Ralph Lauren turns Sloane Square into a Christmas market for luxury, nostalgia and giving back

For the 2025 holiday season, Ralph Lauren has taken over London’s Sloane Square with The Ralph Lauren Holiday Experience, a six-week festive pop-up that runs from 14 November to 24 December. It is being billed as the Square’s largest brand activation to date. 

Instead of a typical retail build, the brand has created a small winter world. At the center is a mountain-inspired holiday barn, framed by snow-tipped pines and a towering Christmas tree, which instantly makes the space feel like a film set from a classic Ralph Lauren campaign. 

Around it, there is a mix of:

• A Holiday Shop with Ralph Lauren gifting, including Polo Bear collectibles and timeless Polo pieces. 

• A Ralph’s Coffee pop-up pouring hot drinks, mulled wine and serving treats like brownies, S’mores cookies and hot dogs. 

• A full program of festive workshops and family experiences.

The result is part Christmas market, part brand universe.

Inside the Holiday Ralph Lauren Christmas Experience

The barn is where most of the action happens. Guests can book into rotating workshops that feel very aligned with Ralph Lauren’s world of craft, texture and tradition:

• Wreath making and seasonal craft sessions

• A florist in residence curating winter arrangements

• Artisan cookie decorating at The Cookie Atelier

• An intimate Father Christmas experience under the trees for children and families 

Outside, Sloane Square itself has been dressed in Ralph Lauren’s version of Christmas: warm lights in the trees, a central Christmas tree, a red Ralph Lauren truck piled with greenery and a general sense that you have walked into a lifestyle shoot.

Crucially, entry is free, which keeps the space open to passersby, tourists and local residents, not just existing customers. Visitors pay for workshops, Father Christmas sessions and purchases in the Holiday Shop. 

The charity layer that makes this more than a pop up

This is not just about selling jumpers and scented candles. Ralph Lauren has tied the experience to its long standing partnership with The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity.

Ten percent of proceeds from every on site activity, including workshops and Father Christmas experiences, goes to the charity, which supports world leading cancer treatment and research at The Royal Marsden. 

There is also a Giving Tree where visitors can write personalised messages on star ornaments and hang them in honor of loved ones. It is a small, quiet moment in the middle of a busy square, but it adds emotional weight to what could have been just another luxury “Christmas takeover.” 

For a brand that has built much of its image on family, legacy and American nostalgia, this charity layer feels consistent rather than forced. It also gives people a concrete reason to feel good about spending time and money there.

Why this pop-up matters for Ralph Lauren

For Ralph Lauren, this Holiday Experience is doing several jobs at once.

1. Turning an aesthetic into an experience

“Ralph Lauren Christmas” as a decor aesthetic is already trending online, with searches and social mentions climbing as people recreate the look at home.  By staging a full-scale holiday world in Sloane Square, the brand is taking that aspirational Pinterest mood board and making it walkable.

Visitors can see how the palette, textures and styling come together in real life, then buy pieces from the Holiday Shop or simply take visual ideas back home. It is a live showroom for the brand’s visual language.

2. Owning a piece of the city during peak season

This is not a corner in a department store. For six weeks, one of London’s most photographed squares effectively becomes a Ralph Lauren landmark, complete with its own barn, café and Christmas tree. 

In a city overloaded with festive markets, that level of presence means countless organic photos, Reels and TikToks. It is outdoor media that you do not have to buy.

3. Blending commerce with community and cause

The mix of free access, paid workshops, charity donations, and gifting makes this feel like a community space that just happens to be dressed in Ralph Lauren.

Parents bring their kids to meet Father Christmas. Friends book wreath workshops together. Tourists grab a hot drink and a brownie at Ralph’s Coffee. In each case, revenue and brand affinity are built quietly in the background. 

What marketers can actually take away from this

This is where the pop-up becomes useful as a case study rather than just pretty Christmas content.

1. Design your pop-up as a world, not a store

Ralph Lauren did not just install a branded kiosk. They created a full narrative environment: barn, trees, coffee, workshops, Santa, and charity. Every element reinforces the same story of crafted, nostalgic, generous holiday spirit. 

If you are planning an activation, ask: if someone removed your logo from the space, would people still be able to guess which brand built it? If the answer is no, the world is not distinctive enough.

2. Make participation the product

Here, the most valuable “products” are not only sweaters and candles, but the activities themselves: decorating cookies, making wreaths, writing a message on the Giving Tree. 

These are moments people will photograph, share and remember. For other brands, this is a reminder that the most powerful holiday SKU can be an experience designed around your brand truth, not just another limited edition gift box.

3. Attach charity in a way that feels structurally built in

Ten per cent of all activities going to The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity, plus a physical Giving Tree linked to remembrance, makes the philanthropic element feel baked into the model rather than tacked on. 

If you are adding a cause layer to your festive campaign, try to:

• Choose a partner you already have a history with.

• Tie donations to specific, understandable actions (like workshop bookings)

• Create a physical or digital ritual that lets people engage emotionally, not just financially

4. Use one city as a stage for a global story

This Sloane Square experience is part of a wider Ralph Lauren holiday push that also spans Seoul, Tokyo and Los Angeles.  Instead of running identical pop-ups everywhere, the brand uses one highly photogenic example to set the tone and then amplifies the content globally.

Smaller brands can do the same: pick one hero location where you can execute fully and then distribute that story across all your markets rather than trying to be everywhere with watered-down versions.

Final thought

The Ralph Lauren Holiday Experience is not breaking any tech records. There are no AR filters on entry or holograms in the barn. What it does beautifully is something more basic and much harder to fake: it makes the brand’s world feel real, touchable and warm at a time of year when people are actively looking for that feeling.

For marketers, the lesson sits underneath the fairy lights. If your brand had to build a Christmas world from scratch, what would it look like, what would people do inside it, and what small act would make them feel that their presence there mattered?