Ralph Lauren Serves Up New York’s Most Stylish Grand Slam

New York, 1967. The United States National Championships are in their 86th year, and already the tennis is only part of the attraction. 

Around the courts, Manhattan’s glitterati arrive in tailored suits, summer dresses and polished loafers, trading Wall Street intelligence, whispered acquisition gossip and the latest society intrigue over champagne and canapés. 

The players are serving aces; somewhere beyond the baseline, New York’s other great sport—being seen—is in full swing.

Downtown, meanwhile, a 28-year-old Bronx-born salesman named Ralph Lauren is quietly constructing a dream. Working from a drawer in the Empire State Building, Lauren launches his neckwear business in 1967; one year later comes his first complete menswear collection, Polo. America, it turns out, is ready for a new vocabulary of elegance.

Fast-forward nearly six decades and the connection between Lauren, sport and New York feels almost preordained. For 20 years, Ralph Lauren has been the official outfitter of the US Open, a partnership now extended through 2032. 

In 2026, the house will dress some 800 people, including 215 on-court officials and 300 ball crew members, while continuing as the tournament’s official sunglass sponsor. 

This is not merely corporate branding. Ralph Lauren understands something fundamental about tennis: it has always been as much about poise as power. 

The immaculate whites, the country-club codes, the ritual of the serve, the restrained theatre of spectatorship—tennis has historically occupied that rare territory where athleticism and aristocratic elegance can coexist without apology. And the US Open, with its New York electricity, has always given that tradition a louder soundtrack.

The 2026 US Open x Polo Ralph Lauren collection consequently feels less like merchandise than a wardrobe for the occasion. Its centrepiece is the new ball crew Polo, animated by marigold yellow, white, tournament green and navy graphic striping, with recycled polyester woven into its construction. 

Alongside it, crisp tennis skirts, heritage collegiate sweaters and classic piqué Polos establish the collection’s traditional vocabulary, while windbreakers and fleece-lined jackets inject a more utilitarian, outdoors-minded edge.

For the serious devotee, the essential haul is obvious: the striped tournament Polo for instant Open credentials; a collegiate sweater for that deliciously Ivy-adjacent sophistication; a tennis skirt for court-to-city versatility; and one of the technical outerwear pieces to puncture the nostalgia with something decidedly modern. These are clothes designed to be worn long after the final ball has landed.

But Ralph Lauren’s real masterstroke is transforming the tournament into an immersive expression of its universe. At Nordstrom 57th Street, the six-week Corner takeover brings the collection into Manhattan with personalisation through printing, embroidery and debossing. 

At Arthur Ashe Stadium, a reimagined hospitality suite introduces a central bar, banquettes, dining and viewing spaces surrounded by Ralph Lauren Home furnishings and tennis-inspired art. At the Open itself, Create Your Own expands into customisation and vintage discovery. And on 5 September, Pink Pony Day adds a philanthropic dimension to the spectacle.

This is quintessential Ralph Lauren: never merely selling a shirt, but selling the life surrounding it.

That distinction is crucial. Since 1967, Lauren has built something considerably more ambitious than a fashion label. Polo evolved into a vast lifestyle empire spanning menswear, womenswear, childrenswear, fragrance, home and hospitality.  

His genius was recognising that American luxury did not necessarily need European aristocratic ancestry. It could be invented—through aspiration, storytelling, craftsmanship and an almost cinematic belief in the American dream.

The US Open is therefore an unusually perfect stage. The tournament itself began in 1881 and became the US Open in the inaugural Open Era of 1968; today it remains one of the four Grand Slam tournaments and, unmistakably, one of New York’s great annual spectacles. 

For Ralph Lauren, the assignment is not simply to dress the people who make the tournament work. It is to dress the mythology around it.

And that mythology is gloriously alive: racquets cracking beneath the Queens night sky, champagne catching the stadium lights, celebrities drifting through hospitality suites, spectators dressing for the occasion and a distinctly New York confidence humming through every corridor.

Sport supplies the drama. Ralph Lauren supplies the wardrobe.

At the 2026 US Open, the two are once again serving together—and, frankly, it is a match point worth dressing for. 

*Photos courtesy of Ralph Lauren.