Ralph Lauren

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Ralph Lauren received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Joe Biden on the 4th of January 2025. He was the first fashion designer ever to receive that award. As of May 2025, his net worth was estimated at US$11.9 billion. His face and name have crowded more than 100 magazine covers, including Architectural Digest, GQ, Forbes, Town & Country, TIME and Vogue. Yet the company behind that wealth sells something odder than clothing. It sells the feeling of a world that seems to have existed long before it did. Where did that world come from? Who built it, and out of what materials? And how did one designer persuade so many people to wear it?

  21376

• 2. A Borrowed Surname

  ›

  Ralph Lauren was born on the 14th of October 1939 in the Bronx, New York, and his surname at birth was Lifshitz. His parents were Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants from Pinsk, Belarus. His mother, Frieda, was born a Cutler. His father, Frank, was an artist and house painter. Ralph was the youngest of four children, with two brothers and a sister.

  At the age of 16, Ralph and his brother George legally swapped Lifshitz for Lauren, because of bullying at school. They were following their older brother Jerry. Jerry had already made the change after being bullied in the United States Air Force.

  The schooling was winding. First came day school, then the Manhattan Talmudical Academy, and he finally graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in 1957. He then studied business at Baruch College of the City University of New York, but he left after two years. Calvin Klein and Robert Denning, two other designers, also grew up in the Jewish community of the Bronx.

  From 1962 to 1964, Lauren served in the United States Army. When he returned to civilian life, his first fashion job was a short spell as a sales assistant at Brooks Brothers.

  49145487

• 3. A Drawer in the Empire State Building

  ›

  After Brooks Brothers, Lauren became a salesman for Rivetz, a necktie company. At 28 he was working for another tie maker, Beau Brummell, and he talked its president into letting him start a line of his own. In 1967 he launched The Ralph Lauren Corporation, and its first product was men's ties.

  In 1968 he named his first complete menswear line Polo. His headquarters was a single drawer in a showroom inside the Empire State Building. He delivered orders to stores himself. By 1969, the Manhattan department store Bloomingdale's had built a Polo boutique inside its own walls.

  Women came next. In 1971 the company released tailored shirts for women, and the polo player emblem made its first public appearance on the cuff. A full women's collection followed in 1972.

  That same year brought the cotton mesh Polo shirt, sold in many colors, with the polo player now on the chest. It became the emblem of the preppy look. The advertising line read: "Every team has its color - Polo has seventeen."

  Hollywood soon noticed him. In 1974 Lauren dressed the male cast of the film The Great Gatsby in 1920s-style suits and sweaters from his Polo line. He designed a pink suit especially for Robert Redford, who played Jay Gatsby. In 1977, Diane Keaton and Woody Allen wore his clothes throughout Allen's film Annie Hall.

  1015185470

• 4. The Anglophile

  ›

  Cricket sweaters, equestrian themes and collaborations with traditional British mills run through the Lauren brand. His work leans heavily on the look of the British aristocracy, country life and old-fashioned craftsmanship, even though he is an American designer. He has said that American fashion often chases whatever is new. His own aim is to echo the British habit of treasuring objects and handing them down.

  Lauren describes himself as an Anglophile. In his words: "I've always loved England because it was non-fashion....It was timeless. It was not about what was the latest new sleekness. It was about weathering and those things that get better with age."

  2912

• 5. Perfume, Palaces and Public Shares

  ›

  On the 12th of March 1978, a women's fragrance called Lauren went on sale at Bloomingdale's. Polo, a cologne for men, followed on the 26th of March. Both were produced by Warner-Lauren, Ltd. No designer had ever released a women's and a men's scent at the same time. Lauren had already opened a Rodeo Drive store in Beverly Hills in 1971, the first freestanding store for an American designer. After the fragrances, the company entered the European market. It went fully international in 1981, with a freestanding store on New Bond Street in London's West End.

  In 1986 Lauren opened his first flagship in the Rhinelander mansion, on Madison Avenue at 72nd Street in New York. He recreated its original opulence with a young design consultant, Naomi Leff, who had worked with him on Ralph Lauren Home. At the 1987 CFDA Awards, he was named Retailer of the Year for 1986. The honor recognized how he had turned the cinematic feel of his clothes into a physical setting.

  New lines kept arriving. Polo Sport appeared in 1992. More than ten further lines and acquired brands followed, among them Ralph Lauren Purple Label in 1995 and Lauren Ralph Lauren in 1996. On the 12th of June 1997, the company began trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

  The brand also moved into dining. A 98-seat restaurant called RL opened in Chicago in March 1999. It stands in a newly built structure beside the largest Ralph Lauren flagship in the world, at Chicago Avenue and Michigan Avenue. Ralph's followed in 2010, at the Paris flagship at 173 Boulevard Saint-Germain. The Polo Bar opened at the New York flagship in 2015.

