Ralph Lauren is known as the most famous and successful American designer of polo shirts and other lines of fashion clothing. Ralph Lauren was born Ralph Lifshitz in 1939 in the Bronx, New York, in a working-class neighborhood. He was the youngest of four brothers. His father was a house painter. Lifshitz became interested in fashion in the 7th grade. At the young age of 12, he was one of the best-dressed boys in his school, spending most of the money he earned from part-time jobs on expensive clothes. When he attended DeWitt Clinton High School in New York, he worked in department stores in New York. After joining the army following high school from 1962 to 1964, Lauren continued to work in department stores such as Brooks Brothers, selling ties, and studied business at night. In the mid-1950s, Ralph Lifshitz changed his last name and became Ralph Lauren.
In 1967, while working at A. Rivetz & Co., Ralph Lauren started to design neckties. My two Labradors got hold of the shirt without my knowing. They dragged it through mud, played tug of war with it, etc. When I found it, I realized it was not torn anywhere, and even the tags stayed on the shirt!! It was covered with mud, so I immediately washed it. It came out perfectly!!! This is a Christmas gift for my son, so it wasn’t even worn yet. GREAT PRODUCT!!
While never receiving formal education in fashion design, Lauren had always had an excellent eye for fashion since childhood. What he did during this time was considered outrageous: While the style of that era had been for thin black ties, Lauren designed wide ties with flashy and bright colors. A year later, with a $50,000 loan, Ralph Lauren launched his own product line for menswear called Polo Fashion. He picked this name with his older brother because it symbolized prestige and high class. Ralph Lauren Polo clothes combined the English preppy style with American robust individuality.
In the following years, Ralph Lauren designed ladies' and kids' fashion lines. In 1971, Lauren set up his first store on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, California. A retailing genius, Lauren expanded to 116 Polo Ralph Lauren stores in the United States, stores in London, Paris, and Shanghai, and 1,600 department store boutiques. By the 1980s, Lauren opened 62 factory outlets in the United States selling damaged and previous-season clothing at discounts. In 1986, Lauren converted the Rhinelander Mansion in New York to a mega-boutique. It was called the "Best boutique in America, and probably the world" by John Fairchild of Women's Wear Daily. By the 1990s, Lauren had designed product lines for men's and women's scents, cosmetics, and home decoration, including bedding, towels, furniture, curtains, carpets, and kitchenware. In 1997, Ralph Lauren was the world's highest-selling fashion designer at over $ billion.
With houses on 5th Avenue in New York City, Colorado, and Jamaica and driving a '29 Bentley, a '37 Alfa Romeo, '38 Bugatti '62 Ferrari, Ralph Lauren has lived the life of high-class, adventure, and prestige that he portrays in his clothing lines. Lauren's global success has mostly been due to his natural gift for fashion design, understanding and setting trends, creativity, and his great eye for elegance, style, and detail, which he shares with the world through his famous Polo Ralph Lauren product lines.
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