Kenyon vs. Ralph Lauren – An Unlikely Pairing

As many of you know, there is a new addition to the Ralph Lauren Rugby Fall 2011 collection that looks suspiciously familiar to us Lords and Ladies. The “Eating Club University Tie” is patterned with the crest of Kenyon, and looks almost identical to the tie sold in the Kenyon bookstore. So why did this happen? What was going through Ralph Lauren’s mind (or, more likely, the mind of some lowly design assistant) when he made this piece of unintentional Kenyon regalia? And why is it called the “Eating Club University Tie” as there are no eating clubs at Kenyon? (As some of you may know, Princeton University is the school best known for its eating clubs). Here, we pose a few possible theories.
 
1. Ralph Lauren’s dream was to go to Kenyon. As a young boy, he sold ties to fellow students at his high school in the Bronx. His first design was the Kenyon crest, which he used as a ploy to improve his chances in the admissions process. However, unbeknownst to Lauren, the college already had a crest. Heartbroken, Lauren abandoned his dreams of going to Kenyon, but years later reclaimed the crest to exact revenge on the college that had forsaken his creativity.
 
2. Years ago, back when they were Homer scholars together at Princeton, Ralph Lauren and one S. Georgia Nugent had a magical summer frolicking among the hills of Central New Jersey. The love and light they shared between them faded with the last dying breath of warm summer air. Their evenings spent over cups of wine coolers forever held a dear space in Ralph’s cashmere swathed heart. As a last tribute to their beautiful time together, Ralph made his greatest and most profound creation of all – the Kenyon crest tie. Although the tie is sold at the bookstore, Ralph wanted to reinvent it for his Rugby line. Hence, the impending lawsuit is an attempt to reconcile and reignite the love between Lauren and Nugent.
 
3. An associate designer at Ralph Lauren Rugby was assigned to come up with a new crest for a tie. He googled “college crest” and figured no one in Ohio would notice. His time at Ralph Lauren has since come to an end.