Ralph Lauren Polo Spotlights West Philadelphia Work to Ride Young Black Equestrians

Ralph Lauren Polo Spotlights West Philadelphia Work to Ride Young Black Equestrians

The new Ralph Lauren Polo ad campaign has put a group of young people from West Philadelphia on the style and culture map.

The kids are part of Fairmount Park’s Work to Ride program, launched in 1994 and based out of the Chamounix Equestrian Center. The program gives underprivileged youth the opportunity to experience horsemanship, introducing communities of color to a predominantly whie, very privileged sport. Think our beloved Prince Harry and his friends.

"I'm still kind of bowled over that they actually took the plunge," Work to Ride Executive Director Lezlie Hiner said about the fashion giant's decision to run an ad campaign featuring her program.

On any given year, Work to Ride serves around 60 youths between the ages of 7 and 19, Hiner said. Ralph Lauren's campaign is a reflection of the program's mission. In reality Hiner is very modest, because her Work to Ride project is racking up an incomparable list of accomplishments by its young riders.

Will Fashion Hold Tight To Its Embrace Of Black Model Beauty? Here's Hoping

Will Fashion Hold Tight To Its Embrace Of Black Model Beauty? Here's Hoping

Tiya Miles is a professor of American culture and history at the University of Michigan, as a member of the Program in American Culture, Center for Afro-American and African Studies and Native American Studies Program.  In 2011 Miles won a five-year grant MacArthur Fellowship for her intellectual prowess -- which is to say that Tiya Miles knows that's going on in her world.  

When the topic is models, Miles believes that Hollywood, fashion and beauty businesses are responding to the popular public movements demanding change. The changes are worldwide, but when the subject is fashion models, the lens centers on New York, London, Milan and Paris. Striking an ironic note, Miles sees our growing consciousness of the "importance of visibility and voclaity for people of color, particularly black people" as a positive outcome of the threatening rise of white nationalist identity across America and Europe.

“It is no coincidence that this runway model trend and movies like 'Black Panther' "have arrived at the same time," Prof. Miles told the New York Times after the Fall 2018 fashion shows. "The two are interlocked, as both have been incubating in what feels a like a growing crusade with many of the hallmarks of the Black Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s. They are part of a pushback against the dominant pressures of European and American white centrality.”