Ralph Lauren, born in the Bronx to a family that owned little more than the American Dream, has been selected by the U.S. Postal Service to curate thirteen commemorative stamps defining what America looks like at 250.
The images Ralph Lauren, 86, selected from his personal archives — for the thirteen commemorative Forever stamps the United States Postal Service asked him to curate in honor of America’s 250th birthday — are: a flag blowing in the wind, a baseball glove used by Jackie Robinson, a worn pickup truck, a dog, the Empire State Building, a barn, a teddy bear, a lighthouse, a racing sailboat, horses running free, a hamburger, a Diné (Navajo) blanket, and a knit flag he designed himself reading “1776 to 2026.” They are, as he said in a statement, “authentic, timeless and passed down through generations”; they are also, to a degree that becomes slightly uncanny when you sit with it, very nearly a catalog of things Ralph Lauren has spent sixty years persuading people to want.
The stamps will be dedicated June 9 at the James A. Farley Post Office Building in New York — Lauren was born in the Bronx, the son of Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants, in a family that did not own anything on this list — and will be available at post offices nationwide, select Ralph Lauren retail stores, and online, as well as in a commemorative portfolio, a postcard pack, and a pin card. The panes of thirteen will carry the text “American Icons Curated by Ralph Lauren” along the top, and the bottom row will read “Celebrating 250 Years of the United States of America.” A companion collection releases the same day: an American flag sweater, a polo shirt, and a ball cap.
“I love America,” Lauren said in a statement, “and these images symbolize the many ideals and aspirations that bind us together. They are icons of our country — authentic, timeless, and passed down through generations — and reflect the dream of a better life that has always inspired me.”
The unofficial custodian of an idea
Lauren has been the official outfitter of Team USA at ten Olympic Games, a relationship so long it has outlasted most professional sports dynasties and several host cities; for the 2024 Paris Games, American athletes wore a tailored wool blazer with red and white tipping and a suede buck shoe to the opening ceremony — a look that managed to feel both genuinely patriotic and like something recovered from a very stylish attic — and a moto-style jacket with white denim and the brand’s first-ever 100 percent recycled cotton Polo shirt to the closing, each piece manufactured in the United States (because of course it was); for this February’s Milan Games, his tenth, athletes opened in a wool coat with wooden toggles and an American flag turtleneck and closed in a color-blocked red, white, and blue puffer embroidered with Team USA graphics. He is also the first fashion designer to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The USPS commission, then, arrives as something close to a paperwork formality.
Billie Eilish — nine-time Grammy winner, someone whose career has been built on the studied refusal to seem like she is trying — wore vintage and custom Polo Ralph Lauren throughout her global Hit Me Hard and Soft world tour and appeared in a Polo shirt at the 2024 Paris closing ceremony during the handover celebration for the 2028 Los Angeles Games, an event whose primary purpose was to hand a torch from one country to another, and which incidentally confirmed something about a knit Polo shirt’s range that is genuinely difficult to articulate and essentially impossible to manufacture. Lauren had already figured it out, roughly fifty years prior.
Ralph Lauren has dressed everyone from Hollywood stars and Olympic athletes to multiple U.S. presidents and First Ladies. His designs have been worn by figures including Oprah Winfrey, Hillary Clinton, and Diane Keaton.
The dedication ceremony is open to the public; registration is at usps.com/americaniconsstamps. The stamps go on sale June 9.
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