Original subtitles

It is perhaps the ultimate accolade,

not merely to have your name known, but to have it become an adjective.

Memories feel Proustian, music sounds Mozartian,

and clothing, linens, furniture

and even whole rooms can be very Ralph Lauren.

Dearest Ralph,

as a designer, you conjure up all things I most care about.

The country, misty mornings,

summer afternoons,

great open spaces, horses,

cornfields, vegetable gardens,

fireplaces, and Jack Russell terriers.

Your story is not about trends,

or fleeting moments, but about values,

and things that last.

You've not only created a total concept of fashion and style,

but by your consistency and integrity,

protected it, always reminding us of the best things in life.

And if you say something is very Ralph Lauren,

you're immediately understood.

VERY RALPH

Everything in this room is a mix of everything that I love.

They're gifts from friends, gifts from people in the company.

They all mean something and they're not just things.

I'm inspired by everything that I see.

You know, I love old things, I love cowboy boots, I love details.

I love cars.

They're sort of the beginnings of a concept.

Somehow it all ends up in my clothes.

We oughta work on something that's a little lighter.

This is authentic but maybe we need to do a feminine version of that.

I never thought I was in the fashion business.

If someone asked "are you a fashion designer", "no, I hate fashion".

I think anti-fashion was always something that Ralph was inspired by.

So it really comes out of just a gut that Ralph has,

this amazing instinct.

Ralph always says I never went to fashion school,

he doesn't do his own sketches.

Not all designers do, but many of them do.

These are great. I love these.

I think he was freed.

I think it was an amazing thing that he didn't have that training.

I didn't have the training to cut the garment

or do some of the things that designers do.

But I had the eye. And I don't know where it came from.

When I was growing up, I didn't even know what a designer was.

But my father was an artist.

The color somehow comes from my father.

My father was a painter.

He made paintings and murals in offices

and churches and synagogues.

I'd watch him up on scaffolds painting and I'd say:

"Wow, it's amazing." But I didn't have his talent.

But somehow I was given something else.

The artistry came in another way.

Ralph had this special thing that rose to the surface.

He had such a great creativity and imagination.

I always felt a little special about who I was.

Was I Eddie Fisher ?

Or was I whoever the star was at the moment ?

When I was a kid, I'd go into a dance

and the girls, somehow I could feel that they liked me.

And I couldn't figure out what it was,

whether I was really handsome or it was my imagination.

But I enjoyed if someone said I was cute.

He had a natural affinity for finding things

and putting himself together that made him special.

"Where did you find that, Ralph ?"

Maybe he'd find a local store that had an old army jacket

and he'd wear that.

Or maybe he'd grab a jacket and was stylish, and it was like boom.

Everybody looked around and said: "That's great ! That's cool."

He just had style.

I saw Ralph when I was a teenager.

We both grew up in the Bronx.

I remember seeing him because he dressed in a way

that was so different from everyone else,

and I thought how cool that he has the courage to walk around like that.

He had a very personal look.

When I was fourteen, my friend took me up to his house.

And then he opened his father's closet.

I saw all these shoes with shoe trees in them.

And I said: "Wow, look at that."

I went home and looked at my closet.

It was shoes piled up. I hardly could find one shoe after the other shoe

I lived in a small little room with my two older brothers.

I had the cot.

And I realized that I can't wait to get out of here

so that I can have my own drawers and my own things.

I grew up in a very humble way.

My parents were European,

came to this country when they were 16 or 17 years old.

And they took care of us and loved us.

I always had a nice home life with my parents

and my brothers and sister.

But you are always aspiring.

You set your dreams.

You're looking out at the world a little bit,

learning that life could be better.

I could see that there was something that he was creating,

that I think later on he would use in his design rooms.

The vision was the same.

He had this idea about lifestyle,

buying into "you can live this way" through his clothes.

Thank you. Want to take a look ?

When models walk into my office, they're 18 years old,

no sophistication.

- Where are you from ? - I'm from Germany.

All of a sudden they become something else.

The star of your movie.

- Hi. - The light went out.

- I think she's good. - Yup, she's good.

I like very natural women.

Not too much makeup.

She just wears a pair of jeans and a t-shirt.

Not the girl with all the fashion and the designer clothes.

And I love long hair.

Hair blowing in the wind, convertible.

That's what my vision is. That's what my wife looks like.

My mother is his muse.

She has a great sense of personal style and simplicity.

She's beautiful and she's very natural.

My dad does not like any makeup on me or her.

He wants very natural beauty.

She really just is so down to earth.

My mom's sort of a tomboy jock and elegant woman.

My mom walks into a room

and she just looks natural and her dress is flowing

and he says: "Wow, you look beautiful."

And then he'll go into the office and says:

"You should have seen how Ricky walked in, what she did."

"The way she was dressed... That's what I'm trying to capture,"

"a little bit of that spirit."

His different characters come to life, but they all have pieces

of my mom in them.

I grew up passing Ricky's door in the Bronx, but we'd never met.

When I met Ricky, she was 19 and a half years old.

There was an honesty and an integrity to her, and a sweetness.

And by accident, she happened to have been beautiful.

He said: "If I asked you, would you go out with me ?"

And I said: "I don't know, ask and we'll see."

But he was thought I was being very clever and coy,

but I wasn't. I was innocent and I said what I felt.

I was 24 years old and I was not looking to get married.

But we fell in love and it was like, after about the fourth date I thought,

"this is the girl I'm gonna marry".

We were children. We were living there in the Bronx.

We were still kids.

We had a small apartment with a pullman kitchen,

a kitchen that's in the same room as the living room.

We had nothing.

We slept on the floor on a mattress.

And that was the beginning.

We had a train above our heads, the L.

It was like a movie.

We would hear the noise.

It was like "Barefoot in the Park".

When the train went by and the whole room...

It's sort of the young married couple. And I remember we had a phone

and the phone was a turquoise princess.

And I never, ever thought I'd have a turquoise princess phone in my house.

But we loved the phone cause it was so modern.

And we'd go down to Greenwich Village

and there was a store that sold furs.

And they sold patchwork furs very often.

And we'd go searching around for interesting things

that we could decorate the house with.

We had a bulletin board.

And on the bulletin board we would tack dream pictures,

things we loved.

Like he would put a Morgan sports car.

Or a beautiful place.

Anything that we loved at the time.

His father was an artist. And he was able to do faux bois,

which is fake wood. He painted it.

The walls of the living room were wood, but not "really wood".

They were painted.

And we painted all the little trim in the house

and they were wrought iron and we made 'em like gold.

We stayed up all night long gilding. It was ridiculous.

With those fur rugs and everything else that we had accumulated.

We didn't have very much, but we were happy with what we had.

You like that ? You want a bag ? Like a very cool bag ?

The one with the studs was...

It doesn't have to be a ponytail, but there's something chic...

When you see her hair up, you want it more dramatic.

Yeah, let me see that.

That looks beautiful. The bag looks a little rugged.

I didn't know what my story was going to be.

I didn't say I'm gonna be this great fashion designer,

or whatever you wanna call it.

