This summer, the clothing company Ralph Lauren released a collection inspired by Black history and culture in Oak Bluffs.
The company also produced a short documentary film alongside the line of jackets, sweaters and other garments.
CAI's Gilda Geist spoke with two of the people behind this campaign — James Jeter and Dara Douglas — to learn more about how the company captured the story of Oak Bluffs through clothing.
Gilda Geist How did the idea to do a Ralph Lauren collection for Oak Bluffs come about?
James Jeter In 2022, we entered into a partnership with Morehouse and Spelman Colleges, which are HBCUs — historically Black colleges and universities. I went to Morehouse, Dara went to Spelman. It initially began as this sort of request from Ralph to really think about ways that we can continue to expand our brand heritage. And so we continued our multi-year partnership with Morehouse and Spelman as we opened the aperture to also tell a story about Oak Bluffs. Ralph Lauren is, in a lot of ways, synonymous with the Northeast. A lot of it feels like you're walking through a Ralph Lauren ad. And so we looked at the Northeast to think about, what are other stories that also align very closely with our purpose at the company? And one of those stories that overwhelmingly, I think, really inspired a lot of us was the story about Oak Bluffs. These incredible families in the late 1800s were looking for a place in America they could call home. One family in particular is the Shearer family, and we had the honor of featuring the descendants of the Shearer family within the film, "A Portrait of the American Dream: Oak Bluffs." And it talks about how their ancestors came from HBCUs, and they moved north to find a freer and better life, and they found that here in Oak Bluffs.
GG Dara, from what I can understand, you played a big part in doing the research for the whole storytelling and history aspect of this campaign. Can you tell me what that process was like?
Dara Douglas Yes, so initially we started research online. After that, we kind of hit a dead end. So James and I had a conversation, and he felt like the images would be in people's homes somewhere, and so we need to find who these individuals are and see if they can open up their homes to us. So I started to tap into a few individuals that I know who frequent the island and ask them, who are some other individuals who live on the island full-time who are very connected to Martha's Vineyard? And we got connected to members of The Cottagers, specifically Dr. [Bettye Foster] Baker, and then she pointed us in the direction of Mrs. Joyce Graves. So a lot of the amazing photographs that you see were photographs that her father had taken. He was a professional photographer for a newspaper out of Philadelphia. His photos were very candid, and it showed the true life that was lived on Martha's Vineyard. And so we were able to use those photos for product, we used those photos as inspiration. I think it's really important to start from a real place, especially when you're talking about aspects of Black life in America. I think pulling back the curtain on our history is extremely important and grounding our stories in actual truth and actual imagery helps to show people the breadth and the wealth and the depth of the Black experience.
GG James, did you want to add anything to that?
JJ We were sitting in Joyce Graves' dining room table and she was literally pulling out family albums from boxes. None of them had been scanned before, couldn't find any of them online. And so there was something, I think, really important and special about being able to share a lot of these images with the world on this platform. Through this research, a lot of these images are now being donated to museums on the island [and] the Smithsonian.
GG Do you have a favorite piece in the collection?
DD My favorite piece is the sampler Spelman sweater. It features the Spelman Jaguar on the front. It says Spelman College on the back. We embroidered some names of particular buildings on Spelman's campus and I was able to put my dorm, Abby Hall, on the backs of the sweaters, so it's one of my favorite pieces.
JJ There's this really beautiful — we call it a senior jacket, where there's these like hand embroideries all over this chore jacket of all the different neighborhoods and elements and streets all over the island. As Dara mentioned, when you see your dorm room on a sweater gives you this kind of feeling and brings back memories. You might see the street that you grew up playing on, or you might see Ocean Park embroidered on this chore jacket and it just brings you back to childhood memories. Throughout the collection, we try to mesh collegiate references with these coastal Northeast references. And so that embroidered jacket, there was a history of these like kind of senior jackets or autograph jackets, as they call them, where you can embroider the school that you're going to, or maybe it's like a fraternity or sorority that you want to join. It's almost like signing a yearbook your senior year. And so I thought, how cool it would be to do a version of that but Oak Bluffs? And so instead of schools, it's about the beaches and the different neighborhoods.
James Jeter is the Creative Director of Concept Design and Brand Direction for Polo Men’s at Ralph Lauren and Dara Douglas is the Product and Brand Lead for Design with Intent at Ralph Lauren.
