Ralph Laurent Pt 3

Thank you for joining me to listen to part 3 of Ralph Lauren. 

Thank you for listening to my podcast. See this iconic man's timeline of 

Ralph Lauren – Brand History & Timeline

Ralph Lauren’s career began in 1967 with a small neckwear line and has since grown into a global fashion powerhouse, blending Hollywood glamour, American heritage, and timeless style.

1967 – The Birth of Polo
Ralph Lauren launches a neckwear line under the name Polo, working from a drawer in the Empire State Building. Inspired by Old Hollywood glamour, he creates wide ties from the highest-quality fabrics
Ralph Lauren.

1968 – First Full Men’s Collection
Debuts his first full men’s collection, including a white flannel suit and dress shirts in sport shirt fabrics. Ralph aimed for “more romance” and excitement
Ralph Lauren.

1970 – Bloomingdale’s Boutique
Opens the first-ever boutique devoted to a single designer at Bloomingdale’s, with Ralph overseeing every detail, from wood paneling to fittings
Ralph Lauren.

1971 – First Standalone Store
Opens the first standalone Polo by Ralph Lauren store on Beverly Hills Rodeo Drive. By decade’s end, stores appear in Houston, Atlanta, Dallas, Detroit, Chicago, Palm Beach, and Fort Lauderdale
Ralph Lauren.

1971 – Polo Pony Debuts
Introduces the iconic embroidered Polo Pony on women’s shirts, marking the debut of women’s designs inspired by men’s lines
Ralph Lauren.

1972 – The Polo Shirt
Launches the now-iconic polo shirt in vivid colors, becoming a symbol of American style. Ralph notes its aspirational and colorful appeal
Ralph Lauren.

1972 – First Full Women’s Collection
Debuts a women’s line taking cues from menswear, delighting both critics and customers
Ralph Lauren.

1974 – The Great Gatsby
Polo’s menswear appears in the film’s period costumes, with a custom pink suit for Robert Redford’s Jay Gatsby
Ralph Lauren.

1976 – Coty Awards
Wins the Coty Award for womenswear and the Coty Hall of Fame Award for menswear, becoming the first designer to win in both categories in the same year
Ralph Lauren.

1977 – Annie Hall
Diane Keaton’s Oscar-winning film look features several Ralph Lauren pieces, cementing the brand’s influence in Hollywood
Ralph Lauren.

1978 – Polo for Men
Launches the Polo fragrance, with a signature green bottle inspired by a vintage flask, complementing masculine notes of pine, leather, and tobacco
Ralph Lauren® Australia.

1986 – Paris Flagship
Opens the first Paris store and a New York flagship in the Rhinelander Mansion on Madison Avenue
visionsourceshowcase.luxottica.com.

2000 – RalphLauren.com
Launches the official e-commerce site, now RalphLauren.com
visionsourceshowcase.luxottica.com.

2007 – Eyewear Partnership
Enters a 10-year eyewear agreement with Luxottica
visionsourceshowcase.luxottica.com.

2008 – Olympic & Paralympic Outfitter
Becomes the official outfitter for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic teams
visionsourceshowcase.luxottica.com.

2014 – Polo Women’s Eyewear
Introduces a women’s range under the Polo brand, including eyewear

