It’s about the “old-world” kind of style. And in these brands, Double RL is something I love. But even at that, it’s important to keep it updated keep it young keep it tuned in. You can’t just say, “This is it.” But I think I paid my dues. You’ve got to constantly work on these brands. I did what I wear, and when I went looking for things and I couldn’t get them, I’d said, “There’s something I’m looking for and I know it’s right. My philosophy was that I never had focus groups. RL: I have always done what I love myself. Why do you think that approach is relevant to consumers today? ![]() You have the luxury you have Double RL you have Polo. I’m very high on it.ĭS: Clearly, you still believe in having different labels within Ralph Lauren. But we sort of tested it out on our own stores and I think we got a good reaction. RL: I think it’s going to be very big, but I hate to say that because it puts me on the spot-I wouldn’t do that in a public company. I said, “I’m going to do Polo and really do it …” But I’ll do it the way I think it should be done today, which is much more sexy, downtown.ĭS: Do you have a sense in your head of how big a part of your overall sales Polo will be eventually? I said, “You know, I can really do Polo for women because there are lots of things that young women love in the men’s line.” They want this shirt, they want that jacket, they want the sweater, and it seems at the time it looked a little mens-y, but when you put it in the fashion show, it looks really cool. It should be the designer, and it should be the name.” So, that’s how I started it. I started with ties and then I went to womenswear, and when I went to womenswear, I said, “I’m not going to call it ‘Polo’ because that’s very mens-y. But for a long time, you’d resisted the idea of Polo as a women’s label. But it occurred to me as I walked away from that memento-filled sanctum, maybe the secret is to be a world-class listener.ĭirk Standen: One of the things that got you thinking about doing Polo for women was hearing your daughter, Dylan, say she wanted to wear her husband’s plaid Polo shirts. To build an empire as vast, consistent, and enduringly vital as Ralph Lauren’s, you have to know a thing or two about communicating your ideas. I’d been bracing for a monologue, but he insisted on a dialogue. I’d been prepared to hear him recite his hits, but he was just as ready to get into the misses. ![]() I’d been expecting guarded, but he spoke candidly for more than an hour, without even the ghost of a PR handler in the room. The topic at hand was his newest baby, Polo Ralph Lauren for Women-it launches tonight, Monday, September 8, with a high-tech spectacular in Central Park-but no subject was off-limits. But the moment Ralph Lauren began to speak, his voice a soft hepcat whisper, any preconceptions went out the window. And the man sitting across from me was more or less familiar from his photographs: the carefully barbered white hair the tan, gentler now than in its full Cary Grant glory the art-directed getup of white jeans, sneakers, and khaki jacket, with a jangle of turquoise and silver pendants peeking out from the neck of his matching khaki shirt. The office was pretty much the way I’d pictured it would be: wood paneling, black-and-white photos, sleek leather-and-chrome club chairs arranged around a book-laden coffee table the size of a boat.
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