Charlie Rose Ralph Lauren interview transcript January 22, 1993; 58:46
CR Ralph Lauren is a visionary and he has an instinctive understanding of the American image he is is own best model for the image he sells customers around the world; it has made hundreds of millions of dollars for him and a private company with annual sales between 3 and 4 billion dollars; it has one him a place in the (??) hall of fame for menswear and womenswear as well as a
lifetime achievement award from the council of fashion designers
and throughout the changes in fashion, Ralph Lauren has remained true to his vision selling an idea as much as a design
Tonight we'll explore his vision in a one-on-one conversation and I am very pleased to have him here
Welcome
RL: Thankyou
CR: it's great to have you here we've wanted to do this for a while
RL: right
CR: the first thing I noticed I've gotta tell you this you made your first mark in fashion with the wide lapel ties I look at the suit one man to another and I see a wide lapel
RL: well you know this is second time around really this was got narrower and then it got wider again
CR: yeah
RL: but we ya-your lapels are okay
[chuckle]
CR: yes I no no-one's ever given me a fashion-award, Ralph.. uh and perhaps never will
let me um let me talk about the beginning though um growing up in the bronx um and the influence of your parents how did they shape you and was there anything there back in those years a place in america that's very tough these days that you looked and can site as where you might have seen the ralph lauren who exists today
RL well you know its um if I had to paint america its what we uh i grew up in the days of rock and roll and I remember earth angel coming out an' the beginning of really rock and roll
and leather jackets and and kids doing you know the elvis an' so my period was uh an interesting period
the area in the bronx was uh my house was right next to a school yard i'd look out the window see whose playing basketball you know and I played baseball across the park so my was a very sort of the last of a breed and sometimes I look at my kids and I say I think they miss something
CR mmyeahmm
RL that I had that at the time didn't know was great but um you know
CR what is it they might have missed
RL: I think there's sort of um
[his eyes change]
freedom and specially in new york that was great and a sense of uh openness being able to go out roller-skating at night you know
CR yeah
RL 10 o'clock at night or bike riding or I just think ummmuh the world was a little simpler a little more magical there were more heroes more things to to think about and Joe DiMaggio Mickie Mantle they were my heroes they were some of my heroes
CR Did you think of being a baseball player or a basketball player or an athlete back then?
RL: I that's what I did all the time was play basketball and baseball
I'd get up to the plate and thought I was Joe DiMaggio of course it was all in my head but um I don't know if I would ever be that but in my dreams at the time where I was you know I had all kinds of you know feelings but I don't know if I dreamt about it or not but I I was that imaginary character as all kids are I think
CR And then from there to City College
RL right
CR and you don't stay long
RL right
CR and you drop out just because you thought there was something better for you you didn't like college or you thought there was something else you wanted to do was more important
RL well I think there was a period of trying to find myself and to sort of decide I was I thought the business world was um not an honest world in other words when I hear about my friends were gonna be teachers and I sorta got that sense they would say "oh ralph your'e going to make you're gonna you know you're going to make money you know that's a that's a dirty word" and they were you know sense of teaching and teaching students and I got the feeling at one point that I said maybe I'm doing the wrong thing by going to business cause I have always taken care of kids and I was a counselor in camp and I was um and color-war so my whole life has been more in a natural field and I never thought about money; I didn't have any and I didn't think about it
I thought of things I wanted to do and be so that's um I think that's how it was I think um the dreams were there and excitement of your life and as far as my parents they were they were very good people and I had uh two brothers and and a sister I have and my parents are both alive
CR yeah uh your dad uh your dad was a painter was he? a house
RL well he's a combination
CR and he
RL when he when he couldn't get a good job he would paint house and occasionally he would do some beautiful painting um murals on the wall and different things and he was very uh it was it was a very interesting time
CR: what intrigues me is you have style
you clearly have style and you clearly have your own sense of style is part of who you are and what you do. was it there then? if I look back in a different way at my own childhood there was this elemental curiosity about everything if it was talking to my father about what it was like to be in the war if it was talking to friends who were doing other things who had been to a baseball game
was there about young Ralph Lipshitz a sense of style of of of of a guy who was a kind of hum somehow knew the right thing
RL: I was a cool guy:
[chuckles]
CR: that's what i was asking [as he stamps his fist agains the table] said better
RL I was cool I was cool. um I knew just when to come into the dance.
CR yeah
RL: uh I don't know you know I had older brothers so you know when you have older brothers to live up to in a way you're sort of uh you're advanced more than kids your own age so maybe I sort of wore what my brothers wore and and uh I never thought about style; i didn't know what that word meant I didn't know what designer meant.