References: Co Pilot 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Hello everyone. Thank you for joining Take a Fashion Seat. And I appreciate each of you tuning in weekly to listen to my fashion chat or fashion talk about business, fashion shows, brands, fashion designers, and incredible people all over the world. Gotta love it. So tonight's topic is Ralph Lauren Part 3. So I've done two segments, but he deserves three because he's so iconic. Now, Ralph Lauren history spans like back in 1967, um, tailoring in the 1970s. So we're gonna go through the errors of Ralph Lauren. That's what we're gonna do. We're gonna go through the errors because he's been around, he's iconic, he's beyond a legend. Now, he started in 1967, and let's talk about 67 through 79, where he did um, he started with like the a necktie. So he began selling um a European-style ties um at Bloomendale's, and guess what? Ma'am, the name was Ralph Liftschitz, and I'll spell it for you. L-I-F-C-H-I-T-Z. Not Ralph Larn, but Ralph Lifschitz. That's the way I'm pronouncing it, that's the way it's written out. So he started with the tie, and it was under the name Polo. All right, guys. See, we're learning stuff, and see that's why I wanted to do part three because it's more to the segments that I did in the past. Now, between 68 and 72, he did the full women's wear and men's wear. He did he launched like a line, iconic men and women button-down shirts, um, and they were like signature polo, like the polo player shirts. Remember those guys? I think we all have one of those in our closet or somewhere. If you go vintage shopping, you'll find them every time. Like I do a lot of vintage shopping, and normally I'll come across a roughline polo shirt. If it's not in the men's department, sometimes it's in the women's department, and guess what? Sometimes it's even in the kids' department, depending on what you're looking for. You can find a legendary signature style polo player logo shirt. Now, between 1974 and 1977, that's where Ralph did the Hollywood thing. He went into, he outfitted Robert Redford, the Great Gatsby, 1974, and Diane Keaton's Annie Hall. Yes, I mean you every time I read, I learn something new about this iconic gentleman. Now, The Great Gatsby, I'm reading that now. I'm almost finished. I've been reading, let me tell y'all. I started reading. I read The Great Gatsby. This is my third time. Third time around. It was so good. So I'm reading it again, but I can't get through it because I'm just too busy. And I'm trying to get through it. I want to get through it before the end of the summer, and I will. And then I can do, guys, I can do a book review. But Ralph Lawn outfitted Robert Redford, the great gatsby. Yes, he did. Now he expanded between the 80s and the 2000s with the streetwear. Um, he did like the urban hip-hop takeover, like subcultures. Um, Brooklyn adopted the bowl, you know, like colorful windbreakers, the stadium gear, you know, the prize collection. He also did the he opened up a new Bond Street London launching, you know, the men's and women's fragrances. He did that, and then he did um the RRL, double R L Rugged Western Wear, like the purple label. So he this is what was going on through the errors. Um, it's so much. Um, we're gonna dive deeper, but that gives you basically a rundown of the errors, but we're gonna go through so much more because there's more to talk about. Okay, so you can go on his website, which is www.roflon.com, and you can see the world of Ralph Lawn and the timeline that will also give you a history and his timeline. Um, the Encyclopedia Britannica also talks about the biography. Um, and then there was an article written by Blue Collar Red Lipstick. They did my guide to Ralph Lawn's Universe, and then Reddit did a guide to Ralph Lawn's brand. Um, and you can do the observer.com and they did All American style. Thrifter did a history, and I like the Rifted article the best because they did the history, and they went on to say you can't make this stuff up. And we haven't let's take a look at the man, the brand that are the living proof that American dreams do come true. That's why I love this article because American brands do come true, and Ralph Lauren is the model for making that case. Now, Ralph Larne, his popularity boils down to many factors, guys, and it's like the trend timelessness, um, transcending trends, um, his clothes, it's just something more living outside the fashion cycle. So it's just like he began in 1967, he worked his way up, and look at him today, he's still going strong. Um, he throughout the 70s, Ralph Lauren continued to expand his following, boosted by his costume designs for Hollywood. He did, like we talked about, the Great Gatsby, Diane Keaton. Both films were instant cult phenomena. The people clamored for the slick suits of the Jay Gatsby. Gotta love it, guys. Gotta love Jay Gatsby. And I'm reading about him now. Um, and it just in the 80s and the 90s saw massive expansions for the Ralph Lauren brand. Um, during the 80s, the brand diversified. It expanded its homeware. He did like colognes and denim. And he did, you know, just he just grew in the 80s. Saw doing the kids' clothes. And he spent, you know, he opened a flagship store on Madison Avenue. Um, and he did a whole bunch of stuff. Now, the polo brand and its various spinoff lines was picked up by everyone from punks to skaters and you know, the preppy ivy league college kids. Um, just amazing. The youth identified with the brand and acted accordingly, and they still do. Shortly after 1991, there was a launch of the polo teddy bear as well as the polo bear, you know, the motif. So the sportswear hit the big time in the 90s. Um, and then it, you know, the stadium collection, it went on and on