The shopping experience at a spacious Ralph Lauren outlet (aka “factory”) is equally as enjoyable, if not sometimes better, than that of the department store. A quintessential and ubiquitous aspect of the brand, hitting an RL outlet means the possibility of finding some major deals. And if you’re not in search of a full-look, a smart shopper would stock up on Polo socks and underwear at the very least. At an RL factory store you can get the Hamptons look just by hitting the highway. “I don’t design clothes, I design dreams,” said Ralph Lauren, apparently.
(The events began on September 7 with a blockbuster fashion show and black tie dinner at Bethesda Fountain in Central Park.) At 78 he was a bit unsure of his pitching arm, and while he had no illusions that he would be confused with C.C. Polo is hardly as all-American as Ralph Lauren would have you believe. In fact, the horseback croquet is one of the oldest equestrian sports in the world, and was first played in Persia sometime around the 6th century. In its early days, Polo was more of a military drilling exercise than it was a sport, invented with the intention of training cavalrymen, before it was taken up by nobility. Polo did a world tour of influence before gaining popularity in England, from which it was then brought to America. So really, the U.S. was one of the last countries to jump on the Polo trend bandwagon.
Two major new ventures begun in 1995 took Lauren into the highly competitive blue jean and mass-market women’s clothing categories. Both took the Lauren name to a new customer at lower prices and were instant hits. In 1996 Lauren’s Home Collection contributed about $535 million in sales world-wide—more than any other designer.
Seventeen cars from his collection were exhibited at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris in 2011. In 2017, Lauren’s now $350 million car collection took center stage during New York Fashion Week. Lauren celebrated the 50th anniversary of his brand in a fashion show at Bethesda Terrace in Central Park on September 8, 2018. Attendees included Oprah Winfrey, Hillary Clinton, Kanye West, Robert DeNiro and Jessica Chastain. Lauren has appeared on over 100 magazine covers including Architectural Digest, GQ, Forbes, Town & Country, TIME and Vogue. In 1974, he outfitted the male cast of The Great Gatsby in costumes from his Polo line – a 1920s-style series of men’s suits and sweaters, except for the pink suit which Lauren designed especially for Robert Redford’s Jay Gatsby.
The Montauk place is both elegant and comfortable at the same time—comfortable in part because it is not so elegant as to be intimidating. The wood-paneled room overlooking the ocean has a large fireplace, a sisal rug, a couple of Eileen Gray glass tables, a sprawling white sofa, and a mirror that reflects the view of the surf. A big coffee table in the center has piles of art and architecture books, an old copy of a magazine with David on the cover, and the catalog for an upcoming auction of vintage automobiles in Pebble Beach.
His wide, colorful ties were the opposite of the narrow dark neckties common at the time; they sold well and started a new trend. Lauren started his own company and the next year launched a line of men’s clothing, Polo, offering styles that were a mix of English and American styles and that expressed an image of class. Lauren’s menswear was a success, and in 1971 he introduced his women’s line. As the years went by he continued to branch out into polo dress shirts children’s clothes, colognes, footwear, home products, and other merchandise. Ralph Lauren is an American fashion designer known for his popular Polo line and other lines of clothing, accessories and home decor. Founded in 1967 and initially offering a line of men’s ties, the company grew quickly in a short time and had its own boutique within department store Bloomingdale’s by 1969, and its own stand-alone store in Beverly Hills by 1971.
Ralph Lauren Polo partnered with L’oreal to introduce fragrances, beginning with iconic men’s scent Polo and classic women’s fragrance Lauren in 1978. The next two scents in the line, Chaps for Men and Tuxedo for Women, both introduced in 1979, also became beloved classics. Lauren designed costumes for the films The Great Gatsby and Annie Hall that influenced the way millions dressed. Lauren is also paterfamilias of a unit that is part and parcel of his legacy. His wife Ricky and his three children, Andrew, David, and Dylan, have long appeared in his advertising, and David, 48, is now chief innovation officer and vice chairman of the Ralph Lauren Corporation. At the 50th anniversary fashion show in Central Park, amid such luminaries as Oprah Winfrey and Hillary Clinton, all the Laurens stood up when he took his bows, as they do at every one of his shows.
Ralph Lauren Corporation designs, markets, and distributes lifestyle products in North America, Europe, Asia, and internationally. The company’s restaurant concepts include The Polo Bar in New York City; RL Restaurant in Chicago; Ralph’s in Paris; and Ralph’s Coffee concept. Ralph Lauren Corporation sells its products to department stores, specialty stores, and golf and pro shops, as well as directly to consumers through its retail stores, concession-based shop-within-shops, and its digital commerce sites.
Ralph Lauren partnered with L’Oreal in 1978 to release two debut fragrances, his and hers simultaneously, launched at Bloomingdale’s. “Polo” was woody, vigorous, and masculine where “Lauren” was soft, floral, feminine. This event would inaugurate decades of smash-hit scents for men and women , and an enormous slew of magazine advertisements ralph lauren t shirt torn out and pasted on teenage walls worldwide. From Ralph Lauren Blue, Polo Sport, Ralph for Women, Ralph Lauren’s fragrance campaigns, with their perfectly of-the-moment casting and youthful sex appeal set the tone for his and hers aesthetic aspirations. Perhaps advertising campaigns are just as closely linked to memory as scent.
The jacket was part of the 1993 Cold Wave snowboard collection and ended up, in major thanks to Raekwon, becoming one of RL’s most coveted releases of all time. Cold Wave originals are so rare that today they go for thousands on eBay. Re-issued in 2018 to much fanfare, the Ralphabet would be nothing without this grail collection.