Must Read: What Brands Can Learn From Ralph Lauren's HBCU Collaboration, The Rise of Bikercore

Last Updated: 29 March 2022

Photo: Nadine Ijewere/Courtesy of Polo Ralph Lauren

These are the stories making headlines in fashion on Wednesday.

What brands can learn from Ralph Lauren's HBCU collaboration
Ralph Lauren's newly released collaboration with historically Black colleges Morehouse and Spelman has drawn praise and criticism. Sheena Butler-Young takes a closer look at both sides of the debate and the brand's execution of the project as a playbook for future Black-focused marketing and collections. "DEI experts say the companies best positioned to move the industry forward on matters of equity and inclusion must be willing to accept — and even embrace — their critics," Butler-Young writes. "A campaign that provokes no conversation at all could be a sign a brand has set its ambitions too low." {Business of Fashion}

The rise of bikercore
While biker and moto-motifs have had a place in fashion for almost a century, the Fall 2022 runways in Paris revealed a new, revved-up relationship with the tough aesthetic. José Criales-Unzueta writes of the many iterations of the moto jacket in the cold-weather collections of Alexander McQueen and Chloé and the motocross accents at Dior in Balmain in a piece for I-D. "Indeed, bikercore might be another iteration of today's vintage and nostalgia-driven trends, or a side effect to our pandemic-powered need for escapism and freewheeling," Criales-Unzueta writes. "It may also be a recontextualization of the biker chick as a soft butch femme — or simply all of the above!" {I-D}

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