Ralph Lauren

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

Ralph Lauren was born on October 14, 1939, in the Bronx, New York, to Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants from Pinsk, Belarus. At age 16, he and his brother legally changed their last name from Lifshitz to Lauren due to bullying at school, following his older brother Jerry who had done so after bullying in the U.S. Air Force. He attended DeWitt Clinton High School, graduating in 1957, and studied business at Baruch College for two years before dropping out. From 1962 to 1964, he served in the United States Army. After his discharge, he worked briefly for Brooks Brothers as a sales assistant, then as a salesman for Rivetz, a necktie company. At age 28, working for tie manufacturer Beau Brummell, he convinced the company president to let him start his own line. He launched The Ralph Lauren Corporation in 1967 with men's ties. Lauren named his first full line of menswear Polo in 1968. By 1969, Bloomingdale's had built a Polo shop-in-shop boutique. In 1971, he launched a line of tailored shirts for women, introducing the Polo player emblem on the shirt's cuff, and opened the first freestanding store for an American designer on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. In 1972, the company introduced a signature cotton mesh Polo shirt in various colors, featuring the polo player logo, which became emblematic of the preppy look. In 1974, he outfitted the male cast of The Great Gatsby in costumes from his Polo line, designing a pink suit for Robert Redford's Jay Gatsby. In 1977, Diane Keaton and Woody Allen wore his clothes throughout Annie Hall. His work is heavily influenced by the aesthetics of the British aristocracy, country life, and traditional craftsmanship. Lauren has said, "I've always loved England because it was non-fashion. ...It was timeless."

Reader's Guide

Ralph Lauren's significance lies in building a global fashion empire that defined American preppy style while drawing heavily on British heritage. His brand expanded from men's ties to include women's wear, fragrances, home goods, and restaurants. The first Ralph Lauren fragrances, Lauren for women and Polo for men, were launched simultaneously at Bloomingdale's in March 1978, the first time a designer had introduced two fragrances at once. The company went international in 1981 with a store on New Bond Street in London. In 1986, he opened his first flagship in the Rhinelander mansion on Madison Avenue. The company became publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange on June 12, 1997. Lauren stepped down as CEO in September 2015, replaced by Stefan Larsson, but remains executive chairman and chief creative officer. He celebrated the brand's 50th anniversary with a fashion show at Bethesda Terrace in Central Park on September 8, 2018, attended by Oprah Winfrey, Hillary Clinton, Kanye West, Robert De Niro, and Jessica Chastain. Lauren married Ricky Ann Loew-Beer on December 20, 1964. They have three children, including David Lauren and Dylan Lauren. In April 1987, he underwent surgery to remove a benign brain tumor and made a full recovery. During the early 1990s, he reportedly had a prolonged extramarital affair with model Kim Nye, mentioned in multiple media outlets and documented in Michael Gross's 2003 unauthorized biography. He is a noted automobile collector with about 100 rare cars, including a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO, three 1996 McLaren F1s, and a Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic. His cars won Best of Show at Pebble Beach twice: his 1938 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic in 1990 and his 1930 Mercedes-Benz SSK "Count Trossi" in 1993. His philanthropy focuses on cancer research: he co-founded the Nina Hyde Center for Breast Cancer Research in 1989, supported the Ralph Lauren Center for Cancer Care and Prevention in Harlem in 2003, and partnered with the Royal Marsden to open the Royal Marsden Ralph Lauren Center for Breast Cancer Research in 2016.

Did You Know?

• Lauren legally changed his surname from Lifshitz to Lauren at age 16 due to bullying at school, following his older brother Jerry who had done so after bullying in the U.S. Air Force.
• In 1978, Lauren became the first designer to introduce two fragrances—one for men and one for women—simultaneously, launching Lauren for women and Polo for men at Bloomingdale's.
• His cars have won Best of Show at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance twice: his 1938 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic in 1990 and his 1930 Mercedes-Benz SSK 'Count Trossi' roadster in 1993.
• Lauren co-founded the Nina Hyde Center for Breast Cancer Research at Georgetown University Hospital in 1989, named after the late Washington Post fashion correspondent.
• He owns about 100 automobiles, including a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO, three 1996 McLaren F1s, and a rare Lamborghini Reventón Roadster.

The Great Exhibition and the Call for Reform

Jones specifically lamented that architects, upholsterers, weavers, and potters were churning out "novelty without beauty, or beauty without intelligence." The exhibits struck them as over-ornamented, artificial, and disconnected from the true qualities of their materials. These texts established principles like ornament being subordinate to the object it adorned, and utility taking priority over decoration.

Intellectual Foundations and Key Thinkers

The philosophical bedrock of the movement was laid by several towering figures. Ruskin argued that a nation's ethical health was inseparable from the quality of its buildings and the dignity of its labor. He dismissed the mechanized, divided production of the Industrial Revolution as "servile labour" and insisted that factory-made objects were inherently dishonest, championing instead independent artisans who shaped what they made with their own hands.

The Art Nouveau Debate

Scholars have offered three fundamentally different readings. The movement's aesthetic was also shaped by Viollet-le-Duc's writings on nature and Gothic art, which provided an essential theoretical underpinning. This tangled web of influence and opposition means that no single narrative can fully capture how Arts and Crafts related to the wider currents of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century design.

Global Reach and Lasting Resonance

Perhaps the most striking example of its global resonance came in Japan, where in the 1920s the Mingei movement emerged, explicitly promoting traditional craftsmanship in a spirit that echoed Arts and Crafts' reverence for handwork and material honesty. The movement's dual character—as both a design philosophy and a social reform agenda—gave it a breadth that purely aesthetic movements lacked. Its leading practitioners refused to separate questions of how things were made from questions of who made them and under what conditions, a stance that distinguished it sharply from the earlier mid-century design reformers who had focused primarily on ornamentation without challenging industrial production methods themselves.