But even as a young man, I had a story.

He always had a sense about what he wanted to look like,

how he wanted his clothes to look.

When he was a tie salesman, he and Ricky had just gotten married,

and he went to a custom tailor

and just told him what he wanted.

No training whatsoever.

And he designed his wardrobe with this tailor.

The Daily News Record,

which was the menswear daily newspaper,

did a story on Ralph back in 1964, on his personal style.

"Finding the right item ready-made often proves impossible for Ralph Lauren."

This is three years before he started his business.

He was just this dashing man about town who,

because he couldn't find exactly what he wanted in the stores,

was having his clothes custom-made while he was a salesman.

I just knew what I wanted.

I had this passion to get something, and no one was doing it.

So I'm saying: "I wanna buy a tie. I wanna wear the wide tie."

I would go to a tiemaker and have them make ties for me.

Why I wanted the wide tie ?

Maybe I saw it in old movies and they looked great.

Maybe it was on Fred Astaire and I liked the look.

And I said: "I want that."

But I didn't know where to buy it.

I saw 'em in the movies, but I didn't see 'em in the stores.

I had ideas about newness.

And so I started out making these ties and I made them unusual.

My ties were handmade, they were special.

My mom would sit there with a cousin of hers and they'd sew the labels

into the neckwear.

And my dad helped Ralph make swatch cards.

And it was kind of like everybody pitching in.

The office really was the tiniest little thing

in the Empire State Building. And all he had was a drawer.

And in the drawer, he had the samples of the ties and the fabrics.

I called the brand Polo because I always loved sports.

And I thought well, I couldn't call it baseball or basketball.

And Polo sounded sort of sporty.

It sounds like a master plan, it wasn't a master plan.

I didn't think about that. I said this is what I wanna do. I like these ties,

I'm gonna make them wider, I think they're gonna like it.

I brought it over to Bloomingdale's.

Because Bloomingdale's was the entrée into every store,

'cause every store, at that time, was shopping Bloomingdale's

to see what was new,

who the new resource is, what's happening.

And I brought the ties to Bloomingdale's.

The buyer looked at the tie and said: "Ralph, it's too wide."

"Would you make it a little narrower, and would you take your label off ?"

"We wanna have our store brand."

When our tie buyer asked him to take the Ralph Lauren label off the ties,

he simply closed up his sample case and walked away.

I don't know what gave me the guts to say no.

Not selling to a major store that was gonna give you all that exposure,

because I want 'em to be the way I designed it

and this is the brand and this is the name.

Right then and there, that was gonna be his first opportunity

to really do some business or whatever and he walked away.

Forget about it.

You don't have to buy my stuff, I'm not gonna give you your label.

When he told me, it got me kind of nervous.

But I wrote him a letter and in the letter I said:

"I'm not going to be in your way. I'm going to wish for you the wings to fly,"

"and I'll be there with you."

"Whatever you do, I'm there for you."

I loved what she wrote. It was very deep-felt.

Ricky's parents came from Vienna. They left when Hitler came.

She grew up hearing what they lived through,

and so, she wanted stability.

She was saying: "I believe in you, and I think you're gonna do it."

And I did it. Bloomingdale's came back to me.

The Polo Tie, by Ralph Lauren, all linen in 10 smashing colors.

12,50 at Bloomingdale's, the Father's Day store.

When you have a four-inch tie instead of a three-inch

or two-and-a-half-inch, it changes the way someone looks.

When you had a wide tie,

the next step is you need different shirts and different collars.

Now you have new ties, new shirts,

and you need new suits.

That was the era of the '60s,

the time when the whole men's business

really was going through change.

And I found a whole world of ideas.

The timing was interesting.

The world was changing. Fashion was happening for men.

It was the early '60's when men wore a uniform.

There was just very, very prescribed ways of dressing.

It was the '60's Mad Men era.

Men's clothes were still very, very conservative.

I knew how to do the ties.

But I didn't stop from there. I just kept going.

What am I gonna wear with the ties ?

We gotta make a shirt. Gotta make a suit.

I found a suit maker, a shirt maker.

All of a sudden, they're buying the ties, they're loving the ties.

What else you make Ralph ? I have shirts.

He was doing very flamboyant shirtings

and these wide lapel suits.

And so, it was news. And I was a journalist,

so of course, I wrote about him, because it was fantastic.

He had done this linen belted back suit.

No one was doing wrinkled, unconstructed suits.

You can picture guys in the '30's.

And I immediately thought of Gatsby.

"The look comes straight off Gatsby's lawn."

He started with, you know, the kind of clothes he wanted to wear,

the characters he would like to be.

He wanted to tell stories,

and that was completely new and revolutionary in the men's arena.

He basically created the menswear industry, as a designer reality.

When I was starting out,

the designer name was not appealing to men.

They were used to buying in certain companies, certain brand stores.

But designers were for the women and the tailor was for the man.

As long as it has the folds it in, Jerry.

Ralph took some of the great classics

and made them relevant. He made them better.

Better fabrics, better fit.

And Ralph's taste...

Bob, if you want to take off your hat, take off your hat.

He has a very critical eye.

And Buffy Birrittella was so attuned to him

that she knew exactly what he wanted.

The attention to detail, whether it's a shirt

or a shoulder on a jacket,

those were things that he trained my eye on very, very early on.

For chairman of the board, I don't know.

So when you go out there, take your time.

Walk back and forth across the T and up and down.

One of the things he was trying to do was to meld

the custom tailoring of English Savile Row

with an American sensibility.

But it was the spirit of the clothes, not just the technical details

that made me see clothes in a whole other way.

I knew I had to work for him.

Buffy was my right-arm. She understood the clothes.

I showed her a jacket, she got it. Her eye was good.

He's very competitive.

He's very sure of himself.

He had a real sense about who he was and what he wanted to do.

Some would characterize it as cockiness,

but I saw it more as confidence.

He just had a real belief and passion about what he was doing.

Ralph came to me and said I need a shop.

And in his typical, calm, understated way, he said:

"Marvin, if I don't have a shop, I can't sell to you anymore."

We gave him a shop.

And really planned one in the middle of our main floor.

I mean going into Bloomingdale's...

I mean, owning a store within a store...

I said: "How did Ralph get on the first floor of Bloomingdale's,"

"where all the bags and the makeup and the jewelry was ?"

But no, Ralph is right there. He had front stage.

Always had. Ralph had the whole picture.

Bloomingdale's, Marvin Traub particularly, was a believer.

I became their guy. And they said:

"Keep going Ralph, we want more."

But it grew too fast. And I didn't have the right bankers at the time.

There was a certain point in the very early days,

where Ralph almost lost the whole business.

In the early 70's, before we started licensing,

the company had overextended at the bank.

The money going out was far extending the money coming in.

We couldn't even, I believe, make our payroll.

I just remember, like, one of the guys said:

"Ralph, you're out of business."

I remember I was so scared.

I was sweating, but it was cold.

I was worried about telling my father.

I thought, the one person...