CR: but you didn't have to know what it meant to have it
RL I don't know you know it's uh I I would say I was more as I had a sense of umm I felt I had a sense of leadership in terms of feeling good about what I did and I felt good where I was cause I you know I just had my friends and I played ball and things like that so i don't think i thought of style I think it wasn't on my mind at the time I did what I did and wore what I was but it was more um style came later in terms of what is today's word of style
CR: what was the breakthrough in terms of the business that set you on your way was it those wide lapel ties that that were the hit of of one season and that bloomingdales bought and wanted to narrow and you refused to narrow them
RL I think um let me start really in the beginning cause it's not a matter of breakthrough I think there's an attitude that i've learned that is sort of interesting cause I've sort of as I've been growing up and became a grown up I sort of watched myself almost stepped back and said who is this guy what's happening. it's like almost we all somehow in a way think we sort of never feel like we're really grown up in a way and we're looking at ourselves saying 'look at me lack at what i'm i'm here
CR: that's right that's right (chuckles)
RL: you know look what i'm doing here
CR: yeah exactly
RL and so in a way You're sort of laughing at yourself as you're watching this guy grow up all of a sudden you look in the mirror and said "i got gray hair" I can't believe this
so um the breakthrough you know my life and my career has been an accumulation of build i think it's not a breakthrough it's a matter of staying on a path staying in a direction having a pt of view believing in what you're doing and having the the the scope and the focus to say this is who I want to be this is what I like
now what was that
um
you could I worked for a company um I didn't know what I wanted to be I would have loved tohavebeen a
movie star and I didn't think I was handsome enough you know
CR: but you thought about it
RL: yeah I like that I thought that was great and cool and I would have lots of girlfriends you know but I think uh after that passed I never really went to hollywood or tried it tried to do anything like that but i was very influenced by movies I was very influenced by uh a world that had a sense of dream that had a sense of something else and what I was influenced in these places was the good-guy the the the the [?] cassidy um not the corny guy but the there was the man on the white horse. my sense was i had an integrity inside me about what I believed in i I did it honestly and but I had a point of view I had a very strong so when I started out in my business world
lets say I made neckties i didn't just go around with in in the beginnings when i started the necktie industry was full of men wearing hats and they were old men and it was a very dead industry and here I came along and I had a sportswear and I'd come with a tweed jacket and I'd zip into my car with a bag of ties and I'd go to the stores around the neigh- around the area
i uh
I was selling what I was what I believed in and at that time you know and as I am now it's a sense of uh
i always liked country clothes tweediness
I always loved my history teacher who wore gumsole shoes and swede elbow patches uh so it's a combination of of heroes in a way that um had a something to them you know if you think of a cowboy you think of fringe jackets and old leather things thinkofa you think of certain um images that that represent something that are never dying
you know clint eastward in one movie the last movie he did was about a cowboy
CR: the unforgiven
RL: the unforgiven um i think uh kevin costner's movie um was heroic you know he was a guy who stood against the world that was saying we're going to tear this down all of a sudden he saw these this world that was gonna be the last you know the last of a breed
my sense and i don't know where it accumulate
I didn't have a plan I didn't have a sense of
my sense was i had a direction of doing what i was doing and as I learnt it an' I started in the tie business I watch the ties being designed and I said why can't we do this why can't I do that
the people I wa' was working with they said
they didn't get it and after I watched other people do my ties and the ideas that I had were coming out in other places and I say wait a minute that was my idea
CR [laughter]
RL and so you see
CR that guy's making all the money
RL well I didn't even think about money at the time and and I didn't have any training I didn't go to school fo for design so it was purely coming out of me where it came I don't know it just came out it was a taste level that I didn't know i was developing or had it just came out i wasn't consciously saying um i could do this
CR: what was the point of view though you said you had a point of view
RL: well the point of view really um you know at a certain point if you're a young man um let's say I was in the you call it the fashion business I didn't call it that but it was you're into products your in the fashion business
CR: you didn't call it the fashion business?
