The Kid with A lot to Say

During my college years, I always made sure that I was wearing name brand clothing. One brand that I loved to wear, was Polo Jeans from Ralph Lauren. Eventually I matured, and I stopped purchasing Ralph Lauren Polo Jeans clothing. Overtime I noticed that hardly anyone was wearing Ralph Lauren Polo Jeans. In 2006, New York Daily News writer David Hinckley wrote a story about the demise of Polo Jeans. I have to admit that it is a very well written and informative piece. Here is the New York Daily Times August 2006 article on Polo Jeans. Who knew that Ralph Lauren could be such an ASSHOLE! I think I am going to donate my Polo clothing collection to a homeless shelter.



POLO'S FADED GLORY. How the jeans lost their snob appeal

BY DAVID HINCKLEY

Wednesday, August 16th 2006, 1:10AM

Step away from the Polo Jeans, please.

We know you thought you were allowed to wear them. That was a mistake.

You're not.

So please just move along. By this time next year, Polo will be back in its place and you will be back in yours.

You might have noticed in the last few years that more people were wearing Polo jeans.

Ralph Lauren, who created the brand, also noticed, and since ­every Polo logo presumably puts money into his stylish pocket, you'd think it would have made him smile.

It did not.

Like everything else with Ralph Lauren's rugged imprint, Polo Jeans were designed with the "high end" consumer in mind. Part of the reason you'd pay four times as much for Polo Jeans as Gap jeans is that the Polo logo told the world you could.

It said you appreciated Ralph Lauren's style and were successful enough to afford it.

But after Polo Jeans' first wave of popularity, Lauren licensed Polo Jeans to Jones Apparel Group, which would make more money for everyone by broadening their distribution.

Like Martha Stewart creating lines for Kmart, Polo Jeans sprinkled a taste of the good life onto the plates of the masses.

It's a bit of basic capitalism that's harmless right up to the moment when the original high-end customers decide they don't want to wear what their computer tech is wearing, and move on to some other brand that restores their exclusivity.

Apparently that's what Ralph Lauren was afraid had happened with Polo Jeans. So his company spent $355 million to buy the name back from Jones - and shut it down.

U.S. Polo Jeans had become "rundown a bit," President Roger Farrah told Ad Age. "Overpromoted and overdistributed."

Maybe it was the big piles of Polo Jeans on long tables at Costco. Whatever the specific trigger, Lauren apparently decided it was easier to kill U.S. Polo Jeans altogether than reclaim their reputation.

Then next year, the company will start integrating a new line of high-end denim into the whole Polo line.

Presumably it will not be found at Costco.

There's a wonderful scene in "The Devil Wears Prada" where Meryl Streep's Miranda Priestly explains to her scruffy assistant how the exquisitely stylish

decisions of high fashion eventually filter down to the cheap rags worn by the masses.

Ralph Lauren can't avoid that.

But for $355 million, he can avoid having his

label on it.

Step away from the Polo Jeans, please.

E-mail:dhinckley@nydailynews.com