ATLANTA — Upon arriving at Morehouse College, the prestigious historically Black men’s college in Atlanta, students quickly learn that a man of Morehouse must be “well-read, well-spoken, well-traveled, well-dressed and well-balanced.”

These tenets, known as “the five wells,” were created by Robert M. Franklin, a former president of the school, are visible on banners across campus. And though all of the principles are meant to be equally important, many of the school’s students said that one certainly feels pertinent to daily campus life: “well-dressed.”

“Personal style and fashion at Morehouse is something we take seriously,” said Olamide Fagbamiye, a senior at the college who was wearing Basquiat-edition Doc Martens, rolled up khakis, a white polo and a black cardigan with his fraternity letters. “This is a place to be well dressed. We take clothes and make them our own, we tell our own stories with them and are open to all the different ways our friends make something their own, even if we wouldn’t wear it ourselves.”

Mr. Fagbamiye is one of hundreds, if not thousands, of students at Morehouse and Spelman College, the neighboring women’s college, who are counting down to Tuesday, when a Ralph Lauren collaboration with the colleges will be released widely in stores and online. Mr. Fagbamiye has his sights on some cardigans and a suit in the collection. “But I am just a college student, so I’ll have to see about those prices,” he said.

At Morehouse and other historically Black colleges and universities, personal style is an unofficial part of the curriculum, and even though no grade is handed down for fashion sense, having the drip doesn’t go unnoticed. Whether you’re heading to class, chapel, a football game or taking on homecoming weekend, each element of an outfit — socks and shoes, ties and jewelry — is intentionally chosen.

The Ralph Lauren line taps into this spirit. Inspired by looks worn by African American students at Spelman and Morehouse between the 1920s and 1950s, the collaboration was announced earlier this month with a flashy campaign that features students, faculty and alumni as models. A film with interviews with these current and former members of Atlanta’s H.B.C.U leaders and a yearbook will also be released.

Online, among alumni and some current students reaction to the campaign, posted on campus and around Atlanta, was swift, a combination of excitement at the concept and representative imagery, and skepticism about exactly how the collaboration would benefit H.B.C.U.s beyond visual representation. Some people simply didn’t like the collection or the era that inspired it.

But on Morehouse and Spelman’s campuses, the skepticism has been largely drowned out by enthusiasm and pride.

Several students at both colleges said they are eyeing specific items in the collection, even if they are worried that the clothes will be out of their price ranges. Prices range from $20 to $2,498 (for a Morehouse Collection Polo Coat). The collaboration has been discussed in at least one comparative politics class at Morehouse and in one marketing class at Spelman.

“What I love about the reaction is that it started a conversation,” said James Jeter, the director of concept design and special projects at Ralph Lauren, and the Morehouse alumnus behind the collaboration. “It wasn’t all negative. It wasn’t all positive, but it was the ebb and flows of both, and I think in the end a lot of people arrive at a better place than where they started as a result of those conversations.”

‘An opportunity to tell more stories.’

When Mr. Jeter, 30, graduated from Morehouse in 2013 and moved to New York to intern for Ralph Lauren, he couldn’t have imagined that Morehouse history, and the looks he saw his classmates wearing in his four years in Atlanta, would be integral to creating a line less than a decade later. (Mr. Jeter’s history with the company had started even before his internship, when he worked at Rugby, a Ralph Lauren outpost in Washington, D.C.)

In the wake of the 2020 protests for racial justice and the flurry of promises from companies to be more inclusive, Mr. Jeter and Mr. Lauren began a conversation about how the brand portrayed the American dream. Mr. Lauren asked the designer to tell a personal story with the line. Mr. Jeter was reminded of a yearbook from the 1920s that his fraternity adviser had shown him while he was at Morehouse.

“I couldn’t help but see amazing style within the pages of those books,” Mr. Jeter said. “They were dressed up beautifully — three-piece suits and club collars and club ties and Norfolk jackets. A lot of what you see in the collection was directly inspired by those books.”

