As on the red carpet and the runway, the equestrian world is as much about being seen as seeing, inspiring everyone from Cartier to Chanel, Gucci and Hèrmes. This is particularly true of polo, an ancient Central Asian game that the Persians used to keep the imperial cavalry on its tippy toes (and tippy hooves).
Today the so-called “sport of kings” continues to draw actual princes as well as those who rule the sporting, entertainment and fashion worlds. Perhaps no fashion designer has been more associated with polo than Ralph Lauren, whose “mounted polo player logo adorns everything from his popular ‘Polo’ shirts to all manner of clothing and accessories for men, women and children,” writes Vicky Moon in “The Stylish Life: Equestrian,” part of teNeues’ “Stylish Life” series of books.
So associated is Lauren with the sport that Argentine player Nacho Figueras serves as a model for the brand’s Polo labels and fragrance. Figueras often teams on the playing field with good friend Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, in support of the prince’s Sentebale charity to fight HIV/AIDS and poverty among the children of the African nation of Lesotho.
In 2013, the two squared off as their teams battled for the Sentebale Royal Salute Polo Cup at Greenwich Polo Club, a taut match that saw the prince’s team triumph 4-3 amid a fashionable crowd that included Connecticut-reared entrepreneur and fashion influencer Olivia Palermo and supermodel Stephanie Seymour, wife of Peter M. Brant, the businessman, art collector and philanthropist who established the high-goal club in 1981.
But every Sunday is a stylish one at Greenwich Polo, located amid the undulating verdure of the town’s tony Backcountry. When the gates open at 1 p.m. for 3 p.m. matches, the public pours in, decked out in sports coats, white jeans and straw fedoras, garden dresses, picture hats, floral shawls and wedge sandals and espadrilles, never spiky heels. (Think Julia Roberts in “Pretty Woman.”) As the throng is invited at half-time to stomp the divots, those pieces of turf kicked up as the Thoroughbreds thunder down an expanse the size of nine football fields, heels are useless.
One of the biggest trends we’ve seen at the club this year is eyelet dresses, so elegantly cool for summer. They’re the yin to the dashing yang of all those form-fitting white pants – a nod to the cavalries of yore – boots, polo shirts and helmets on the field.
Matches continue at Greenwich Polo Club through Sept. 11. For more, visit greenwichpoloclub.com.
Tags: polo, Central Asia, Persia, Nacho Figueras, Ralph Lauren, Carier, Chanel, Gucci, Hèrmes, “The Stylish Life: Equestrian,” teNeues, “The Stylish Life: Equestrian,” Vicky Moon, Peter M. Brant, Stephanie Seymour, Olivia Palermo, Julia Roberts, “Pretty Woman,” Greenwich Polo Club, Sentebale, Prince Harry, Lesotho