I had this vision of telling my father I went out of business.

I got up in the morning. It was raining.

And I don't know why,

but I put on a white jacket and white pants.

I hardly ever wear all white suit.

And I was walking in the rain and I said to myself:

"I'm going to make it back. I'm not gonna let this happen."

I went to my partner, Larry Lockman, and said:

"We have to advance credit to the Ralph Lauren company,"

"so they can buy piece goods in order to ship to Bloomingdale's."

Something we hadn't done for other people.

I saved some little money.

I put everything that I had back into the company.

And I made it back.

I had a voice, I had a showcase,

I can do this.

Designer as a store, not just a designer as a tie or shirt.

The designer as a business.

You think you have to convince me ?

I'm sitting here like: "It's gonna be hard to convince us."

What's strange about this ?

The only thing strange is we should've been there two or five years ago.

One of the biggest flaws in so many fashion people

is that they're brilliant, they're clever, they have beautiful ideas,

but they really don't have any business sense.

He clearly has an extraordinary business acumen as well.

Ralph knew exactly what he was doing.

He had a sixth sense to know what the world needs.

I'm in the business of fashion.

It sounds like a frivolous thing. And not important.

But I think it's important that people express who they are.

Fashion has to be desirable

and give somebody some kind of emotional reaction to it.

And Ralph sees that and understands that

and he gives them the whole package.

He always looked at clothes in a cinematic way.

How they created a character.

What they said. What images they conjured up.

What moods.

Thinking about the man as a character in his own movie.

Anytime I've ever tried to find the tweed jacket or a hacking jacket

or a specific type of trench coat

like Rick's trench coat from Casablanca

or his white double-breasted dinner jacket,

it doesn't exist anywhere.

Then you'll walk into a Ralph Lauren boutique and you're like:

"Oh my God, he's made it."

These are Ralph Lauren pants. He has the kind of things I like.

The tweed jackets and those kind of shirts

and corduroy trousers.

But he doesn't dress me. I've been dressing myself since I was 48.

I've always thought of him as more than just a fashion designer

or a businessman, I thought of him as a cultural force,

that he changed the way that we all looked at how we should dress

and how we wanted to.

Mr. Lauren is with us this morning to talk about what's coming up

in men's clothing, about his own attitude toward design,

and what we can expect to pay in the weeks ahead.

I came from a rural working-class background, but I was ambitious.

I didn't want to wear the same suits my father wore.

My father had one suit and he wore it for everything.

But even the best dressed guys in town were all in old men's suits

and I didn't want to do that. But there were no other choices for us.

Then suddenly, there was this guy Ralph Lauren.

There is an attitude about clothes today that is much more relaxed

and unfashionable fashion.

And my role, in terms of what I've believed in and what I wear,

is that I don't really want to look like a fashion plate.

I remember talking to certain people.

They said: "Ralph, I'd love to wear what you're wearing,"

"but I can't. I don't know. it's not me."

"I like the jeans and I like the cowboy boots and the tweed jacket."

Now, every guy I know has tweeds and jeans and cowboy boots.

I think western clothes are as traditional as a tweed jacket,

and I love things that are not fashion.

I love things that have a sense of aging,

that have a background of lifestyle behind it.

What I feel I've given is a certain romantic fantasy to the clothes.

He finds beauty in every aspect of American culture,

whether it be Native American, whether it be cowboy,

whether it's the Ivy League culture.

And he finds the, sort of, nobility in each of those

and he created the idealized versions of the clothing.

Ralph Lauren democratized the whole idea of what was stylish.

And that's the story of America. He was the first one to say:

"No, you know, I think that the guy that is the Gl"

"or the guy that is the cowboy, or the guy that's the working man"

"he can be just as cool as an aristocrat."

The key to his success is an instinctive understanding

that his taste spoke for millions and millions of people.

It wasn't trying to figure out what they like. It was what he liked.

And he was betting that what he liked, they would like,

and he was very, very right.

You think Ralph Lauren Polo. That's what you think, Polo.

The most exclusive, kingly sport that there is.

That requires you to own horses, to know how to ride them.

Ralph Lauren Polo. It wouldn't be Ralph Lifshitz Polo.

That wouldn't work.

A lot of people thought that Ralph had changed his name

because he wanted to be more WASPy.

Absolutely not true.

I am the person who created the name change.

Throughout life, having a name like L-I-F-S-H-I-T-Z,

Lifshitz, was a tough thing to live with.

Ralph and I both went to the Rabbi Israel Salanter Yeshiva.

And in Yeshiva, even though their names were Goldberg and Silverberg

and Silverstein and Cohen and Lifshitz,

somebody still said: "Hi, Shitzy."

There was never a moment when I want to escape my origins,

but I said: "Lenny and Ralph, I want to tell you something."

"I'd like for us to change our names. If you guys would like to do it,"

"I'm ready to do it. I don't need this shit anymore."

When I read that, the reference to his name,

I think there was a smidgen of anti-Semitism there.

It was like: "Who's this little Jew to tell us how to dress up ?"

And I wrote a column to defend Ralph Lauren.

He was coming on, you know. He was becoming bigger and bigger.

And they always pointed out that he was from the Bronx

and his name was Lifshitz, that's his real name.

Elbow jab, "he's just a Lifshitz". And I resented it.

I said: "No ! This isn't something bad, this is good !"

And I likened Ralph to the Hollywood moguls of the thirties and the forties.

L.B. Mayer, who was the head of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios.

Sam Goldwyn, another one.

The Warner brothers, all but one were born overseas.

You can go through the list and say:

"They're all immigrants".

These guys had an idea in their head.

They were really good when it came to feeling the pulse

of the American people.

Come this way, sir.

HOLIDAY, 1938

And that's the eye of the outsider. That's what Ralph has.

I thought that Ralph Lauren, like these guys, created a look.

He was telling people: "This is the great american look."

And how do I know it ? Because first, he saw it in the movies.

All you need is a frame now and you'd be a masterpiece.

My dad was a product of the movies.

He grew up wanting to be like the stars on the silver screen.

He loved the style.

He had heroes. And I think those heroes inspired him.

He wanted to be bigger and better than where he came from.

I think he had aspirations to not only dress the part,

but be the man and move past his upbringing

and become somebody special.

Movies had a great impact on me

because they opened a window to a world that I didn't grow up with.

The idealization of the WASPy American dream

is a Hollywood notion, is a Jewish notion,

is a fashion business notion in America.

And Ralph Lauren's work is very much about class, about aspiration.

Like Hollywood, he sold America

on a version of the American dream.

I was always inspired by the '30's or '40's movies.

Movies made somewhere around the Depression.

They always reminded me of happy, make-believe glamour.

Those movies have always made me feel good.

You could go to the movies for ten cents and watch a comedy

set in a penthouse,

in which the ladies were wearing bias-cut charmeuse evening gowns

and the men were in impeccable white tie or tuxedos.

And everybody was smoking and drinking martinis.

This fantasy of the glamour of a beautiful penthouse

and an elegant party is one part of the Ralph Lauren fantasy.

