The Polo Ralph Lauren for Oak Bluffs Collection, launched in July 2025, celebrates the historic Black community on Martha’s Vineyard. Here, Black families have bought property, vacationed, and found rest and community since the early 20th century, when most beaches were segregated. The collection speaks to the legacy of this Oak Bluffs community, capturing the rich heritage of a mostly hidden story that many Black people know well: generations of African Americans created a safe haven along Martha’s Vineyard shoreline.
The launch was accompanied by a YouTube documentary: A Portrait of the American Dream: Oak Bluffs (below). Blending heritage, HBCU style, specifically of Spelman College and Morehouse College, and partnering with The Cottagers, Inc. (a nonprofit of predominantly Black women homeowners on the island), makes the collection more than must-have fashion, but a contribution to cultural preservation and empowerment. The Oak Bluffs Collection is a historical testament to the rich stories of Black joy, excellence, and belonging on Martha’s Vineyard.
Ralph Lauren is well known for selling the coastal lifestyle. The Oak Bluffs collection taps into the brand’s classic coastal aesthetic, like preppy crispness, nautical elegance, and nostalgia, with the rich cultural heritage of the African American community, including embroidered jackets, quilted coats, and cardigans inspired by HBCU style and Oak Bluffs traditions. Of course, there has been online clapback about the pricing, classism, and elitism. Still, the collection feels like a natural extension of the brand tenets of Ralph Lauren’s timeless seaside luxury. Elite is elite, no matter the race, creed, or color!
A cadre of HBCU alumni—designers, brand directors, archivists, stylists, photographers, and marketers—shaped the soul of the collection. Their work embodies the power of design as both cultural record and aspirational lifestyle.
James M. Jeter, a Morehouse alum and Polo Ralph Lauren’s first Black creative director, saw the geography of Martha’s Vineyard as a competitive coastal community equal to the inspiration gleaned from other New England coastal communities. He collaborated with a remarkable team of Black creatives to bring this historic collection to life. Dara Douglas, a Spelman alumna and the brand/product lead for Ralph Lauren’s Design With Intent division, was a co-architect of the Oak Bluffs vision. Douglas brought archival depth and cultural clarity to the storytelling. Tuskegee University alumnus Joshua Renfroe, serving as art director, infused the visuals with cinematic authenticity and grace. Behind them stands a cadre of HBCU alumni—designers, brand directors, archivists, stylists, photographers, and marketers—who together shaped the soul of the collection. Their work embodies the power of design as both cultural record and aspirational lifestyle.
The collaboration expands beyond branding to support areas of opportunity, i.e., the Martha’s Vineyard African American Heritage Trail, the Martha’s Vineyard Museum, and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. Ralph Lauren continues its longstanding partnership with the United Negro Scholarship Fund in supporting scholarships and early talent recruitment.
It is not tokenism. The Oak Bluffs collection is a manifestation of what happens when Black designers are empowered with budget, access, authorship, and mentorship within one of the world’s most iconic fashion houses.
But, for context and some history, we should go back to 2020. In January of that year, Ralph Lauren was called out by a group of Howard University fraternity men: the company had snagged Greek fraternity symbols and placed them on chinos. Black Twitter and the Howard gents demanded the overpriced pants be removed from the website. They charged the company with cultural appropriation. I did too in my course lectures! Ralph Lauren knew there existed opportunities in the Black elite market, but in 2020, they came at it in the most egregious manner.
Again in October 2022, the brand faced another cultural reckoning—this time from Mexico’s First Lady, Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller. She accused Ralph Lauren of plagiarizing Indigenous textile designs from the Contla and Saltillo communities. Ralph Lauren’s team apologized, removed the items from sale, and vowed to implement a “credit and collaboration” policy moving forward.
When Ralph Lauren shifted from cultural appropriation to cultural collaboration, it changed the narrative.
There is much to be agitated about with luxury brands like Gucci and Prada trampling over the African American community with a runway of fashion offenses and faux pas. These moments highlight a pattern: the commercial use of marginalized cultural symbols without proper attribution or partnership. This history also makes the Oak Bluffs Collection all the more critical—not just as a campaign, but as a correction. When Ralph Lauren shifted from cultural appropriation to cultural collaboration, it changed the narrative.
2020 was a marker for the offering of reparations and, in some cases, performative initiatives directed to Black designers across the design industry. A Morehouse blog celebrating Jeter’s achievement reports that in 2020, Ralph Lauren asked him how he was doing in the wake of the racial tumult of the summer. Jeter seized the moment and answered honestly, saying that he felt he had no place in the future of the company. Jeter asked Lauren plainly, “If the company was going to remain all-white?” Ralph Lauren became Jeter’s mentor and sponsor, a rare combination we don’t often witness. Jeter enters the catalogue of “first-ever” Black designers, breaking a barrier and glass ceiling most Black Designers never attain.
This moment of legacy collaboration is transformative, but what’s next? My question for Ralph Lauren: Will this be a sustainable collaboration, or was this a moment in time during the 2020 pandemic and the grieving loss of George Floyd?
The sustainability of this experience is essential! Sustainability, for me, looks like an entire HBCU collection of iconic styling embracing symbology inspired by over 107 college campuses struggling to remain open. Sustainability, for me, looks like the three Black designers of the Oak Bluffs collection continuing to thrive, not just survive.
Anyone who knows the Martha’s Vineyard scene at Oak Bluffs knows the summer celebration climbs to a new level in August (especially this, the third week). African American communities near and far gather in unity for a holiday of Black Joy. I’m incredibly proud of this collection and its Black designers, James M. Jeter, Dara Douglas, and Joshua Renfroe. Mr. Lauren, thank you very much for seeing your designer during a tumultuous moment in our collective history.
Dr. Cheryl D. Miller is recognized for her outsized influence within the graphic design profession to end the marginalization of BIPOC designers through her civil rights activism, industry exposé trade writing, research rigor, and archival vision. Miller is a national leader of minority rights, gender, race, diversity, equality, equity, and inclusion advocacy in graphic design. She is founder of the former Cheryl D. Miller Design, Inc., NYC, a social impact design firm. A designer, author, educator, theologian, and decolonizing design historian, Miller is the author of HERE: Where the Black Graphic Designers Are (Oct. 2024).
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