Ralph Lauren transformed menswear with his timeless designs and passion for detail. Discover how he shaped a global fashion empire with insights from industry insider Michael Quinn.
Video Transcript [Lightly Edited for Clarity]:
Raphael: Welcome back to the Gentleman’s Gazette. I’m here with the wonderful Michael Quinn.
Michael: Oh, you’re so kind.
Raphael: Michael, thank you! You are SO kind!
Raphael: We’re sitting here in Saint James’s Square Park, and, as you can see, Michael is already dressed to the tee. We wanted to speak about…
Michael: Oh, no, I just, just threw on whatever was there, really!
Raphael: Well, you must have a wonderful closet! I’d be interested to see that one day.
Michael: Maybe one day.
What Ralph Lauren really did for menswear?
Raphael: We wanted to talk about: What Ralph Lauren really did for menswear?
Michael: Oh, my word.
Raphael: And, Michael, you’ve worked for Ralph Lauren?
Michael: I have, I had that privilege. It was a great honor. It was a great honor. I had a very long retail career. I would say working for Mr. Lauren was the greatest honor of my retail working life. And the man is extraordinary. The business is beyond compare. Fascinating. Intriguing in every possible way.
If I started working for Ralph when I was 50, I had 50 and I started working for Ralph. So, I already have an extensive career in retail. But the people I met, the people that surrounded me, were of an exceptional caliber. They were remarkable. I was astonished by the things I learned… so much, so much. Where should we begin?
When did you get into retail?
Raphael: Let’s quickly start with your retail career. When did you get into retail?
Michael: I got into retail after university. I came to London and I worked for Harrods, but specifically for a company called “Rayne” R-A-Y-N-E, who were the Queen’s shoemakers – the Queen’s shoemakers!
Raphael: And what year was that?
Michael: That was in ’74. So that was in the days when ladies would change their shoes several times a day. They would have shoes for cocktails, occasional shoes, and evening shoes. Obviously, Rayne came out of the theatrical world. So it was a wonderful, wonderful experience.
And if I may jump forward about 50 years, I concluded my retail career working for Crockett and Jones, who, of course, hold the Royal Warrant for King Charles. So, I bookended my retail career very much involved with the royal family.
Raphael: Very nice!
Michael: Which was wondrous, and in between came Mr. Lauren, which is fashion royalty, as you know.
Raphael: So what year was that?
Michael: 2000.
Raphael: 2000.
Michael: I worked for four years. And as I say, it was gloriously enjoyable. I wore two hats for Ralph Lauren. I was their accessories manager. So, any product that was not clothing or furnishings, which is chess and devices, they referred to it. That was my product assignment. So that was all footwear, men’s and women’s footwear, ladies’ handbags, luggage, belts, scarves, socks, jewelry, the whole kibosh.
So, that was a pretty demanding product assignment. But I was also the training manager, so I delivered training for all of the staff. Here in London, whenever they opened a new shop in Europe, I would travel there as well, delivering the company’s training package as it were.
So lots of customer skills, soft skills, greeting skills, conversational skills, building client skills, but also product seminars. So, at any given time, most mornings, I’d be somewhere in the store teaching about cordovan footwear or jet jewelry or construction of a woman’s handbag. It was fascinating, Raphael, it was absolutely fascinating and really tested me, but the things you learned were remarkable. Remarkable.
Raphael: So, if you had to sum up Ralph Lauren’s style in one sentence, could you do that?
Michael: Could I do it in one word?
Raphael: Of course.
Michael: Passion.
Raphael: Passion?
Michael: Passion. When he started out, you probably know the story about the big ties?
Raphael: But let’s talk about it! Let’s talk about that story!
Michael: That was the starting point. That was the genesis of Ralph Lauren. And it was so successful that before very long, people started to knock him off. So there were other tie manufacturers, and they were making wide ties with four-inch blades made out of furnishing fabrics.