RL: I never thought of myself in the fashion business for some reason
CR: and you don't now
RL: i have to think i am because i am
CR: [laughter] kay i'm just
RL: I do I do but you're in what you're in there's two ways there's people that make products
CR: yeah
RL and they say hey I'm going to make this machine i'm going to sell it to all these people
there are people that make products but their product is part of their life
they live what they are
they
it is not apart from them so is that hard to explain i'm not sure
CR no i understand it but let me just take this
here is let me just go to one thing that a is a video-tape
this is the late much loved Audrey Hepburn
from this tape it's clear to me that she cared about you
she is introducing you at the uh Lifetime Achievement Award uh I guess maybe last year or several years ago
roll tape
take a look at this because she makes some points that I want to talk about
Ralph Lauren being introduced by Audrey Hepburn
[audrey hepburn from lifetime achievement award]
"it's tough to pin you down ralph there is no one adjective or ten adjectives for that matter to promptly describe all that you represent it's staggering
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
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
as a man i respect you for your total lack of pretension"
CR: Audrey Hepburn on Ralph Lauren
Lemme lemme just talk about the idea again because it interest me because it is so pervasive today in our culture and this notion uh it is said that General George Patten for example had an image in his mind in his head of what a general was like and he became that and he it became him
RL right
CR he lived it breathed it So that at some point it was him
is there any analogy to you along those lines
RL: yes
yes
uh you know we spoke earlier about dreams and I said that's a word I really don't like
CR right
RL and I think you're right about dreams I think we grow up with aspirations
we grow up with a sense of accomplishment where we gonna go what we gonna be and in the time i was growing up you know it was about going to school getting a job what'r'you gonna do
you're going to become a teacher you're going to become a doctor what'r you gonna be
and what are the aspirations and why
well the aspirations when I was growing up to a degree is
you know y'know get married have children have a nice home you know it was it's still the same thing today but it's changed maybe slightly but there were aspirations and dreams if accomplishment in terms of "a life you want to live" and so i had the dreams of a life I wanted to live
of to horseback-ride to just have a good life
CR mmhmm
RL and they are dreams and in doing what I did my clothes were part of the dream that my clothes were part of the world
you can't separate clothing and life
my world
you can't set the environment away from what you're wearing
so if you wore a pin-striped suit in north carolina on your farm
CR it wouldn't work
RL no but when you get on now let me ask you if you're on your farm now and you're getting dressed you sort of feel like a farmer
CR you bet
RL you want to wear your farm clothes***around 17:08
CR right
RL you wear your far- what you think are the farm clothes that your dad wore or your what you thought the farmer was
CR right
RL make you feel good? make you feel like a real farmer?
CR you bet
RL that's the answer to what I to what I done
in other words a lot of these things were romantic
farm clothes
if you look at the kids today down in soho you look at the young guys today and what they're wearing they wear jeans an' boots an' and um plaid shirts an' some guys wear motorcycle jackets some guys wear uh you know different suits
everyone has a little bit of a dream
they they jump into that dream
they see something in magazines
uh they
they wanna be that guy they see they wanna see
be that guy in the movie
they wanna be that guy that's living a certain life.
and so clothing in my mind was not was the was the was the role you get into it and then you have to then you have to BE
and so there are certain things that are heroic or certain things represent military clothes doesn't necessarily mean war
it mean rugged sometimes
tough
it means uh hero
it means lots of different things
CR but the point is is that you have become
the lifetime you're selling
the lifestyle and the idea that you're selling uh whether it is We- Western influenced whether it is influenced by an English lifestyle
RL mmhmm
CR is who you are and there seems to be in you a close identification in terms of who you are and what you sell
RL right
CR and in the marketing of it
RL right
CR there is
and it has come to stand for something in America
people like Paul Goldberger from the nytimes have written about it
uh and saying that no one has a more pervasive influence
i'm curious about this sense of how you see that and what it is and we're talking around it and and and hitting on it
this notion of
of what your s-
what people are buying when they buy Ralph Lauren and when they buy Polo
uh
what is it you think that that these customers are s-
RL well you know there's there's a mix you know it's uh
i think there's a mix of of sensibility um
…I didn't have a plan as to how I was going to do what I did
CR yeah
it wasn't you were going to go from
RL I didn't have
CR ties to menswear to womenswear to home design to perfum
RL I think there was an article someone picked up where they said Ralph Lauren knew in in highschool they asked him what he was gonna be he was gonna be a millionaire
you know you know
CR I did read that
RL how those things work? they work where i didn't know what I was going to do someone say hey you going to sign something at your highschool class and ah so I say 'oh yeah millionaire' you know
CR right
RL but it picks up it Ralph had a plan
I don't think it was a plan
i think
I
I am and I can't
STOP 20:00
tell you how all weaves together because what I do and I sort of have lived it and I can't explain how i've put it together
CR he's gone over to england been influenced by what he's seen there has brought it back to the united states has made it better and he's gone over there and made them pay a king's ransom for what they already had
the english influence
sometimes people have something and because they live with it all the time they don't know they have it
the uy on the farmer might be wearing great old boots and some kid or some photographer is going to
inspiration is taken from people who are living a life
saw a guy with an old jeep and chased him down because you had to have it
1939 ford truck
driving through colorado
pull him over
i love your truck
he restored it himself and he loves it
his wife talked him out of selling the truck
eventually sold him the truck and wanted some jeans
england: when I grew up watching movies which was very important: bronx in neighborhoodl area the world is much smaller today but then you lived through television and the movies let you see things you'd never seen before
saw these old-time movies whether Carry grant or fred astaire or douglas fairbanks junior catherine hepburn
and I saw: I love that: i loved woody station wagon
a feeling
i don't know why i like the woody station wagon and a country house in ct
it looked happy
no one said this is it you should pick it
there's a commonality btw all these people: they are all viewed as: class, style, certain sense of elegance
Carry Grant in a article said "i'd like to be carry grant"
and so did you in your head
I never wanted to be anyone but myself but I loved certain elements of diff't people
carry grant was funny but he was stylish
astair was fantasy beautiful world out there
represented to a guy who was 17/18 a glamorous life
West and what that is and navajo blankets and jeep with hat and cowboy hat: it represents living certain lives they're all individual things that you say "I like that"
if you watch garry cooper int eh movies he's an elegant man at the same time you see High Noon and really believed he was a cowboy
hero and rugged and tough and elegant at the same time
i don't believe you have to be one thing
especially in this country in America we have a diversity
we're watching we're absorbing everything out there we watch england because we were never part of that we were part but we'er outsiders Americans still love england admire english accent look at that how beautiful they speak still intimidated in a a way absorbed that in a way and made part of it american
CR and what has Ralph Lauren done?