and on. Now, this is a point. The collection inspired by athletic uniforms um came out in conjunction with the Barcelona Olympics. When the line dropped, the pieces became instant cult phenomena. So he's just notorious for bringing us these amazing designs and people just like gravitating to them and purchasing the items. Now, the early 90s became the um skate and snow culture. A new guard was coming. This, you know, there was the skaters and the snowboarders, and Ralph Lauren changed his one collection. The 1993 snowboarding collection changed everything. Did the dark blues, greens, yellow, and reds. Now, there was um with the recent resurgence in the 90s culture, we've seen during the past few years, it only makes sense that Ralph would um reissue some of the most iconic collections ever. And that's why I keep going back to him because it's an American dream that we all should be talking about, embracing, and you know, putting under our wings. In my opinion, Ralph Lauren is like one of the greatest and most historical um designers that ever lived. Now, VIE magazine did preserving Ralph Lauren's Golden Era. So they want to they spoke on that subject. Um, and they just like for anyone who grew up watching Friends Working at Ralph Lauren was the ultimate cool girl career. And so they this article was by Katie Ogletree, and it just was beautiful. It just talked about Ralph Lauren because while Rachel was busy climbing the corporate fashion ladder, um, Laird McIntosh was building an obsession with the extra golden era world of Ralph Lauren from the tweeds and equestrian tailoring, polo country flannels, dramatic double-breasted suits, and cinematic advertising campaigns turned American menswear into mythology. And that's just basically how it was. And I'm looking at this amazing picture with one of his tailored looks, and um as chatted on one of the videos, beautiful picture. Um, his mother and father both greatly appreciated the arts. His father was um, they appreciated culture. Together they introduced him to opera as a child. Um he was, you know, they were fascinated with designs and elegance, and then all of that helped shape who Ralph Lauren is. Um, theater world later became central to his view of clothing after years of performing at Canada's Framed Stratford Festival. You know, they talked about Laird during the national tour of Murray Poppins landing on Broadway, um, and the idea of clothing storytelling site the Thoroughbred New York. So Laird admired classic British heritage labels like Bavar, Balstaff, it was Ralph Larne that became his true obsession. So that's what we're talking. We're talking about Laird and him collaborating with Ralph Lauren and how iconic how he started and how he collaborated and how his parents raised him. We just talked about it, and how he got together with Ralph Lauren, and they did a lot of things together. Now, this piece right here says, ironically, it was the collapse of the theater industrial during the pandemic that transformed that passion into a business. When Broadway shut down, both Laird and his wife suddenly found themselves out of work. Productions of Phantom and the National Tour of My Fair Lady, in which he played Henry Higgins, were halted. Like many artists, during that period, he was forced to reconsider his future. This is when he began casually selling pieces from his collection through Instagram. Now, one transaction in particular shifted him entirely. Once I sold one piece to someone overseas, and his person was willing to pay me without you know knowing me at all. Now that realization eventually became the Thorabad New York, a brick and mortar space dedicated to vintage Ralph Lauren, something Laird which shopped had never existed in the United States. Of course, opening a shop came with enormous risk. Laird jokes that he had already spent half of his life savings building his personal polo archive over the years. And today, the Thoroughborn New York has become a pilgrimage for collectors and menswear enthusiasts alike. So people, Ralph Lauren campaigns are helping people, and people romanticize his brand. And Laird was one of them. And it went on to tell the story, and you know it ended like, but the moment the hunt and the thrill itself remain enough, knowing that there are holy grail pieces that have yet to be found from Ralph Lauren's rich body of work. Because somewhere out there, buried in an estate sale, hidden in a closet, or forgotten in an attic, there is still another piece waiting to be discovered. So we you gotta love the whole Ralph Lauren era, his lifestyle, his clothing, his history, his story, and how we preserve him and his iconic clothing because we can remember that he put like a lot of love in his brand, and it started in the 60s, and to this day, if you get anything off Ralph Lauren, it's gonna be quality, beautiful, and you can pass it down. That's how beautiful his items are. And he was born in 1939 in the Bronx, and he went to Barch College where he studied business, and you know, his life is just, and you can find all of this information under the Ralph Lawn Corporation, where it talks about how he climbed the ladder of success, etc. And he was born in the Bronx, everybody knows, and you in every year, like fashion when they do the fashion weeks, you can kind of like find him around. Um, if he's not doing a runway show, you could probably catch him at a party or doing something because he's he's always busy. So I hope you enjoyed listening to my podcast tonight and me chatting for part three of the iconic and amazing Ralph Lauren, who is an incredible human being. And I hope one day I get to meet him or you know, like cross his path. I just want to cross his path. Gotta love Ralph Lauren. Have a great evening.