In the Ralph Lauren version of that,

it's only the elegance and the beauty.

Nobody's drunk.

Nobody's throwing a martini glass and smashing it.

Ralph Lauren has always understood

that people want the world to be comfortable.

They don't really want the world to be full of edge and harshness

and bitterness. They want the world to be right.

The brand is there to make you smile.

And to make you feel like you're dressing the part.

Ralph Lauren is not interested in stirring the pot.

He's not interested in the nitty gritty.

In another era, he would have been one of the great producers in Hollywood.

He would've been able to conjure those dreams

that this kid from the Bronx saw at the movie houses

and wanted to fully engage in.

With Ralph, the proscenium has disappeared

and he thinks it is possible to walk through into the screen

and be fully in those worlds, just as he was.

He has built his own world from a very young age.

And in that world,

the romance, the allure, the dream is alive.

So it's not a dream anymore, it's a dream manifested.

I always wanted a beach house. I had no money,

so Ricky and I would just walk around the beach and say:

"If you could have anyway you'd want to live, how would you want to live ?"

This is such a beautiful spot.

I have a very hectic life and when I get away,

I need to get away where I have the simplicity of life.

And I do feel that my family comes first.

My birthday money from when I was a little girl went to

starting our family.

And I was an only child,

so having three children was a big deal for me. I was so happy.

And it was my job to be the mother.

To be there to support Ralph as he went forward with his dreams.

And it was important for us all to be part of his dreams,

living the dreams together.

My children were always part of everything.

We weren't very social because I have never had time.

I wanted to be with my family.

So on weekends, where everyone's going to everyone's houses,

I remember saying to a friend:

"I'd love to be with you, but it's summer."

"I'm gonna be with my family."

I remember walking with Ricky one day. And in East Hampton,

there are parties on the weekends.

And all of a sudden, we were not invited to anything.

I'd see cars parked in front of all these houses,

people going to parties, to dinner parties.

"I guess they forgot about us, Ricky."

Sometimes you want to be invited, but you don't necessarily want to go.

But when they stop inviting you, then there's a problem.

Ralph totally believes in the importance of family.

It's rare to see him out and about.

Ralph in a way is quite isolated.

And he has a very close-knit group,

with whom he feels comfortable and can be himself.

His family and people that have been with him for years.

I think he feels most at home, and most secure

in these amazing environments that he's created for himself.

And maybe remaining in that cocoon

has kept his vision strong.

Remember the layering looks good too.

Do we have any more of those dresses ?

Do we have any more dresses than this ? More dresses ?

After I had success, it built on more success.

We need more of this. Do we have more ?

And I started to believe I can do things.

And it kept coming.

But I didn't think I would ever do women's clothes.

I'd lose the color here.

I want to see how this could look a little sexier,

a little more evening.

Because it looks a looks a little young. I love the way we look here.

Menswear is easier for me because I'm a man.

I can say that I want those pants.

But when I'm doing women's clothes, I feel like I've stretched.

I need it to be more sophisticated.

Let's see without your hat.

I think you can fix this up, but the white skirt bothers me a little.

He knows the fabric, he knows the silhouette.

She looks sophisticated. That's what I like.

He knows what he wants to say.

They look a little too overpowered.

He's shown it all by the people who bring it in.

And he'll go: "That, that, that, that."

That's beautiful. It could be day or night.

It depends on what we don't have.

The red could be good.

This is very sophisticated. Let me see that.

That's good. Let me see that.

One of the great delights of Ralph is just this sense that his woman can be

in an absolutely drop-dead, incredible, simple black dress.

And at the same time, astride a horse, wearing a beautiful silk t-shirt

and a pair of well-cut jeans.

I just think that he loves women in a way

that other fashion designers really just don't.

He understands women, he respects women.

Maybe she doesn't need a matching belt because of the belt on the jacket.

He celebrates women.

- That's good, that's perfect. - That's a great mix.

Womenswear really started because Ricky and I were saying:

"Gosh, those are great men's clothes. Make 'em smaller."

"We wanna wear them."

With Ricky first, we'd go shopping and she'd go into a boys store

that had hacking jackets and so I'd put the jacket on Ricky

and say: "That looks great. I want that. That's what I wanna do."

He said: "Well, I think my muse would look wonderful if she wore slacks"

"that were pleated. And put her hands in her pockets"

"and had a great man tailored jacket."

"Or a beautiful silk shirt with a bow. Or even a necktie."

He was seeing me

and making things for me the way he thought I would look good.

And he certainly knew how to do the men's tailoring for women.

The first things we did for women, when I first started,

were shirts, but they were made in the men's factory.

He had an image in his mind's eye of what the collar should be.

And the stitches per inch and what kind of buttons it should be

and what the width of the plaque it should be.

The tailor would go back and make something and show Ralph

and then we'd fix it and tweak it some more

and back and forth and back and forth.

The attention to every single detail on the shirt took an entire day,

to fit and perfect one shirt.

At the beginning, Ralph would have the fashion show in his office,

which was a living room with a fireplace and we'd have folding chairs.

Ralph would stand in front of the fireplace.

He would talk about the clothes, it was very informal.

And he had Persian rugs and velvet sofas.

And the showrooms were what would have been bedrooms.

Didn't look like anybody else's showroom

because it was somebody's apartment.

He just loved the idea of this homey place.

The first small show I did in my offices.

I had never been to a fashion show.

After that show, I called my staff in,

which was two people, I think.

I said: "I just want you to know that this is it.

"I want to quit the women's. I want to leave on top."

"I had a good show and I don't think I can go anywhere else."

How am I gonna do skirts ?

I don't know anything about skirts and dresses.

I didn't have enough training.

But I found seamstresses and sewers on Seventh Avenue

and had them sketch the looks of the girls

and what I thought they should look like.

And then we made the clothes based on that.

Back in the 70's and 80's,

he defined how the American woman was changing.

How a modern woman was emerging

and what her needs were and what her life was.

He saw their liberation, he saw their freedom.

Whenever you have a designer putting a woman in a tuxedo,

you're going against the idea of and the stereotype,

of what a woman is supposed to be and what is she supposed to look like.

He just had this vision of the Ralph Lauren woman.

Fresh, American, natural,

different than what been going on before.

I'd been modeling for French designers.

Everything was like a caricature.

Purple fuchsia lipstick,

lacquer on the eyes, lacquer on the hair.

And Ralph said:

"Wash her face. Brush her hair. No makeup."

And I remember thinking at the time:

"Oh my God, this is something new !"

I was so stunned because for the first time,

it was a picture of me. A picture of a woman.

It wasn't a picture of somebody's beauty ideal.

If Ralph has one regret, it'll be that he was not a movie director.

I could see just how cinematic his mind is.

When he talks about an ad campaign,

he's not about trying to sell his clothes.

He understands almost more than anyone I've met

the potency of the American Dream.

He had a very big story to tell.

How better to do it than to have the New York Times Magazine come out

and you've got a 17-page spread of beautiful people,

beautiful life, beautiful lifestyle.

