Former Ralph Lauren Employee Weighs in on Ralph Lauren Christmas Trend (Exclusive)

Taryn McCleary won’t claim to have “invented” the latest Ralph Lauren Christmas trend that’s blowing up on social media right now — but she certainly contributed to its beginnings.

If you’re not in tune with the latest in home decor, users across social media have spent the lead-up to the holidays raving about the viral aesthetic.

From videos on how to achieve the Ralph Lauren Christmas aesthetic to creators posting shopping hauls with all the latest they’ve purchased to curate their perfectly preppy holiday plans, it’s safe to say that Ralph Lauren Christmas is the style to emulate this year.

Though the style is really having its moment this year, McCleary, who is a content creator and former Ralph Lauren digital commerce analyst who now works in the luxury interior design space, has been on the wave for a while, she tells PEOPLE.

“Toward the end of 2024, I started creating Ralph Lauren Christmas Reels that unexpectedly went viral and really resonated online,” she says. “What really began as me sharing my genuine love for just classic nostalgic style turned into a bigger conversation around the aesthetic.”

At the time, McCleary was still working at Ralph Lauren, and says she doesn’t recall seeing anyone else post about the aesthetic in the same way she was.

She was so mired in the behind-the-scenes of it all at her job that she says she had her “blinders on” to that kind of content on social media. Though she would get served Amazon and Pinterest ads, she felt as if that content was “missing the mark” of what the aesthetic truly is.

“I didn’t really see a lot of content at the time, so I took that as the opportunity to really lean in and bring the vintage ads and advertising that was used in campaigns going forward [in my videos],” she says. She spent time repackaging old campaigns and Ralph Lauren photoshoots into Instagram Reels to help viewers curate and gain inspiration for their holiday decorating.

A quote from Ralph Lauren inspired her to spread the aesthetic widely to her audience: “I don’t create clothes, I create dreams.”

“I think that’s what’s made this trend so successful because not only do you gain inspiration from it, but it also brings you into like another world, almost — one that’s like timeless but also nostalgic,” she says.

At its core, that’s what the Ralph Lauren Christmas trend is about: curating a timeless-looking, nostalgic, classic Christmas home setting — and TikTok and Instagram are now the perfect places to find tips for how to achieve the look.

“I don’t want to say I invented it because we have Ralph Lauren to thank for that,” McCleary says. “But also now everybody’s doing a Ralph Lauren and Christmas and their Reels as well, so, what else do you call it?”

She’s been reposting her videos, which went viral last year, to much continued success, and she’s loving the moment that the style is having, as it speaks to a larger, collective desire from humans, she explains.

“I personally loved it because I feel like in a world that’s so unpredictable currently, I think people are just craving a return to like timeless style, a sense of nostalgia and like the understated luxury that feels grounded in like this fast digital world,” she says.

Anytime she posts anything with the words “Ralph Lauren” in a video, it blows up, she says.

That’s because the aesthetic is aspirational, but also nostalgic and timeless, and evokes elements of Christmases past. It draws on elements of the brand’s most familiar home decor elements — like classic tartans, dark wood, brass, leather and wool — and translates them into Christmas decor.

“If I had to rename it, I would say timeless and classic,” she says. This is why it doesn’t actually take a full set of Ralph Lauren-branded decor to achieve the look — it’s more about evoking nostalgia and an evergreen holiday aura.

“Another thing that I learned through my time at Ralph Lauren is the brand has such a personal meaning to so many people because a lot of us grew up seeing the ads, wearing the clothes, maybe our mothers had one of his fragrances that was super nostalgic to us as well,” she says.

“It’s really just about packaging up like the nostalgic, storied vibe of Ralph Lauren and making it achievable for every day, in the sense of Christmas.”

On TikTok, videos have gone viral of creators curating ways to achieve the Ralph Lauren aesthetic on more of an Amazon budget, as user Rachel Schwab puts it. McCleary is clear that achieving the look doesn’t need to break the bank (one blanket on the website, the Angelica Throw Blanket, retails for $995).

She emphasizes smart sourcing like “thrifting, Etsy, leaning into handmade things or even things at your local Goodwill.” It’s about being intentional and utilizing things that will really last you “season after season, all year round,” she adds.

However, just buying things for the sake of checking boxes on the trend does not emulate the true Ralph Lauren Christmas aesthetic.

“There’s this wave of people shopping … and showing how to get the Ralph Lauren trend Christmas look,” she says. “The foundation of this aesthetic isn’t about overconsumption or filling your house with stuff that’ll get tossed the next year.”

“If that’s your style, by all means go for it,” she says. She’s not knocking those shoppers, she wants to make clear, but rather encouraging them to think before they snap up an entire collection of things in the name of achieving the aesthetic.

“It’s kind of just like the nature of the beast, if you will, with social media, is that people who make most of their income from pushing trends and doing Amazon links are using it as a quick sell.”

The aesthetic is not flashy or over the top, despite the flak that McCleary says the trend is getting for just being “rich people Christmas.”

“Everything feels super collected over time, not bought in one season,” she says.

“I’m sure if you like pulled out your old like Christmas decorations from like your parents’ house, you could pick through and be like, ‘Oh my God, this is so Ralph Lauren Christmas,'” she advises.

“Half of that stuff you can literally make trendy. I hate saying that,” she says. “But Ralph Lauren Christmas is not like really a trend. It’s been around forever.”