RL I would think that's what I've done
you've taken that and sold it
what are they buying beyond the furniture suit : a feeling of being special, different
Americans haven't had
in europ someone will have a handknit sweater passed down from my grandmother
americans knew about things that were new
fathers car past two years old the neighbors say old
in europ 10, 15 yrs old
sense of integrity non=obsolesence
things that are not frivolous that don't go out-of-style
I am in the fashion bus. but what I'm projecting are things that go on in life
they may be expensive but you'll keep them for a long time because they're timeless
the timelessness of an attitude of an old tweed jacket and swede elbow patches
i'm 53 whether I was 15 or today that tweed jacket with swede elbow patches still represents the same things to a lot of people
an easiness and an effortlessness.
faded jeans
strength comfort
"I'm not sure if I have the word"
Armani Donna Karen
what they find attractive to your career is a consistency running through it
AT 29 MINUTES:
Ralph Lauren: the consistency is Myself
I don't design designers somehow do clothes I do life I do living I do the whole world because I don't set that apart
when I started to design clothes for a girl it was a girl i was attracted to what did i like I liked the natural girl
the girl i wanted to be with
not girl with all the makeup
i liked the girl in jeans and a white shirt rolled up sleeves
convertible with hair blowing in the wind
that was sexy to me
combination of seeing things around me
that's what i'd like my girlfriend to wear
that's what I like
i was married
my wife was the girl that i thought was the girl
so i designed the things I thought she should wear
some people: he looks at the english he looks at the west he has an instinct for it he's not a manipulator but has an instinct for what they want
but some say: but he's not creating something it new he's taking something old and understanding it's value and selling it
unlike Yves san Laurent
Everything for some reason all things have a diff't sensibility you're inspired by differing things
a writer an artist picaso whoever it was was inspired by somebody else by whatever it was
CR: by flowers in a field or whatever
RL: they grow and inspired by other writers other things they've seen and for a while they find their groundwork
i worked for brooks brothers was inspired by them
saved my money
didn't tell anyone how much i'd spent
i was inspired by that lifestyle what it was it represented something to me
Brooks Brothers represented Harvard and Princeton and Yale: a private club: clubbiness
and the style that was then represented
tweeds country a mood:
of sophistication and education and status
non-status-status
not the catillac but the morgan or mg or convertible
not obvious but quality individual status individual pt of view
I've been inspired by a lot of things
you can't help
Mainly inspired by snese of a certain lifestyle that is happy
we all go through our lives hoping to be successful hoping to buy the house or have the ranch we want
i was inspired by those worlds
thought of being a rancher living in a log cabin
also another dream in reality i love stone houses I love persian rugs I like elegance I like them both
in terms of what I was doing
my things are new but inspired by a concept of living as opposed to a jacket not just a jacket hi it's a jacket my shoulders come out to here now and buy it
my jacket was the tweed jacket with swede elbow patches but it was made of a great fabric and you thought you could buy it in England what you thought carry grant and fred astaire you couldn't wattle into a store and buy that you couldn't buy that you couldn't find it
the things that I made you couldn't buy you couldn't find it
they had a sense of familiarity because they were traditional they weren't wild
injecting something back in the sense of life
you couldn't walk into bloomingdales you couldn't walk into asks fifth avenue and buy
a hacking jacket
a hacking jacket worn by the people that rode in england
the people who wanted it because it said something to them and it said something to you
I wanted to be the guy on a hacking jacket in England who was on a horse
You were so successful in saying this is who i am that's what I want
STOPPED AT 35:21