Something that is aspirational, but attainable.

He was the first to do it.

And when the ads came in, it was like an event.

People wanted to see that campaign,

it was as much of a thing in the culture

as the release of a new book or film.

As Polo Ralph Lauren began to become a national presence,

those ads created an image

that was incredibly powerful, deeply alluring.

And different from what other people were doing.

If you look at the early ads, we would go off and shoot

sometimes two weeks at a time.

And we would pack up all these suitcases.

Men's clothes and the women's clothes and the children's clothes

and the home collections.

And we'd create, you know, that world

We cast our movies. Most of them were not models.

One of the men was an architect

and was the husband of the fashion editor of Mademoiselle Magazine.

And Ralph thought he had great style. He had this moustache.

We had sisters of somebody and children of these people.

Ralph would find some, Bruce would find some.

Buffy would grab like a piece of jewelry

that she really loved and Ralph would give us things from his closet.

It wasn't the normal way of working in the fashion business,

where it was storyboarded.

One of the things that drew Ralph to Bruce Weber,

Bruce's pictures were very evocative

and very real and very anti-fashion.

Usually, you have an agency that comes and they research

and they give you a look.

I didn't need the agency for that.

I knew exactly who I was and what I wanted to say

and I knew what I wanted for advertising.

I needed to tell a story.

When I was on the set, they would give me all these stories.

"Tim, this is your house. You just inherited it from your uncle."

"But you try not to let the other family members know yet."

"And then Isabelle's your wife."

They dress you up in these beautiful clothes.

By the time you starts shooting, I mean you really believe this.

I'd pick the girls, I'd pick the guys,

I gave them the background.

It's not even about the clothes.

It really creates the cinematic vision of a life.

In working with Bruce, who is such an American photographer

and so much adores the American way of life and family

and children and dogs and horses,

together they created this Ralph Lauren myth that exists today.

If Ralph is called out for anything, and called out is a big phrase,

because it's very hard to argue with the man's success,

it is for the constancy of his aspirational point-of-view,

and his optimistic point-of-view.

He's a patriot, so he channels all these dreams about America

uncritically into his work and everybody is overjoyed to see them

because they wanna believe that too.

Americans are very attached to our utopian notions.

We'd done some pictures of just this pristine white barn

and it was a misty morning.

And he said: "That's my ad."

It just said Ralph Lauren Country.

There were no models, there was nothing.

And I just remember Bruce Weber said:

"That's one of the bravest things I think Ralph ever did in advertising."

You wanted to step into that picture

and you wanted to live in that world and you wanted to live in that barn.

I think people have sometimes dismissed Ralph as a marketer

because his advertising campaigns were so extraordinarily visionary.

You are not just buying an article of clothing.

You've joined a narrative. And that's very different than what fashion is.

The ads had a language of elegance and a timeless, classic quality.

It was a lifestyle that spoke to me

as a young aspiring black man in the South.

It's a classic statement about style.

Ralph Lauren also broke the codes when he had Tyson Beckford

in those beautiful fitted suits.

You opened the magazine, a GQ, and you saw that it was just like:

"Oh my God, what is this, who is this ?"

Even I said: "Who is this ?"

This young man comes along,

and I guess it was just in Ralphs eye.

Tyson had something that was street, yet elegant. And he was dark

and very handsome.

It was a big thing in the black community

for someone of my color and my mixed race to be in something like that.

No one had done that before, on that level.

Here is a black man in a three, four thousand dollar suit

in a GQ magazine.

Wall Street guys were looking at this and CEOs, businessmen,

were looking like: "This suit is nice. This is really nice."

"I need to go get this."

Ralph has always, at a time when it was not so socially acceptable,

championed diversity.

He was one of the first to use African-Americans

in a very meaningful way in his advertising campaigns

and in his runway shows.

It wasn't a token person. You know, let's just check that box.

He would use them in remarkably strong images

and they would become the face of Ralph Lauren.

And not many other people were doing it at the time Ralph stood up and did it.

It was a big deal to have two people of color

be in a nationwide or worldwide ad campaign.

When you can create a point of intersection,

between enough popularity to make a very large and successful business

and enough creativity to make it feel interesting,

then you're kind of on to something.

Ralph has been inspired by so many things

that he hasn't been confined to one look.

I'm taking things from different worlds.

And there are certain things that I love.

Military,

safari.

Western,

English riding.

They're all romantic stories.

When I'm working on a collection, I'm thinking of characters

and people and movies and books.

They're all part of what goes in and then comes out

and things that I never knew I had,

things that I never knew I carried with me,

are revealed as I start to work.

My childhood, and growing up, and my dreams of future,

everything I've experienced,

everything I've seen.

The creative process to him is like breathing.

There's walls full of clothes and sketches.

The inspiration can come from anywhere.

From an old book, from a painting he might have seen.

Something in a magazine that sparked his imagination.

The movie, Aviator, was coming out and I said:

"That's what I want to do."

And I just started to work on my next season's collection.

I had to take that and build a whole world around it.

If he's got the aviator mood, he's in a room

and there's Amelia Earhart and there might even be Katharine Hepburn.

He had done all the research of the aviator looks.

All of that, it's all in the mood boards.

These are rooms, they are the mood rooms.

He's gathering information, and it's very, kind of, free-form.

And the characters, they're coming to him as he's working.

It's like an artist, keeps adding a layer, keeps adding a new color.

It's like building a statue out of clay,

you take these pieces of clay and then you start to mold it.

Everything is about a story.

It's never about a blouse or a pair of pants.

He's from the same home town as Antonio Banderas

He had a vision of the Riviera.

Gerald and Sarah Murphy, Picasso,

the whole expat American thing back in the 30's.

Hemingway had an effect.

It's just something to spur you on. So sometimes that's a whole collection,

Sometimes it's a little piece of something.

It just takes one spark like that.

A picture, a little raggy piece of denim and he's off.

It's never a literal thing.

It gives you a sense about the color, the texture,

the mood of the clothes.

It's about wear-ability, it's about understatement.

I believe in timelessness that doesn't go out with the trend,

that doesn't go out with age.

What he does is take things from the world

and embrace and synthesize influences.

He is not somebody who created an entirely original way

of seeing and doing things.

Ralph Lauren is not where you turn for the cutting edge.

That he leaves to other people.

You do not need to have an intellectual view of fashion

to like Ralph Lauren's work. You viscerally respond to it.

Not everything works

when you've gotta pull from your toes through your throat

to get this thing happen.

You sort of have to have an editor's eye and say:

"I don't think this is good, put it away."

We always get nervous when you go on vacation.

After you've signed off on everything,

maybe Buffy will get a phone call. "I'm rethinking..."

We started one collection and we were halfway through it.

Bought sample yardage,

we had walls full of clothes and sketches.

Ralph came back from the holidays and said: "It's wrong."

I said: "Wait a minute, I can make it more sophisticated"

"because I don't wanna look like yesterday."

The next meeting, everything came off the walls, and he said:

"I think I want to do something cleaner, sleeker, more contemporary."