Ralph was very frustrated. He was very angry. He was terribly upset by this. And one of the buyers said to him, “You know what the difference between your ties and their ties?”
“Love.”
“You love what you do.”
Raphael, I heard a story from a client in the Ralph Lauren store once, and he said to me, “Michael, I bought a tie by Ralph Lauren.” I said, “Oh, that’s nice. You bought a Ralph Lauren tie, you bought a Ralph Lauren tie.” He said, “No! I bought a tie from Mr. Lauren, the man!”
So I just happened to be in the Rhinelander mansion in New York. And he was there, he was up on the men’s floor, and he said, “I have never seen anyone handle a piece of merchandise with such love. He caressed this tie and you could tell that he adored every element of it.”
Very good point for any salesman: the way you hold the garment, hold the shoe—hold it as though it’s precious.
Raphael: And, you know, he started with the ties. And at the time, skinny ties were fashionable.
Michael: Correct.
Raphael: And then he had those wide ties. And I think, you know, in menswear, you always have these phases, right? You have maybe one button jacket, two button jacket, three buttons, maybe four. And then it goes back to 3, 2, 1 and so forth. Ties get wider, get slimmer.
Michael: Yes.
Raphael: Little shorter, little longer. I think that’s the part. And you know he started as a tie company. But what I find even more remarkable is that… he didn’t leave it at that. And he also didn’t leave it at the typical “I’ll just create a clothing brand.” But it went far beyond that.
Michael: Yes, absolutely. He—there was something in the wind in ’66, ’67, and he picked up on that vibe. He’s extraordinarily intuitive. He came to England, I think it was in ’66, and visited Turnbull and Asser, which is a bow tie’s throw from here in that direction. I used to work quite closely with Turnbull and Asser, and they showed me a letter in their archive from Mr. Lauren, in 1966. He had visited the store and thanked them for their service.
Raphael: Those were the days when you wrote handwritten letters as a thank you note.
Michael: Absolutely! Which actually Ralph Lauren staff today are still encouraged to do. They’re still encouraged to do that.
Raphael: Around that time, there was a man called Mr. Fish, Michael Fish, who was making these wide kipper ties.
Michael: He started at Turnbull and Asser. Then, he developed his own brand, his shop on Clifford Street. All the labels said, “Peculiarly for Mr. Fish.” They were wide, with four-inch blades made of heavy, heavy fabrics. Ralph used to take sofas, settees, chairs, and cut them up and trim them. They were so otherworldly from what, as you correctly said, was the norm at that time. There were repp stripes, heraldry, and the odd polka dot. But what he was doing was completely without precedent in America at that time.
He took such pride in these ties. He worked from a little ten-foot square office somewhere downtown in New York. There were no windows at all, and his entire collection was in a drawer—just worked out of a drawer in his office. He did everything himself. His mother would sew in the labels. He delivered them himself, and he invoiced them. He was a one-man band.
Have you followed Ralph Lauren and his progress from ties into the other merchandise?
Raphael: Have you followed Ralph Lauren and his progress from ties into the other merchandise?
Michael: No. I came on board in the early 70s, and I remember it very, very well. It was when Mr. Lauren opened his first shop on Bond Street. He was the first American designer to open a shop outside of America—the first shop of that nature—on Bond Street.
They presented it in the Evening Standard the night before they opened it. It was in Savory & Moore, which was a chemist, a bow-fronted Georgian building. The spread in the Evening Standard just ignited something inside me. That was Ralph looking tanned, young, very handsome, in an old Levi’s shirt that was worn and frayed, with what I always used to call my old hippie days a Grandad vest underneath, worn jeans, and a beautiful conch belt, like a Navajo Indian belt. I thought, “Wow, that’s an amazing look.” He was very into this “Little House on the Prairie” kind of look at the time.
So I hot-footed it down to Bond Street and went into the store. I was one of their first customers. And that thereafter began my love affair with Ralph Lauren.
