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Ralph Lauren Christmas is a trend that seems to be everywhere this year, with influencers, bloggers, and home decor brands using these keywords to refer to just about anything. But does any of it really come close to the original source of the inspiration?
Have you noticed that people are calling just about everything “Ralph Lauren Christmas” this year? Anytime anyone uses something red or a little bit traditional it’s immediately “Ralph Lauren,” and honestly, I don’t think I’ve come across many examples that really make me stop and say “Yes. That is it. They nailed it.” And maybe that’s because while this style looks easy, comfortable, nostalgic, and pretty straightforward, it’s actually incredibly well-thought out, with each layer carefully hunted down and chosen to evoke exactly that nostalgia that we’re all chasing. In short, you can’t create a Ralph Lauren Christmas in a 45 minute trip to HomeSense, no matter how much we might wish that was true. And you know what, I’m glad we can’t. This just goes to prove that authenticity, slow-decorating, and treasures collected over time will always be better than anything from a big box store. So let’s look at what real Ralph Lauren Christmas style involves.
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What People Are Calling “Ralph Lauren Christmas” Isn’t Quite It
It seems that most everything is being dubbed “Ralph Lauren Christmas” this holiday season. Maybe it’s out of a genuine love of the style and an attempt to bring it to life, maybe out of a desire to cash in on these trending keywords, but if has red or green or plaid or, really, an element of traditional, old-fashioned Christmas decorations, it seems to go by one name and one name only this year. And it’s not working.
The problem is that, in our always Instagram-focussed world, we’ve moved away from filling our homes and our Christmas decor bins with pieces that have actual nostalgia and meaning to them, and we’ve replaced them with a plastic, mass-market version of what big box stores tell us that nostalgia should look like. But we’re not dumb, and we know what true authenticity looks like. We can feel it. That’s why we’re all so drawn to the original. We just don’t seem to know how to get there.
We’re continuously fed messaging to shop our local big box discount stores, so that’s where we automatically look for the pieces we’ll need to bring the look to life. And, if we’re being honest, that kind of social media content performs well in the algorithms. Cheap, mass-market items are easily accessible to almost everyone, and you can pick them up when you’re at the store grabbing a loaf of bread. But for this look, they just won’t cut it.
More room ideas from the space pictured above: English Country Garden-Inspired Christmas Living Room
What Does Real Ralph Lauren Christmas Style Look Like?
Ralph Lauren Christmas style is layered, collected, aged, and carefully chosen. It’s perfectly imperfect, and it tells a time-worn story that has been retold over and over again until every detail is just right. It’s a style that you don’t just look at; you actually feel it.
I recently saw an interview with Ralph Lauren where the interviewer was asking him about the plaid shirt he was wearing. He shared that the shirt was quite old and that it was actually from the now-defunct discount store chain K-Mart. The interviewer was shocked that he didn’t design the shirt himself, and when she asked him why he chose to wear it that day, he replied simply, “Because I wanted to look good.” And I think that perfectly sums up the style philosophy. It isn’t about how much something costs, whether it’s on trend, or whether it came from the right store, it’s about looking at an item for itself and determining its own authentic beauty.
I think so many of us have lost that ability to independently determine whether something is beautiful to us or not, whether it has value or meaning for what it is. We struggle to pair items together in a way that is authentically beautiful because we aren’t able to make that decision on our own. We’re constantly looking at things through a trend lens, rather than through a creative, artistic one, and that makes all the difference, especially with a style like this.
What we come up with when we do this is shallow, hollow, one-dimensional, and just not very interesting.
DIY classic Christmas ideas: How to Make a Decorative Bow Tree Topper With Ribbon
So Should We All Just Stop Trying?
In short, absolutely not. 100% no. For the average person, it will take years to gather up all those antique market finds, thrift store layers, favorite foundational decor pieces, and treasured heirlooms that make this style truly come to life.
It takes skill, knowledge, and a little bit of artistry to learn how to combine patterns, colors, and textures in a way that looks beautiful to you and others, and truly, the only way to really learn is to try and fail over and over again until you get it right.
Let’s not fail to realize, as well, that the true “Ralph Lauren Christmas” moments that you see don’t happen in sterile white boxes, but rather in beautiful, richly decorated homes that would be equally as beautiful without any seasonal adornment. What you do to decorate your home throughout the rest of the year has a huge impact on how your home looks at Christmas, and if you haven’t had the chance to complete your everyday style with all the textures, layers, and furnishings that you’d like to, your Christmas decor will seem a little incomplete, no matter what you do.
There’s also something to be said for the joy of trying. The creative flow state that you get into as you’re working on bringing a festive idea to life, and the feeling of pure happiness when you step back and look at what you’ve created, realizing that it’s maybe just a little better than what you did to deck the halls last year. That cozy feeling of joy is kind of the whole point of the season, after all, isn’t it?
So even if what you’re doing can’t really be rightfully called “Ralph Lauren Christmas,” keep at it. Maybe one day you’ll get there, and even if you don’t, you’ll definitely have a lot of fun in the process.
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Courtenay Hartford is the author of creeklinehouse.com, a blog based on her adventures renovating a 120-year-old farmhouse in rural Ontario, Canada. On her blog, Courtenay shares interior design tips based on her own farmhouse and her work as founder and stylist of the interior photography firm Art & Spaces. She also writes about her farmhouse garden, plant-based recipes, family travel, and homekeeping best practices. Courtenay is the author of the book The Cleaning Ninja and has been featured in numerous magazines including Country Sampler Farmhouse Style, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents Magazine, Real Simple, and Our Homes.