"I think I wanna do something beautiful with grey flannel."

We went and we ordered all new piece goods.

Creme, creme cashmere, light grey cashmere,

beautiful mauves and pinks.

And it was a scramble.

But we believe in his instincts

and everyone gets on board.

He has created a team. He sets a template, he has a DNA.

Everybody understands absolutely what Ralph really wants.

He's had many of the same people working for him for years.

I don't do anything alone, I work with a team of people.

My company's like a repertory. It's like a family.

They're good, and they understand.

It's a team that's been developed with my message.

You can't do this alone.

- The contrast here. - Yeah, the contrast...

One of the things Ralph has always loved is contradiction.

There's an amazing picture of Naomi Campbell wearing

like this slinky, beautiful, gold, glistening dress,

and Ralph throws a safari jacket over her shoulders.

All high end designers are trying to deal with

how do you adapt luxury to the increasingly casual lifestyle.

But Ralph sort of forged a lifestyle concept before it was a thing.

He did a lot of things before they were things.

And that's one of them.

Ralph's whole immersion into performance wear and athletic wear

was a huge thing and it really grew out of his belief

in the lifestyle concept.

Now, so many people are jumping to do yoga pants.

Ralph Lauren got into it a long time ago.

He saw that it wasn't antithetical to who he is as a designer,

or of his message.

This isn't a change. It's an expansion.

It's an evolution. An extension of casual.

And it's funny today that all the young guys are talking about

wearing track pants with suit jackets.

And they're like this is what's happening right now,

it's all about the adaptability and about expressing

the relationship with the urban environment.

Guys, Ralph Lauren was doing that 35 years ago.

If you look back at his history,

you see so much of what designers are thinking about today.

Taking these very simple items that you see kids wearing on the street,

whether it's a jogging pant or a parka or a t-shirt,

and making them fashion.

And Ralph was the first to do that, and to understand that.

In a way to see how street style would become the world's uniform.

I had the timing.

Timing when the mood is there.

Who are you ? What's happening in the world ?

But you have to have a strong vision and staying power.

For every good designer,

the clothes are an extension of the person.

It has to come from within him, and it clearly does.

And his idea was, it wasn't just a collection of clothes.

It was this complete lifestyle. And it was all consistent

with this dream that he has.

He really put the world together.

Children, furniture, men's, women's.

The pillows, the sheets, the blankets.

The duffel bag.

Ralph Lauren was the very first fashion designer

to design a full home collection.

He took lifestyle and made it haute style.

He took simple, everyday beautiful things

and made everybody covet them.

You can buy a whole Ralph Lauren room.

Every single thing. The hardware.

I've bought some of his hardware. It's just fabulous.

You can just sort of live this Ralph Lauren life.

And it's now become the standard in the industry.

I don't know any brand that aspires to just be a clothing brand,

everybody aspires to be a lifestyle brand.

I think Ralph Lauren legitimately offers up a lifestyle.

I think a lot of other brands basically just offer up a lot of stuff.

And this window right here is not gonna go up to the ceiling.

Everything that I have done has been from my vision of what I would like.

What do I like for my kids, what do I like for my wife,

what do I like for my house. It was no one telling me this is new.

There was no one saying: "Do it !" I did it.

All of a sudden, he's like: "I gotta do home ware,"

"cause I've gotta put stuff in my house. I need napkins !"

Every place is a set. It's my parents' movie.

The house in Bedford, it's an estate.

It feels like you're in England.

And then, they found a beautiful place in Colorado.

A beach house in Montauk.

An apartment in New York.

And then, Jamaica.

Beach, Western, English.

They conjure up houses and they conjure up furniture.

I've taken cowboy boots and I've made them into chairs on my ranch.

These homes, they're fuel for him.

In these homes, he finds inspiration.

My dad can dream up these lifestyles

and create an aesthetic in his surroundings.

It's an emotional thing.

If I come out West

and I have a dream about what these cabins are gonna look like,

well, if I'm gonna make the cabin, I want it to have a squeaky door.

He feels like things get better with age,

so he brings things from the past into the future.

You could open a cupboard and find an amazing stereo system inside.

But the old paint's still there.

He's timeless, but he's definitely living in the now.

With Ralph Lauren, while the mythology does indeed kind of meld

into the reality, it's because the mythology comes from the reality.

Most of us will never be on a thousand acre Colorado ranch,

but you can experience all of it through Ralph Lauren.

Just looking at his life and his work,

they're one.

It's completely autobiographical.

He's completely sharing his interests and his life and it's positive.

Does art imitate life ?

Or does life imitate art ?

With Ralph, there's no separation.

I'm that guy in the movie,

and my wife is the girl in the movie.

It starts out with a fantasy, a dream and it ends up

as part of your life.

When you're out West,

you think about the trees and the colors, the architecture and the plains.

They're inspiring to me.

When he's in Colorado,

and he's coming down from a long year of hard work,

he gets out there and he just sits down and looks at the mountains.

He has a quietness about him,

but it's almost because he's absorbing everything and he's listening a lot.

You know my dad's like a real down to earth family guy.

Alright, so here's the question.

And when we're together, we're watching movies,

we're hanging out having hamburgers and hot dogs.

This is fun.

We have a very tight-knit family that stayed together

and played together.

My dad is loose and easy.

And he's funny.

He puts on a pair of sunglasses,

he gets in a car and a character starts to emerge.

He'll be dressed according to the car

and the color and the look and the lifestyle.

We'd go for a long drive and then we'd come home

and he would squeeze the orange juice.

My mom would make the pancakes, and then we'd put on Sinatra.

He'd start singing with a wooden spoon.

You know, for a few seconds, you think "Old Blue Eyes" is in the room.

Whenever he puts on his white tuxedo and dinner jacket,

he is Frank Sinatra, he's Cary Grant.

He gets out there and he has these moves.

When we dance, he's spinning me around like we're Fred and Ginger.

He really knows how to work it and become the personality.

My name is Bond. James Bond !

He is very playful when he's in a crowd that he is close to.

Ralph always, I think, identified with Steve McQueen.

That was "The Wild Bunch" part of Ralph.

But I think his real kind of soul hero was always Cary Grant.

Ralph Lauren always wanted to be Paul Newman.

And always wanted to be a cowboy.

He looks good as a cowboy.

I like for him. I would be ridiculous, he's not.

Ralph gets to play Ralph Lauren.

And Ralph is exactly what he wants to play.

He's good looking. He's a hero.

He can wear any of that stuff.

The evening clothes, or the cowboy clothes

and he looks great.

He's a handsome man. He photographs very well.

He's it. He's Ralph Lauren.

And he's the face of the brand.

Looking back at those pictures, you know, you can see

the origins of this brand.

In some ways, the brand is iconic for those great images

that are ingrained in people's heads.

He has a very strong DNA,

and this is like the gift, the absolute gift for a brand.

Definitely.

The public figure who's in his own ads,

who lives his own lifestyle,

is also a very shy person.

And so it's important to make a distinction between the mythology

that he has spent his entire life creating for others

because he wished to have that for himself

and the real person.