Raphael: This is a great story because I think one of the achievements he made was that he took elements and mixed them up into a new style, right?
Michael: Yeah.
Raphael: He took the American image—that heritage—and blended it with the old-world traditions and items and created an entirely new look that people found mesmerizing.
Michael: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. In 1970, he won the Coty Award. It was a very prestigious fashion award. For the presentation—and the pictures are iconic—he wore a black dinner jacket, a very classic dinner jacket, with a wing collar, a boot lace tie, faded jeans, and cowboy boots. Nobody had done that before. How brave was that? How brave was that?
Raphael: You’re right.
Michael: He once said, “I don’t like clothes that look new. I don’t like things that look glossy or perfect. The clothes should look sturdy. They’ve got some kind of ancestry, that they’ve been worn a long time. Wear your clothes in such a way that they become part of you.”
Raphael: And you know that wasn’t just talk. But I think he was also someone who very early recognized the value of all these old worn things.
Michael: Oh, yes.
Raphael: We talked to many people. We talked to, you know, Jeremy Hackett, and he said Ralph Lauren came in and bought secondhand clothes.
Michael: Oh, yes, I know.
Raphael: …by the sackful.
Michael: I remember that time.
Raphael: And we talked to Tim Bent from Bentley Antiques, and he said, you know, “I used to go out and buy things for Ralph Lauren.” We went to Michael German Antiques, and Dominic Strickland, the proprietor, is a big fan of campaign furniture. He had beautiful pieces in there. When you go into a Ralph Lauren store, you see that old campaign furniture. And, of course, Ralph had made enough money so he could send out buying teams and buy up all that stuff.
Michael: I want that job, don’t you? You know, I want that job! You travel the world with the black Ralph Lauren Amex card, and you buy up fabulous vintage pieces and antiques. What a wonderful job.
Raphael: And Tim Bentley said, you know, he had goals. He had: “Today, we’re going to buy 20 of these!” “30 of these!” So they went out early and then shipped it back to the US and for the boutiques.
Michael: Wonderful.
Raphael: It’s really amazing. And I think as a continuation of that worn and vintage look, I always look at it in, you know, they—Ralph Lauren does not sell with words.
Michael: Absolutely.
Raphael: They sell with image. It’s the image that creates that lifestyle.
Michael: Absolutely. He understood that so well. He understood it before anybody else.
Raphael: Yeah, he was a pioneer!
Michael: You know, lifestyle is a very ubiquitous sort of term today. Everybody uses it. But he was the first man who wanted to dress—to dress a man’s life.
Raphael: Yes.
Michael: You know, so if you went skiing in Aspen, he wanted to do the sample sweaters. If you had a ranch in Colorado, he wanted to do all the cowboy gear. If you worked on Wall Street, he wanted the double chalk stripe, a pinstripe suit, you know.
Raphael: And he blended this, right? Like, I’m a big fan of the Ralph Lauren Purple Label from Chester Barrie.
Michael: Yeah.
Raphael: Sadly, the Crewe factory is no more, but the suits were remarkable. They had that English look, but there was a softness there. Yeah, there’s a slight variation on it, but yeah, that’s the zero mood board today. Most people make a mood board.
Michael: Right.
Raphael: I think they’d probably be one of the first people to do that kind of stuff—to say, “What emotion do we want to evoke?”
Michael: Right.
Raphael: And that’s—passion is an emotion.
Michael: Oh, yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. May I just add, Dougie Hayward, in the early days, was a great friend of Ralph’s. So he consulted with Dougie about getting the English cut. Absolutely right. And that was a wonderful time when they introduced Purple Label, I think in the mid-nineties.
Raphael: But it’s interesting because you’re quite right.
Michael: It embraces so much. I walked through the store with a friend of mine yesterday, and he kind of really liked that. Not only that, but I’m not into that. There is so much encompassed within the world of Ralph Lauren, so much just harking back to the vintage looks.