The goal of the collaboration is to expand a storied brand’s well-known portrayal of the American dream, Mr. Jeter said. He worked closely with Dara Douglas, the Ralph Lauren director of inspirational content and a graduate of Spelman, to bring the clothes and the overall vision to life.

“I think the way in which we portrayed the American dream may have not been the full picture,” Mr. Jeter said. “It felt that we absolutely had an opportunity to tell more stories.”

In 2020, the team reached out to the colleges to gauge interest, and so began the partnership, which college officials said they are proud of.

David A. Thomas, the president of Morehouse, said that from the instant he heard about the collection to the moment he saw the final campaign, he felt that the brand was successfully refining the way it chronicles the aspirational aspect of what it looks like to be American.

“You can see Ralph Lauren and you can also see the intellectual, cultural edginess of Morehouse and Spelman, and it’s a refinement of the American story to make it more inclusive,” he said.

In December, the company made a $2 million commitment over five years to support scholarships for Black, African and African American students, including those at Morehouse, Spelman and 10 other H.B.C.U.s. through the United Negro College Fund. The donation was not linked to the collection, the company said.

A spokeswoman for Ralph Lauren also said that the company has “engaged in a standard collegiate apparel licensing agreement” with the colleges, the terms of which, she added, “are confidential.”

‘Focus on the current, too.’

When the collaboration was announced earlier this month, Kennedy Sams, a senior at Spelman, and Rashad Townsend, a senior at Morehouse, had similar thoughts: Sure, the clothes were beautiful, but was a showy campaign featuring their peers and faculty enough to make any sort of lasting change?

Ms. Sams asked: “Will there be a bigger pipeline for us if we want to go into the fashion industry? Are they contributing to scholarships? Will they be giving us opportunities outside the doors of Spelman and not just using us for show and tell?”

Both students also said they wondered why Ralph Lauren didn’t lean into other eras in which Black style has dominated, like the 1990s.

“I love that there’s an emphasis on history with historically Black colleges because they really did shine in the ’50s and ’60s, but I want to see more stuff highlighting students who are here now,” Mr. Townsend said. “We should be rooted in our history but focus on the current, too.”

The question of how young people today would respond to clothes of that era crossed the mind of another son of Atlanta who is known for bringing a twist and his own flair to classic Ralph Lauren looks: the rapper André 3000, who said that after the announcement of the collaboration, people began sending him images, and he instantly thought the line was “great, solid Ralph.”

“Ralph is probably one of the best storytellers, so it felt like he went to a time when Morehouse was that look,” he said in an interview from Venice Beach, Calif. “He’s one of the best people that could pull from a certain era and bring it forward. We’re in a street wear kind of era, so it was just funny to see the reaction from kids now.”

In the 2003 music video for the hit Outkast song “Hey Ya!” hallmarks of Ralph Lauren are layered throughout: jockey pants, polo boots, suspenders, high-waist plaid pants and more. “If you look at the video, you see so much homage to Ralph,” André 3000 said. “Ralph was always humming underneath what I was doing.” (Outkast was in talks with Mr. Lauren to have him as the announcer at the start of the “Hey Ya!” music video, André 3000 said, but things didn’t pan out.)

Mr. Townsend and other students at Morehouse and Spelman said they couldn’t help but wonder if a similar line would have received such wide attention if it had been created by a smaller, Black-owned brand.

Notably, André 3000’s love for a spin on classics led him to create his own ready-to-wear line, Benjamin Bixby, in 2008. Despite being a well-known celebrity heralded for his sense of style, he struggled to keep it afloat and, without investors, had to let it go. He called the experience a “multimillion-dollar lesson” but said that in today’s climate, when finding an audience is easier, he would encourage young Black designers to create.

Although some critics of the collaboration have said that the styles of the 1920s to 1950s remind them of segregation and inequality, Ms. Douglas believes there is joy to be found in telling a fuller story of the contributions of African Americans during this time.

“The strength of character that those individuals had in spite of needs to be acknowledged,” she said. “We’re celebrating the hard road that they paved for us to be where we are now.”