  Online, the company launched polo.com in 2000 through RL Media, a venture with NBC. In 2007 it bought out NBC's share, and the site was relaunched as ralphlauren.com. In 2008, American Living launched exclusively for JCPenney. It was the largest cross-category brand launch in the history of both companies.

  On the 29th of September 2015, the company announced that Stefan Larsson would take over as CEO that November. Lauren stayed on as executive chairman and chief creative officer. Three years later, on the 8th of September 2018, he marked the brand's 50th anniversary with a fashion show at Bethesda Terrace in Central Park. Oprah Winfrey, Hillary Clinton, Kanye West, Robert De Niro and Jessica Chastain were among the guests.

  3439773136

• 6. The Garage

  ›

  Roughly 100 automobiles sit in Ralph Lauren's collection, and some are among the rarest ever built. A 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO is there, along with two Ferrari TRs and three 1996 McLaren F1s. One of those McLarens is the ultra-rare F1 LM. Other prizes include a Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing, a Bugatti Veyron and a Lamborghini Reventón Roadster.

  Two cars have earned Best of Show at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. His 1938 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic won in 1990. His 1930 Mercedes-Benz SSK roadster, known as Count Trossi and nicknamed The Black Prince, won in 1993.

  The cars have also been treated as art. Boston's Museum of Fine Arts displayed the collection in 2005. In 2011, seventeen of the cars were shown at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. By 2017, the collection was valued at $600 million, and it took center stage during New York Fashion Week.

  58596026

• 7. Giving Against Cancer

  ›

  In 1989, Lauren co-founded the Nina Hyde Center for Breast Cancer Research at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C. It honors Nina Hyde, the late fashion correspondent of the Post. In 1994 the CFDA founded Fashion Targets Breast Cancer, a fashion-industry effort to raise awareness and funds around the world. Lauren served as its chairman and created its name and symbol.

  In 2003 he helped establish the Ralph Lauren Center for Cancer Care and Prevention in Harlem. It is a partnership with Memorial Sloan-Kettering and North General Hospital. His company teamed up with the Royal Marsden in 2014, and the Royal Marsden Ralph Lauren Center for Breast Cancer Research opened in 2016. In 2023, the Ralph Lauren Center for Cancer Prevention opened at Georgetown's Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. The Pink Pony Campaign works to reduce disparities in cancer care for poor and underserved communities.

  Other giving has had nothing to do with cancer. After the September 11th attacks, the Polo Ralph Lauren Foundation set up the American Heroes Fund. Polo's 10,000 employees worldwide, and its customers, could take part in the relief effort. The Polo Fashion School began in 2004, with company executives sharing insights about the fashion business with inner-city youth. In 2006, the Polo Jeans G.I.V.E. campaign encouraged community service, including work with Habitat for Humanity.

  In 1998, Polo Ralph Lauren gave $10 million to Save America's Treasures. That money helped preserve the original 1813 flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the national anthem. The flag was unveiled in a new gallery at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History on the 19th of November 2008. In July 2013, the company pledged to restore the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

  6263646566

• 8. Home and Honors

  ›

  On the 20th of December 1964, Lauren married Ricky Ann Loew-Beer in New York City. They had met six months earlier in a doctor's office, where she worked as a receptionist. On alternate days she taught dance. She later wrote The Hamptons: Food, Family and History. They have three children, including David and Dylan. David married Lauren Bush, a niece of former President George W. Bush, in September 2011.

  In April 1987, Lauren had surgery to remove a benign brain tumor, and he made a full recovery. He owns a 17,000-acre cattle ranch in Ridgway, Colorado. He also owns a manor in Bedford, New York, built in 1919. The Laurens belong to the Park Avenue Synagogue in Manhattan, and led its capital campaign, which ended in 2019.

  His private life has drawn scrutiny. In the early 1990s, he reportedly had a long extramarital affair with Kim Nye, a model in his Safari fragrance campaign. The journalist Michael Gross wrote that Lauren tried to have the relationship removed from authorized biographies. Gross covered the alleged affair in his 2003 unauthorized biography, Genuine Authentic: The Real Life of Ralph Lauren.

  The prizes began early. In 1970 he won a Coty Award for menswear, and in 1973 he became the first menswear designer to win it twice. In 1976 he took Coty awards for both menswear and womenswear in the same year, a first. In 1992, Audrey Hepburn presented him with the first CFDA Lifetime Achievement award, created specially for him. In 1996, Princess Diana gave him the first Humanitarian Award of the Nina Hyde Center. In 2010 he received the Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur from President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Élysée Palace. In 2017 he was appointed an Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Prince Charles presented it at Buckingham Palace on the 20th of June 2019.

  4142495154