I was talking to my friend Dennis, who runs the Double RL brand, and he said from next fall, they’re incorporating Ralph Lauren Vintage, which is a separate brand in itself, and it will be amalgamated with Double RL.
Raphael: So they’re taking old Ralph Lauren pieces, or?
Michael: No; vintage, general vintage. General vintage, and it’ll be sold within the Double RL stable, as it were.
Raphael: Which makes perfect sense. If you go to the Rhinelander Mansion, they have, you know, vintage cufflinks and vintage items here or there.
Michael: Oh, absolutely.
Raphael: But more so in the Double RL range.
Michael: Yeah, absolutely.
Raphael: But you know, even before that—you mentioned the vintage aspect—one thing that I greatly appreciate is vintage Ralph Lauren. I love vintage Polo Ralph Lauren.
Michael: Yeah.
Raphael: Because it was such a big brand, and they were so prolific in what they produced, a range of colors. You know, if you want an interesting look and you may not have the budget, you can go on eBay and secondhand stores and find all of these great clothes. I love the Ralph Lauren shorts—you know, all the patterns they had, whether it’s Madras, seersucker—different colors, different patterns. And oftentimes, they used original, you know, military garment cuts.
Raphael: So you get these little details like the ticket pocket that, at the time, no one else would do.
Michael: Yeah.
Raphael: I love that aspect of menswear, that even though it may have this kind of more elitist, expensive upscale feel, you can still partake because of that. Because it’s been around for so long.
Michael: At any level, you’re buying into the dream. You’re buying into the dream. Paul Smith had this expression. He said, “You buy a Ralph Lauren polo shirt, and you get a free English country house.” So, you know, in the store, I never minded if somebody came in and just bought a pair of socks. They were buying into the dream, and they’d walk out of those doors onto Bond Street with that blue Ralph Lauren bag, and there’s the pony player. They swanned up the street, and they felt a million dollars. They’d spent about $10, but they felt a million dollars! And that is just wonderful marketing. It’s wonderful marketing.
Raphael: I remember in the beginning, you know, you would look at the label, and it would often say “Made in the USA of imported fabric.”
Michael: Yeah.
Raphael: When I first had Ralph Lauren things, that was probably in the early 2000s, and they were of great quality. I remember I had this red cotton sweater—it was a crewneck. I don’t like crewneck much anymore, but it was a bit crisper. It really held up well.
Then, a few years later, my wife’s grandmother would often give me a Polo Ralph Lauren sweater for Christmas because she could easily buy it at Macy’s. I always liked the styling. But I noticed that, you know, now it was made in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, or China. The quality wasn’t quite as top-notch anymore. It was softer. And when you have a softer cotton, it has to be sometimes a shorter staple length, but then you get more pilling.
Michael: Yeah, yeah.
Raphael: Fast forward to today. We walked into the Ralph Lauren store here in London, and they had a beautiful, very classic polo overcoat. It was 100% camel hair, made in the USA.
Michael: Oh, I saw it yesterday, yeah.
Raphael: You recognize the iconic…
Michael: Yeah, but it’s always there. You know, it’s always been there. It’s always been in the line, always, every season.
Raphael: I mean, it was, you know, £2,500, I think.
Michael: That’s right.
Raphael: But it had the flap pocket on the chest.
Michael: Yeah.
Raphael: I thought it was pretty cool to see that, even though the most prestigious label is the Purple Label. Which it seems these days is mostly made in Italy.
Michael: Yeah, yeah.
Raphael: Maybe some things are still made in England.
Michael: Well, the original concept was “English-made.” Turnbull & Asser were doing the shirts and ties. Dougie Hayward and Chester Barrie, later on, were doing all the suitings. Footwear for Purple Label was always Edward Green.
Raphael: I think they changed it over the years; there were, like, Gaziano Girling for a while.
Michael: Yes, yes.
Raphael: Edward Green.
Michael: Yes.
Raphael: These days it’s mostly Italian made.
