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.
In 1977, Diane Keaton and Woody Allen wore Lauren’s clothes throughout their Oscar-winning film, Annie Hall. Lauren attended day school followed by the Manhattan Talmudical Academy, before eventually graduating from DeWitt Clinton High School in 1957. He went to Baruch College, at the City University of New York where he studied business, although he dropped out after two years.
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.
Ralph Lauren launches a subscription fashion rental program, a first in the luxury market. It’s market research, brand building and a new customer acquisition strategy all in one. For 30 years, Lauren has supported breast cancer research, cofounding Georgetown’s Nina Hyde Center for Breast Cancer Research in 1989.
Lauren will stay on as executive chairman and chief creative officer. Spanning the range from casual sportswear to formal wear, the company’s clothing and fragrances reflect a classic American style, and often impart a rugged, outdoorsy image. Many garments and fragrances incorporate a logo with a pony, with or without a polo player astride. Originally conceived as a women’s wear spinoff of the preppy, all-American Ralph Lauren brand, polo dress shirts’s popularity has grown to include stylish menswear, big & tall, preppy styles for children, handbags, shoes and accessories. Explore our collection of Lauren Ralph Lauren clothing for work, special occasions and casual wear clothes for the entire family.
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 Polo Ralph Lauren t shirt 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.
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.
In 1992 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Council of American Fashion Designers and a tribute for twenty-five years of impact on American style from the Woolmark Awards. The Council of Fashion Designers later elected him Designer of the Year in 1996. The youngest of four children, Ralph Lifshitz was born in the Bronx, New York, on October 14, 1939. While attending DeWitt Clinton High School in New York, he worked part-time for New York department stores, saving his money to buy clothes.
Polo expanded rapidly in the 1980s and 1990s, opening boutiques across the United States and abroad. In 1986, Lauren opened his company’s flagship store in New York’s Rhinelander Mansion on Madison Avenue, which has since become flanked by several other Lauren stores. With Goldman Sachs having purchased more than a quarter of the company in the mid-1990s, Polo Ralph Lauren went public on June 11, 1997, trading under the symbol RL. As of October 2015, the success of Polo has earned Lauren a personal fortune estimated at more than $6 billion, ranking Lauren among the 200 richest people in the world. In 1967, while working for Beau Brummell, Lauren began designing his own men’s neckties with a wider cut, branding them under the name “Polo” and selling them at large department stores, including Bloomingdale’s. Lauren was able to more fully develop his business with a $30,000 loan, eventually expanding his designs to a full menswear line.
Polo currently produces clothing for men, women and children and has hundreds of internationally placed stores, including factory stores that produce the majority of his sales domestically. The company launched its website and online shop in 2000 as polo.com by RL Media . In 2007, Ralph Lauren Corporation acquired the NBC share of RL Media and the web site was relaunched as ralphlauren.com. In 2008, Ralph Lauren Corporation launched a brand called American Living, exclusively for JCPenney. It was the largest cross-category brand launch in the history of Ralph Lauren and JCPenney. On September 29, 2015, it was announced that Stefan Larsson would replace the company’s founder, Ralph Lauren, as CEO in November.