Can Women's Apparel Keep Powering Ralph Lauren's Growth?

Ralph Lauren Corporation RL continues to see strong momentum in its high-potential categories, with women's apparel, outerwear and handbags serving as key growth drivers. Collectively, these categories recorded growth of more than 20% in both the fourth quarter and the fiscal 2026, significantly outpacing the company's overall performance.

Within women's apparel, management highlighted strong results across multiple product categories, including Core Cable-Knit and Jersey sweaters, lightweight outerwear and colorful linen shirts. These performances underscore the importance of the company's category-focused strategy in supporting overall business growth. The company believes its women's apparel business offers substantial long-term growth potential despite its existing scale.

Ralph Lauren also noted that its women's apparel portfolio, including Collection, Polo Women's and Lauren, represents a business of nearly $2 billion while holding only about a 1% market share. This indicates considerable room for further expansion. The company also sees similar opportunities in outerwear, while emphasizing that its handbags business is at an even earlier stage of development, providing additional runway for future growth.

Additionally, the company highlighted an upcoming launch of the Blaze collection within the Women's Polo handbag portfolio, which will complement the established Polo ID and the growing Polo Play lines, creating a third key pillar for the brand. It believes this addition will support continued performance in its handbags business. Management also noted that women's apparel, outerwear and handbags are all accretive to average unit retail (AUR) and expects the strong AUR growth seen in these categories to continue.

Overall, Ralph Lauren's continued expansion in high-potential categories reinforces its premium brand positioning and supports its broader strategy to drive sustainable revenue growth, AUR expansion and long-term value creation.

The Zacks Rundown for RL

Ralph Lauren’s shares have lost 1.6% in the past three months against the industry’s 1.9% growth.

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From a valuation standpoint, RL trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 20.12X compared with the industry’s average of 15.85X. Ralph Lauren currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

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The Zacks Consensus Estimate for RL’s current and next fiscal-year earnings implies a rise of 10.5% each.

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Stocks to Consider

Some better-ranked stocks have been discussed below:

Duluth Holdings Inc. DLTH sells casual wear, workwear, outdoor apparel, and accessories for men and women in the United States. It offers shirts, pants, shorts, underwear, outerwear, footwear, accessories, and hard goods. At present, DLTH sports a Zacks Rank of 1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for DLTH's current fiscal-year sales implies a decline of 2.8%, and the same for earnings implies growth of 39.5% from the year-ago reported figures. DLTH delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 107.5%, on average.

Columbia Sportswear Company COLM, which is a marketer and distributor of outdoor and active lifestyle apparel, footwear, accessories and equipment, currently carries a Zacks Rank of 2 (Buy).

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for COLM’s current financial-year sales and earnings is expected to rise 2.6% and 4.6%, respectively, from the corresponding year-ago reported figures. COLM delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 44.1%, on average.

Vince Holding Corp. VNCE provides luxury apparel and accessories in the United States and internationally. It operates through Vince Wholesale and Vince Direct-to-Consumer segments. At present, the company carries a Zacks Rank of 2.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for VNCE’s current fiscal-year sales and earnings implies growth of 7.2% and 34.1%, respectively, from the year-ago reported figures. VNCE has delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 635.7%, on average.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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