Michael: Yeah. But interestingly, we’re talking about these fabrics, these worn fabrics. One day, at the factory at Crockett & Jones, this old field jacket turns up. An old, worn, distressed field jacket, with a note from Ralph that said, “Please make a pair of saddle shoes out of this jacket!” To him, it was the most natural thing in the world.
Raphael: Talking about it—your saddle shoes?
Michael: So the saddle, the saddle.
Raphael: Are these Ralph Lauren saddle shoes?
Michael: It is, it is. Crockett & Jones for Ralph Lauren. Yeah. We did such a variety of saddles over the years. I remember one year, he wanted the classic saddle with a Madras saddle. So that part they call the saddle—extraordinary combinations. I think one year for Thom Browne, we did it in cordovan and hairy cowhide. Bizarre combinations, but when I see saddles, I always think of Norman Rockwell, the American illustrator. Look at Norman Rockwell from the 50s and 60s. All his characters always wore saddles. And it’s the older, the better.
Raphael: It’s a very quintessential American style, right? And now, sometimes it’s a little adopted with loafers. It can be a penny loafer, and it has a very distinct, small saddle, but technically, it’s still a saddle shoe—it just may not look like it.
Michael: Can I tell you a story about Mr. Lauren himself and shoes? I was in the store during one of his visits, and I was called down to what they called the gun room. One of the managers said, “Michael, can you come down? Mr. Lauren would like to speak to you.”
And I have to say about the man: charming, gentle, courteous, ever so pleasant, softly spoken. He was wearing an old Gucci loafer from the 70s. It was a Gucci driving shoe, really, and the saddle was coming away. He said, “Mike, can we get this fixed?” I said, “Yeah, sure, we can get it fixed here in town.” He said, “So, how are we going to do this? What kind of stitch do we have? What about the density of the stitch? What color do you think? Should we do it?”
Raphael, it was an hour’s conversation. An hour’s conversation over two or three stitches on a shoe. But he was wonderful. He was courteous through it all. And I thought, “I now know the grief he put all these tailors through in the old days.”
Most of the tailors he worked with during that period—Timmy Palazzo was one often mentioned in New York—oh boy, he drove them crazy because he knew what he wanted, and he wouldn’t be swayed. One tailor told me about a time they were working on a coat, and Ralph kept saying, “I want this, I want this.” In exasperation, the tailor took the jacket off the mannequin, threw it on the floor, and started jumping up and down on it! But Ralph had to get it the way he wanted. He wasn’t going to compromise.
Raphael: It’s interesting because, you know, I heard someone say, “First-time entrepreneurs are always very concerned about product, second-time entrepreneurs are on the whole concerned about distribution.”
Michael: Yeah.
Raphael: In Ralph Lauren’s case, he had this obsession with product. And I can really relate to that. With our own stuff, you want to get it right. You want to test it, you want to get that quality, and you’re putting an immense amount of pride into the product. But he also managed to scale the business, distribute it, and become this worldwide brand that is so well-known, unique, and loved. So I have great respect for that.
Michael: And also, you have to take into consideration that in the early days, he was manufacturing as well. He wasn’t using vendors; he wasn’t subcontracting work. He was responsible for manufacturing. It was an extraordinary task, and of course, eventually, he had to give that up.
Raphael: Plus, if you have a talent—if your talent is to design and you’re really good at that—why would you spend your time doing operations? Why would you waste your time on this when someone else can do it much better than you, and you could fully focus on what you excel at?
Michael: Yeah, absolutely.
Raphael: Another thing I really appreciate about Ralph Lauren is that when you walk into the store—like the Purple Label evening section—they always have interesting tuxedos and dinner jackets. Every season, there’s always something interesting.
For most people, they’re too loud, right? They’re bold. They’re extravagant. Maybe not even navy blue, but more like dark blue with a shawl collar tuxedo in a 4×1 button configuration. I remember when we were at the Rhinelander Mansion once, the dinner jackets were like white with black streaks, all in parallel. I thought, “Wow, that is bold!” And, you know, a bold price to match. But at least it’s pushing the envelope consistently.
