Ralph Lauren The World-Builder

The celebrated fashion designer is lauded as America's master of style for good reason. But there's a lot more to the man than his fashion labels.

- Paul Croughton

Ralph Lauren is the most successful American fashion designer of all time, having built his brand upon an idealised, optimistic vision of the US, a greatest hits of the 50 states, which he disseminated throughout his homeland and exported around the world. But such is Lauren’s global influence that labelling him merely as an American fashion designer feels miserly. Because isn’t Ralph Lauren simply the most successful living designer, fashion or otherwise, in the world?

Name another. In Europe, Giorgio Armani arrived not too long after Lauren and has had arguably as much an impact on men’s style over the years, by ripping the innards out of his jackets and normalising, indeed elevating, deconstructed tailoring. But didn’t Lauren actually get there first, fashioning soft blazers and suiting to emulate his Hollywood heroes? Lauren was first to create a homewares line, too, and released his debut fragrance a few years before Armani. Philippe Starck, Tom Ford, Norman Forster, Miuccia Prada, Dieter Rams? Innovators, of course, in their fields, but Lauren stands above them all. If you include those no longer with us—well, that’s a longer conversation for another time: Yves Saint Laurent, Gio Ponti, Le Corbusier, Coco Chanel, Enzo Ferrari, Karl Lagerfeld. But even there, Lauren’s is the name that won’t go away.

For now, let’s agree on this—Ralph has done okay. An example: sometime over the Atlantic on a recent red-eye, I made, in hindsight, an odd choice of sleeping aid—watching the high-adrenaline Rocky sub-franchise