But there's not that much daylight between them.

Designers, when we were all coming up,

just thought about collections, fashion.

Ralph was thinking about his brand. No one else thought about that.

He just separated himself and his company

from the fashion business, because he was creating his own world.

I think the thing that had to be so frustrating for him was to create

the lifestyle fantasy and then walk into a department store

and see that it was in this terrible, awfully lit environment,

styled on a mannequin in the wrong way

and poof !

There went the dream and the fantasy that he was trying to bring

into people's' lives.

I felt that there was a need to create and do what I believed

was Ralph Lauren and Polo in a much larger scale.

And I saw this building on 72nd street that had this mansion-like feeling

and I said: "This is what I want."

The Mansion was like a big Hollywood set.

He could create the world exactly the way he wanted to.

So when people walked in,

it wasn't about buying, it was about an experience.

Opening day he took us through the store, with a grand staircase,

oriental carpet,

a huge portrait of an English gentleman right on the landing.

He pointed to it and said: "That's Grandpa Lifshitz."

I thought the store was terrific, and I said: "How is it doing ?"

He said "I think it's doing fine".

He was the first designer to open up retail stores.

He met with a lot of resistance from department stores

because those people thought he would be in competition.

He knew, and he told them your business will grow

because of my freestanding stores.

And it was absolutely right.

Rhinelander changed the structure of fashion to a tremendous degree.

Because up until Ralph Lauren opened that Rhinelander store,

designer vertical retail was not a thing.

And Ralph Lauren had the audacity, and it was audacious,

to open this amazing store on Madison Avenue

a few blocks from Bloomingdale's. That was shocking.

So a lot of people would say, in the press they said:

"Is Bloomingdale's gonna drop Ralph Lauren ?"

Well, Bloomingdale's didn't drop Ralph Lauren,

they increased their order, they doubled it.

I don't think you can overstate

the impact that he had on the way that designers retail their brand.

It's sort of performance art in which you can participate.

It's a stage set, in which everything is for sale.

The store not only had the clothes, but saddles,

riding crops. I don't know what to do with a riding crop or a saddle.

I want a pair of socks. But it made me feel good.

This is my store. My kind of people come here. Equestrians, right ?

I might like to look like that, I might want to have that tweed,

I might want to have that riding boot. I might want to have that horse.

I don't have a stable, but I'll go get the bit, the riding boots,

and I'll look really snappy. It's jaunty.

You always have something in a Ralph Lauren look that pivots

what you feel about yourself, which can give you confidence.

Even a Polo shirt is aspirational.

Rainbow colors. Who would not want to aspire to that dream ?

I moved to America wanting the Polo shirt.

And that, as an immigrant, for me was what America was.

By buying a shirt, you can all of a sudden be part of that club.

I needed a way to set myself apart.

What would be my magician's cloak ?

And it was the Polo shirt.

It said that I could travel from the South Side of Chicago

to the beaches of Montauk.

The longing that he taps into is about belonging.

It's about feeling that you have

not just attained some kind of personal success, but social success,

cultural success.

And so that it isn't just him speaking to the people who already have it.

It's speaking to people who want to have it.

And that's his story too.

People know his story. They know that this is not a guy who was born wealthy.

He's self-made.

But, because his narrative has been so rooted in this very WASPy look,

there's been the sense that everyone in that world

has also looked very WASPy.

And that hasn't really been the case.

Wool hat with the horsey.

This is actually the retro reissue stuff.

It's a little cold outside.

Always Lo socks.

You're not going to catch me without my Polo drawers on.

These guys brought this really rich, interesting context to the brand

that wasn't there.

We took their style and we made it our own.

The Lo Lifes were formed in 1988 in Brooklyn.

Not too many people say Polo.

It's always referred to as 'Lo.

We were always into hip hop culture and the fashion of graffiti,

break dancing, DJing.

And Polo became an obsession for us.

They look like mannequins from the store,

how much stuff they had on.

And I knew how much this stuff cost. These guys were wearing

400 dollar jackets with 300 dollar boots.

Like everybody else, we wanted the finer things in life.

But a lot of people felt the clothes weren't made for us in the ghetto.

We were poor. You know ?

And I didn't have no other way of really getting the clothes.

So I'm gonna take it.

You go on boosting missions with a couple of guys

who can walk in the store and come out with anything.

Down the leg, down the back, in the shirt, in the sleeve.

When we would come back to our neighborhoods wearing these clothes,

you look like somebody, you felt like somebody.

It was a way of saying that you made it, you were successful.

Because it was so regal, it was so royal,

it was the top of the top.

When rap and hip hop embraced Ralph Lauren,

they were essentially saying that we're going to take this symbol

of what it means to be a success in America,

we're going to turn it on its head

and we're going sort of wear it on our own terms.

Ralph Lifshitz came from the Bronx. He pursued the American dream.

It's what we did.

This was our way of seeing America further than the last stop on the train.

I like this. I still like this.

Beyond the glamour of fashion, there is the reality

of making a product, selling it to the stores,

getting it delivered on time.

And then next year. What are you gonna do next season ?

Doing one collection is painful.

It's painful. It's not easy.

And my days are distracted.

I'm not just sitting there designing a dress.

I'm running from an ad meeting to a board meeting

to another meeting.

When you're in this industry, you do have to keep pushing forward.

You gotta get out there and you've got to be better every season.

And he wants to get better with age.

So he works harder.

Building this company, I believe that one person can't do it all.

From the financial end of it,

to the artistic end of it, it's the team.

One person can't be the great artist and the great financial genius

and the Wall Street genius. I might be the only guy, probably.

What's in a brand name ? For Ralph Lauren's Polo brand,

about 767 million dollars.

That's how much was raised in yesterday's initial public offering

of stock in Polo Ralph Lauren Corporation.

Going public just made him more famous.

Ring that bell on the New York Stock Exchange. It's a very exciting day.

And then your stock is traded and then you have to deal with your shareholders

year after year after year.

And you're under a tremendous amount more scrutiny than you were before.

He had a great concern that something would go out of the business

when it became public.

And even though he clearly knew he could make a lot of money,

the decision weighed on his mind whether it was a good or bad decision.

Going public is very complicated for any fashion company.

It places a undue burden on a creative business,

which is always gonna show kind of ebbs and flows

in terms of how people respond to new products.

So that's, like, the star.

You may not totally be free to express what you want.

This is what I want.

And yet, shareholders invest in your business

because they believe in you and they want to see growth.

I don't know all of you, but I would like to know you.

But as you get bigger, it's harder to control the sales,

it's hard to control the design,

and it's harder and harder to control the company.

And you have to choose some sophisticated people financially

to help you grow.

Sometimes it works

and sometimes it doesn't.

A lot of people have come and gone quite quickly over there,

because they have tried to introduce a new way of thinking.

And that's not possible for Ralph.

Ralph believes in what he has created,

he believes in the Ralph Lauren way of doing business

And it's worked and he's not getting off that train.

I decided to go public because I wanted to have a bigger business.