It inspires you to not just have that black tuxedo—maybe a midnight blue—but to think outside the box and say, “Oh, there’s the white dinner jacket. What else can we do? Where can we add a little twist?”
Michael: And Raphael, it was never stuffy. It was never starched. It was never tight. He wanted his men to be active, to be comfortable, and to be easy in his clothing. Going back to the Coty Awards with the jeans, there was another great ad from the 80s—the golden era of Ralph Lauren ads—with a man in a tuxedo, obviously going to a dinner party of some sort, in the snow, leading a horse with a Stetson and a raccoon coat over the top. It’s an amazing image, an incredible image.
And it sort of democratized the clothing in a way. It said, “You don’t have to be part of an elite—you don’t have to be part of the English aristocracy to wear this.”
Michael: He did us all a great service. You know, he opened all those closets, all those attics, and all those English country homes, took all that stuff, made it, and sold it back to us. We didn’t know what we had under our own noses.
Raphael: So you had the privilege of being inside a store. And I think one of the fascinating things is when you go into one of the Ralph Lauren stores—be it the Rhinelander Mansion or a store in another city—you walk in, and there’s a specific old-world feel to it.
Michael: Yeah, yeah.
When you were there, did you have specific instructions on how things were styled, or how did that all happen inside those stores?
Raphael: When you were there, did you have specific instructions on how things were styled, or how did that all happen inside those stores?
Michael: Well, it’s a creative team, a huge creative team. They operated then—and I think they still do—at 1–4–3 Bond Street, which was the old kids’ store when they moved to number one Bond Street. The original store became a kids’ store, and the creative department worked above that.
There was a whole battalion of very, very clever, creative people who would transform the store. Obviously, instructions were coming from Madison Avenue, and it was a specific look. I was in awe at the speed at which they worked, the accuracy. If they were doing a Navajo kind of look, and it’s set in Arizona, the sandstone, the sand, and the cacti had to be absolutely right. Again, as with everything, tremendous attention to detail. It was absolutely thrilling—very, very talented people.
Raphael: So you didn’t have anything to do with the in-store presentation? Like the ties..?
Michael: I probably had a little more to do with it than they would have liked because I wanted to get my product out there. I quite often got told off for putting my product in the wrong places. But hey, I’m a salesman as well! That was pretty tightly controlled, though.
On your point about stores, Ralph had this philosophy that if you walked into one of his stores, it was the same as inviting you into one of his homes. And, of course, all the rooms in number one Bond Street—they all have a name. There’s the gun room, the stack room, the trophy room.
If you haven’t been there, please go. It’s possibly the most beautiful store in the world. It feels leisurely. You just want to curl up on one of those Chesterfield sofas, order some Dom Pérignon, and get stuck there all day long. It’s a wonderful environment. They wanted that very, very easy bonhomie, just like inviting someone into their own home.
And there’s a wonderful book out at the moment, Ralph Lauren Living, where you can see not only his own beautiful homes around the world.
Raphael: Because, you know, he has all these beautiful English country-style horse paintings—that’s one thing. But then also, I think another thing he did that has maybe gone unnoticed is to upgrade dressing rooms. The dressing room experience.
Michael: Oh yeah.
Raphael: They’re not this kind of tight little thing at the back of the store. It’s an experience. They’re spacious, stylish, and part of the entire concept.
Michael: Yes, absolutely. Washrooms as well, for that matter! You know, it was everything. Absolutely everything. There’s nothing unattended to.
It’s Ralph’s way of living, and it carried that same visual ethic from menswear to womenswear to children’s to home. He designed his life, and he saw himself in every scenario. If he was at his Bedford estate, he saw himself as a Cotswold squire. If he was on his Colorado ranch, he was a cowboy out on the range. Wherever he was, he lived that. He always said, “I saw myself in everything I designed.”
