising is matched by the RRL brand's merchandise which swings from oil-cloth hunting coats and tweed tailoring to US-made engineer boots and a cornucopia of laundered plaid flannel shirts.








Understated yet texture-rich and visually seductive there can be few stores as accurately tuned-in to their product personality and customers' expectations as the Ralph Lauren Rhinelander Mansion store. We only wish we could sample it first hand.Source URL: http://icip2idayusof.blogspot.com/2010/10/ralph-lauren-rrl-vision-of-mercantile.html
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