In 2000 the company’s Web site, Polo.com , was introduced, allowing online access to all Ralph Lauren products. Lauren’s charitable contributions continued with the creation of the Polo Volunteer Program and the contribution of $5 million to establish the Ralph Lauren Center for Cancer Prevention and Care at North General Hospital in Harlem, New York. Lauren lived the image he projected, and he was often featured with his family in magazines devoted to lives of the rich and famous. One of the secrets of Lauren’s success lay in his attention to detail, always checking product quality and maintaining tight control over the brand image he crafted so carefully. He had seven Coty design awards and was inducted into the Coty Hall of Fame in 1986.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Lauren started the business in 1967 in a tiny office at the Empire State building. His first breakthrough came when Neiman Marcus ordered 1,200 ties. His cars have won “Best in Show” at the prestigious Pebble Beach Polo Ralph Lauren t shirt Concours d’Elegance twice, his 1938 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic won in 1990 and his 1930 Mercedes-Benz SSK “Count Trossi” roadster won in 1993. In 2005 his collection was displayed at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.