A Farewell to Prep: Rugby Ralph Lauren Will Shutter by 2013

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The Ralph Lauren Corp. announced today that Rugby Ralph Lauren, their diffusion brand geared toward those of the Hah-vard ilk, is shuttering both its online store and 14 locations by 2013. The Twitter eagle-eyes over at StyleBistro spotted the following tweet by WWD's senior editor David Lipke's:

No more dashing young co-eds! No more perfectly preppy collegiate-wear! A sad day in prepdom indeed.

The company's official statement in WWD this morning explains they're discontinuing Rugby "in order to focus resources on higher growth, more scalable global opportunities with the core Ralph Lauren brand." So expect more Ralph Lauren "stores and e-commerce platforms and emerging merchandise categories and regions."

That all seems rather cryptic, but while they get sorted out, stock up on varsity jackets and collared-everything right now for 40% off.
· Rugby Ralph Lauren is Dunzo [StyleBistro]
· Ralph Lauren Posts Better Than Expected Q2 Results [Racked]