The whole world was there

and I felt like I had something to say that was international.

The first store that he opened in Paris was the talk of the town.

And now there's a Ralph Lauren store everywhere.

In Milan, in London. There's stores everywhere.

He has created this idea of American style,

and what that means around the world.

I really love the fact that he celebrates his country.

It's very relative to what his vision of America is

and it's very exotic for us, maybe, the French people.

The fact that Ralph Lauren's international name is as important

as the French and the Italians

is very significant for American fashion.

When you ask young designers which designers they most admire

and who they might like to meet,

there's two names that come back again and again,

it doesn't matter what corner of the globe that you're in.

It's Karl Lagerfeld and it's Ralph Lauren.

For me, he is the American designer who represents America

and American fashion best for the rest of the world.

When he went to Japan,

crowds were assembling to take his picture.

He's seen as an ambassador of American culture

and he reminds people of what's great about our country.

That's their slice of America. Having that t-shirt

is their ownership of United States.

I think if we have anything close to a national designer,

it's Ralph Lauren.

When the Star-Spangled Banner was tattering to shreds,

I reached out to Ralph and next thing I knew

he was pledging 13 million dollars to repair our Star-Spangled Banner.

It was literally the flag that was flying

when our national anthem was written.

And it's because he got it. He understands icons,

because he is one.

You couldn't grow up in America in the 80's onwards

and not know the name of Ralph Lauren.

He is the classic American mythological entrepreneurial success story

in any industry.

The official uniform of the U.S. Olympic team has been unveiled.

Ralph Lauren will throw out tonight's ceremonial first pitch.

Being able to pitch at Yankee stadium was unbelievable.

Thank you, Ralph

It is a key to our city.

Ralph Lauren will become the first American designer to be knighted

by the Queen.

I think Ralph has won every design award out there.

Thank you very, very much.

The lifetime achievement award that Audrey Hepburn gave to Ralph

that was the high.

The high of the highs.

Tonight, we salute Ralph Lauren for his contributions to American style,

design, and culture.

And to the way he has added beauty, comfort

and dreams to our lives.

I think this looks very good.

Ralph knows what he's achieved,

but he still comes from that place of hunger.

He still wants to create and excel. He doesn't look at the past success

and say: "Okay, I'm done."

He's never satisfied, he's restless.

And there's always the next season.

There's always the next collection.

There is nothing to be rested on.

And the awards and the accolades are not as important

as the thing you're working on now.

I don't like the belt. I really don't like.

- You don't like the belt ? - I don't like these sneakers as much.

Something is not sharp enough. I don't know what it is.

He has been able to stay very, very true to his aesthetic,

while progressing that aesthetic, one of the hardest things to do,

if not the hardest thing to do in fashion.

He remains within his own framework,

but Ralph is still in there, pushing himself.

Always questioning, he's always looking, he's always thinking.

And I think that he's been concerned sometimes

that he's not been hot enough.

But he says very clearly: "I don't want to be too hot,"

"and I don't want to be too cold."

"I just want to exist. I want to be like Nike"

"or I want to be like Coca-Cola". And I think he's achieved that.

Ralph Lauren has become so established in the culture

that it could be the object of irony.

But that doesn't mean it was created with ironic intent by him.

Ralph Lauren does not have an ironic bone in his body.

He really believes all this stuff.

He really believes how beautiful the world can be

if we would only let it be so.

The thing about Ralph Lauren's world

is that it's so benignly aspirational.

He's really built his entire empire on this idea,

anyone can enter the fantasy, American dream.

And I don't think the American dream ever goes away.

But I do think that it evolves and it shifts

and our understanding of it changes over time.

I don't know that his understanding of it is changing.

And I think it's a problem for a brand

that I think is so much more than just any old fashion brand.

His real adherence to these narratives of America

that are core to his brand

can get a little stale,

particularly at a time when I think a lot of people who have not felt

included in a lot of these narratives are suddenly finding a voice

and demanding that you kind of rewrite how we have thought about

all these stories and you know, this is not a brand that rewrites.

The question is how do you move forward ?

How do you develop newness ?

And how do you stay Ralph Lauren and not lose your identity ?

But I stayed true to myself.

And some of the criticism was very painful.

It's like: "My God, maybe I'm not good. Maybe I think I'm good but I'm not."

I've gone by my gut. Not everything is genius.

And yes, I would love everyone to love it.

But I'm a big boy, and I've lived through critics

from day one.

And I think that if I listened to the critics, I would've quit.

Let's put that on again.

This is my 50th year.

So think of this, 50 years back-and-forth on the runway saying:

"Oh my God, what am I going to do next year ?"

We're searching for what's been done and what's not been done.

These are the pictures.

You're rolling the dice again, and again, and again.

This collection is just a culmination of everything

that you've always believed in.

This is not about every year. This is just now,

and I wanted this collection to be like it was my last.

People say: "Ralph, you don't worry about your shows anymore."

Are you kidding ? I'm more nervous today than I've ever been.

50TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION CENTRAL PARK, NEW YORK, 2018

I was completely boggled by it.

My eyes were falling out of my head because everywhere I turned,

there was some extraordinary person.

Anne Hathaway, Oprah Winfrey,

Robert De Niro, Steven Spielberg.

Every American designer, practically.

And everyone was there just to be happy for Ralph and be proud of Ralph.

I thought it was wonderful.

You're never sure that you got it right.

You think you got it right, you feel it in your gut.

But I'm nervous up until the last moment.

Ralph Lauren's place in fashion history is secure.

He represents something that is more than just a bunch of clothes.

It was a very big tent embrace of everybody.

You know, colors, ages, sizes.

Everyone can be a part of my world.

He took fantasies of what America should be

and made entire worlds out of them over half a century.

I think sometimes he can't quite believe that it's happened.

Sometimes he's still that little boy, not quite believing that

I am Ralph Lauren.

That hug. That to me said, no matter who's in that room,

no matter who's shiny, who's successful,

you always go back to someone who really knows who you were,

and who you came from, and where you came from.

At the very end of the show, he always goes to his family.

And I think that's so touching.

Because you know where the priority lies there.

You have to have a full life to be able to create.

You can't create from emptiness.

And I think Ralph has a very full, beautiful, loving life.

When I saw the children playing, and people from all over

and the mixes of lives and worlds,

I mean, I was emotional.

It was everything I believed in about life.

50 years.

I'm very excited about my work.

I feel vital and creative and I'm looking forward to the future.

I care about what I do and I love what I do.

You have to keep working.

I'm living the life I dreamt about living.

And I enjoy creating my own world.

But as you get older,

you don't need all the things you thought you needed.

You need the good things.

Warmth and the smell of the country mornings.

And the way the fences look, the color of the barn.

And life is wonderful.

When I built my house in Bedford, my mother said:

"What do you need this for ?"

I said: "Mom, I want this so I can have that little house down the hill"

"with a little red barn."

That's for my soul.

Sometimes you have to fulfill your dreams

to know what your real dream is about.

The real dream is family, children, having peace.