President Trump is not the only one with the last Gilded Age on his mind. On Thursday, Ralph Lauren held his fall 2025 fashion show in the bank hall of the Clock Tower Building in Lower Manhattan, an Italian Renaissance revival edifice that opened in 1898 as the home of the New York Life Insurance Company, complete with marble Corinthian columns, a 29-foot coffered ceiling, an ornate staircase and its own vault.

The setting was a departure from Mr. Lauren’s recent trend of recreating his own environments as the backdrops of his collections: He has brought guests out to Ralph Hampton, his fantasy of Long Island; opened up his Madison Avenue headquarters; and recreated his Colorado ranch at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. But given the tenor of the time, his latest show venue felt pretty apropos.

The actor Anne Hathaway was there, in a beige trench coat and bedazzled beige denim. So were the singer Kacey Musgraves, in a white tank top and cowboy hat; the actor Ariana DeBose, in pinstripes; and “The White Lotus” ingénue Sarah Catherine Hook, in a necktie. What was not there, however: corsets. Or bustles. (That was good news.)

Instead, Mr. Lauren offered a parade of pants — and not just any old pants, but big pants. Pants that were almost always pleated and that billowed around the legs. Pants in leather and wool. Pants that were almost … pantaloons, which sometimes were tucked into knee-high boots so they puffed out around the thighs, and sometimes truncated into knickerbockers so they only looked like they were tucked into the boots.

With the pants he showed a lot of lacy jabots and ruffled white shirts, frothing at the neck. Also beat-up leathers and the occasional slinky backless halter dress, almost always complete with its own jabot. Everything was in black and white or camel and brown, with the occasional flash of amethyst glittering in the light.