You mentioned the shopping experience. Are there any innovations you’re investing in?
In September, we launched Ask Ralph, our AI-powered styling guide, in the US where, through an LLM (language learning model), Ralph Lauren can help you with your outfit for a specific event or a specific situation. For example, “I am going to my friend’s baby shower. This is what it’s going to feel like. The weather sucks. It’s going to be freezing. What do you suggest?” Right? As we think about agentic AI, you can actually see what the future of this platform will be. So it starts as a styling tool, but I can see it evolving to serve other quotes like “where’s my package?”, “is the store open now?” or “will my sales associate be available? I plan to go next week,” so we’re leaning into that. I think that’s going to change retail quite meaningfully.
We recently reported on the changing menswear influencer landscape and one key finding was that menswear consumers are seeking styling advice online, from creators or forums like Reddit. It feels like Ask Ralph could also fill that gap.
It’s funny you say that because I was at the NRF [conference] at the beginning of the week. We built Ask Ralph with Microsoft. Shelley Bransten, [Corporate Vice President, Worldwide Industry Solutions, Microsoft] said, ’for the first time, my husband bought me an outfit using Ask Ralph that I did not have to return’. And Matthew Shay, the CEO of NRF had put his outfit together through Ask Ralph. So it’s helpful! We’re going to continue to understand how the landscape changes and evolve our retail engagements in Asia, too. In China, particularly, you have the Douyin platform, which we started in earnest for women’s Polo. Now we’re going to activate it on men’s Polo. We just started activating on TikTok Shop, too. So these are also new spaces where we can engage with the consumer. We can be very data based, and really meet their needs as best as possible. There’s a lot of innovation going on on the retail front for us as a company.
Of course, it’s almost the Winter Olympics where Ralph Lauren will outfit Team USA. The brand has been so embedded in sport for such a long time, from tennis to golf. Are you considering new sports?
We get offers all the time. So the challenge is already being selective because if you look at Ralph’s philosophy and lifestyle, it’s relevant everywhere. Could we be in cricket? We have a cricket sweater, so yes, our style is relevant. Could we be in rugby? Well, we have a brand called Rugby, and it’s linked to collegiate life, as we are. We have nothing to announce today, but we are constantly asking ourselves, where do we [show up]? That’s why we’re in gaming now, we haven’t been in gaming before, and so that’s our lens, which is where there’s a consumer want to engage with brands like ours, and therefore how to make sure we’re there, and how to make sure we’re there in a way that’s authentic, how to make sure we’re there in a way that’s not just a one off, but that kind of builds credibility over time.
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Update: This story was updated to include John Wrazej, Matthew Shay and Shelley Bransten’s full titles.