It’s an important distinction—he claims he never really designed anything. He doesn’t like being called a fashion designer. He’s a stylist. But everything he conceived in his imagination was him wearing that. So, Wimbledon. You see, he sees himself hitting the ball over the net on center court.
Raphael: That’s quite remarkable, right? Wimbledon is like a quintessential British All England tennis tournament. And to have this American brand outfit the ball boys and everything—I find that quite remarkable.
Michael: He says that when we got the contract, he said, “I looked through their archives, and it wasn’t kind of the way I saw it. So I designed the Wimbledon range just the way I saw it anyway!” So, maybe historically, that isn’t too accurate. The same as when he had a thing about English sports. He loves cricket. He loves rugby.
He did a cricket thing back in the 80s, and it was a little bit cheesy. It was done in America. I knew one of the models, Tim Easton, who was British. He was raised in the same town on the south coast as I was. He said, “Mike, I had to teach the other models how to play cricket!”
So, yeah, he’s always had this fascination with the English countryside or the equestrian world, obviously. But, you know, one thing I find absolutely fascinating in the whole Ralph Lauren story is the young boy of 15 or 16, just emerging into the world—this young Jewish kid from the Bronx. He sees an English hacking jacket, and he loves it.
He loves the way it’s waisted, he loves the latchet (collar), and he loves the Harris tweed. Where did that come from? There’s nothing in his background, nothing in his ancestry, no visual reference. He’d never been to England. But something in him said, “That’s just right.”
Raphael: It was an emotional trigger.
Michael: It’s an emotional trigger. “That’s the look I want.” And, if you were to ask me about the whole Ralph Lauren story, I think that’s the most fascinating period. He goes to work for Brooks Brothers and comes in contact with this Waspy clientele and learns about the whole Yale look. Fascinating. Fascinating. He was intrigued.
Raphael: “I didn’t maybe know about this, but this resonates with me.”
Michael: Definitely. Definitely.
Well, Michael, your outfit is definitely quintessential Ralph Lauren. Can you walk us through what you’re wearing here?
Raphael: Well, Michael, your outfit is definitely quintessential Ralph Lauren. Can you walk us through what you’re wearing here?
(laughter)
Michael: You’re very kind. You’re very kind. It’s not all Ralph, to be fair…
Raphael: That’s okay—the style—it could be the style out of…that’s what I would say—the quintessential Ralph Lauren look.
Michael: Yeah.
Raphael: You’re embodying that, you know?
Michael: You’re very kind.
Raphael: It’s a Panama hat.
Michael: Panama.
Raphael: But it has a blue ribbon. And it’s a ribbon that has been worn. It’s not brand new.
Michael: And it’s got a hole in it as well.
Raphael: And it has a nice fold—it’s slightly different.
Michael: You pay more for the hole, you know! So the influences were, as we say, Ivy League. Very much so. Saddles were classically Ivy League. And then the club collars. The tie isn’t a tie he would have designed in ’67, but nevertheless, it’s very Ralph-esque. Madras, an old Brooks Brothers staple, and multitudes. A Waspy staple. Absolutely a Waspy staple.
So there were all these influences that became just a classic Ralph Lauren look, as well as the historic references—clothes from the 20s, 30s, 40s. He was a great film buff. He made a study of all Cary Grant’s movies.
He was a great fan of Cary Grant, Fred Astaire as well. But he studied everything—a pocket flap, a working cuff. He studied these, and very often, because, as we said, he wasn’t a designer, never went to fashion school, couldn’t draw, he would watch the movies.
And, of course, before you could stop a movie and replay it, he’d sit with an illustrator next to him who would draw that particular detail. He’d say, “That shirt. That’s exactly how I want the shirt.” So these were all inspirations.
