Word: fashioned
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Whatever he does next, Lauren has boosted the prestige of American sportswear at home and abroad. Says Eleanor Lambert, a longtime industry publicist: "He has grasped the solidity and the worth and the drive of American life. He is a very stabilizing influence in American fashion." The determined dreamer from the Bronx has become a special kind of design star, whose imagination is less a source of amazement than of security for his still growing audience. Says up-and-coming Designer Zack Carr: "Ralph Lauren is respected for his consistent style and intrinsic quality year after year, and I appreciate...
More often, Lauren manages to find a lucrative combination of what he likes and what will sell, a spectrum that has ranged from Polo shirts to his Santa Fe collection. In terms of his standing in the industry, he has become fashion's equivalent of an old-time movie mogul who creates, directs and lives out his own view of high style. Lauren possesses the financial and personal clout to put his name on just about any product, or roomful of products, he pleases...
...Morgan Stanley, the investment firm: "Designers are not always happy with the way department stores select merchandise, picking some pieces but not the whole assortment. The designers feel that the stores don't fully appreciate their genius and wish they would pick a range that reflects their total fashion message...
Lauren positions his clothing in a lucrative middle ground of consumer sensibility. He lures customers who think high-fashion styling is too faddish and traditional business garb is not quite sporty enough. His Polo purchasers are typically professionals and other upscalers who feel they have more important things to follow than fashion trends. Lauren loyalists sing of simple virtues: comfy elegance, durability, the avoidance of visual shock. They know they can depend on Lauren for a certain smart sameness, a look at once sporty and restrained. "No one understands his customer as truly as Ralph does," says Donna Karan, another...
While Lauren pleases millions of consumers, he provokes no small amount of criticism from fashion purists of almost every stripe. Some devotees of hand-tailored menswear contend that his high-priced, British-inspired suits fall short of the originals in both quality and refinement. "Savile Pseud suits" is what Writer Tom Wolfe, a notably natty dresser, has called them. A few fashion mavens fault some of Lauren's designs for being too pastoral and sentimental, especially in comparison with Calvin Klein's sleek, urbane creations. The skeptics view Lauren's claims of "good taste" as a euphemism for yuppified conformity...