When you consider that Polo was inaugurated as a company in ’67, by ’70, he had already won the Coty Award. In ’72, he did The Great Gatsby with Robert Redford—the pink suit. The three-piece pink suit with the pink baker’s boy hat—you know, they say only real men wear pink. That was just extraordinary. That was Ralph who dressed that movie.
Raphael: So if I watch the Gatsby movie today, the Robert Redford one, it definitely looks a bit dated to me. It doesn’t have the proper 1930s look. It looks a bit of the time. It’s, you know, like when you sometimes see art deco stuff from the ’90s, it feels a bit strange. Then again…
Michael: So, did you prefer the Baz Luhrmann one with DiCaprio?
Raphael: You know, the Baz Luhrmann… it to me had some of those Ralph Lauren vibes, in a sense. You look at the setup, and it’s beautiful. Do you want to be there? Yes. Were the details accurate? No, they weren’t. And I think, consistently, American movies aren’t so concerned about accuracy.
Sometimes people say, “Oh, it’s just about the interpretation of the director.” But sometimes, I don’t know if that truly is it. What about you? Which one do you like more?
Michael: I didn’t like the DiCaprio one, but largely because I didn’t care for DiCaprio’s characterization of Gatsby. I found him neurotic and a little effeminate. He wasn’t the Gatsby I know from reading the novel.
Raphael: And I agree, the movie itself overall—the storyline and the acting—I didn’t like that as much. But I liked the aesthetics of it. There’s a scene where they fly over things. The camera angles they used at the time were something new. Today, you have drones, and everyone knows these shots, but at the time, sitting in a movie theater, I thought, “Wow, that’s pretty cool.” Though I was already into men’s clothing, and I thought, “Oh, they could have done better here or there.”
Michael: I liked the soundtrack! Lana Del Rey—it was a pretty crazy soundtrack, but I enjoyed it.
Who do you think might fill the shoes of Ralph Lauren?
Raphael: Regarding Ralph Lauren, he’s had this great run so far, and he’s obviously alive and well. I wish him well, and I hope he’ll be among us for a very long time. But I’m also kind of wondering—who can fill those shoes?
Michael: We’ll see. Stay tuned. Stay tuned. He has this magical eye. Despite the fact that now we have an archive that’s almost 60 years old, he does keep one of every single product he has ever produced.
Raphael: That must be a massive archive. Wow. Do you know where that is?
Michael: At one time, it was out in New Jersey, in a warehousing facility. I heard it moved to Madison.
Raphael: But if you think about it, that might be a gigantic gift for classic menswear—to have a Ralph Lauren archive that contains every piece ever made.
Michael: There’ll be a retrospective at some point. The V&A will do it, of course. That’s a living archive. And, as you know, Raphael, you could take one of those pieces from the early ’70s, and it’s wearable today. It’s perfectly wearable. Sometimes the changes are slight—the block changes slightly—but the aesthetic doesn’t change.
I like to think that will survive. That will always be there. It’s constantly evolving. I was in the store yesterday, and they have this wonderful brand called Naiomi Glasses. They’re working with a Native American weaver, and this woman is weaving cloths according to the Navajo tradition. It’s fabulous. She’s the first resident artist for Ralph Lauren, and it’s simply beautiful. It’s constantly evolving—a little twist, little turns here and there.
Raphael: Well, Michael. This was a fantastic conversation!
Michael: That was a lovely little chat.
Raphael: Thank you so much.
Michael: And I think we were just getting started.
Raphael: Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. Why don’t we start going through the Ralph Lauren store and walking you through it?
Michael: What a great idea. Let’s do that. What a great idea!
Do you have a favorite Ralph Lauren piece or memory tied to his designs? We’d love to hear your stories in the comments below!
Raphael,
This was excellent, but you obviously knew more about the topic than Mr. Quinn did.
Michael worked for the Ralph Lauren company at the London Flagship store and has worked personally with Mr. Lauren himself on a few occasions. We thought he’d be a great candidate for a discussion about the impact Ralph Lauren has had on classic style.