USA "I am the product": fashion designer Ralph Lauren turns 85

Whether First Lady Jill Biden or the US Olympic athletes - Ralph Lauren has dressed them all. Biden also sat in the front row of the US designer's fashion show in the Hamptons outside New York in September, surrounded by stars such as Naomi Watts, Jude Law and Usher. Lauren turns 85 on Monday (October 14) - and is currently in top form. "I thought fashion had become boring," the fashion designer told the New York Times. "But I had more to share."

It all started with an accessory. "In the beginning, I wanted to express my personality," Lauren once said in an interview. He designed ties - and presented them to the upmarket New York department store Bloomingdale's. "They said they liked them, but they wanted to make them narrower and put their own label on them and I said I couldn't do that. Six months later, they came to me and said, 'You can have your own shelf and your own label."

"I am the product"

After that, he made shirts - and it went on and on. "It wasn't about fashion, it was about what I wanted. And suddenly I realized that I was building my own world and telling stories about the things I love." Lauren sells clothes, but also a picture of herself. "The reason it works - and it still works - is that I am who I am. I am the product. If you like my style, you like my clothes."

This approach led him to become an influential and wealthy designer - with a global fashion empire, several mansions in New York State and Jamaica, among other places, and a collection of valuable vintage cars. "This is mine and it's something I've built up. I'm proud because I've built it with integrity and style, but you don't feel everything you might think you feel. I've always worked hard and never rested on my laurels."

"I have been very lucky"

Lauren was born in 1939, the youngest of four children in an immigrant family in the Bronx in New York. The film fan changed his real surname Lifshitz to Lauren because it sounded better - after the actress Lauren Bacall. As a child, Lauren wore the discarded clothes of his older siblings, but combined them in unusual ways. "I used to see him in the Bronx as a kid and think, "Who is that person? Who dresses like that?" recalls Lauren's colleague Calvin Klein, who - born three years later and just a few blocks away - also became one of the most famous designers in the USA.

"My mother and father wanted me to be a doctor, a lawyer or something safe, a teacher or something," Lauren once told CBS TV. "I was very lucky. I could have been the bouncer, or anyone. I think about that all the time."

His ties were wider than anyone else's

But Lauren didn't become just anyone. He studied a bit of business, left college, joined the army for two years and then took his first jobs in the fashion industry. He soon went his own way - confident and uncompromising right from the start. His ties were wider, more expressive and more expensive than all the others, and he named his brand Polo after the equestrian sport. "Polo stands for a lifestyle. The people who play polo were international and very elegant."

To this day, the polo player is Lauren's trademark and is emblazoned on shirts and polo shirts worldwide - although Lauren himself has never played polo. "But I wish I had. My clothes are about atmosphere and style. It's about creating a dream that I would want for myself."

Everything revolves around the colors of the US flag: red, white, blue

The main theme of Lauren's fashion has always remained the same: America. Everything revolves around the colors of the US flag: red, white and blue, everything revolves around freedom, independence and the pursuit of individual happiness. Lauren is the most American of all designers. "Ralph gave American design a very special approach and dignity," the actress Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993) once said. "He gave us the romance of the West, the glamor of Hollywood, the adventure of a safari, the purity of New England, the simplicity of a modern beach house, the wealth of a chic estate - only better than we imagined."

Many stars wear Ralph Lauren - and Ralph Lauren is the star of his own company. Advertising posters often feature himself, his wife Ricky, to whom he has been married for more than 50 years, and their three sons. "I am the star. I'm not embarrassed. People come to Ralph Lauren to buy Ralph Lauren." And Lauren likes being a star. "I like to be recognized when I come to Paris and people turn around and recognize me. I get good seats at the movies and the theater."

"I didn't have a master plan and I honestly didn't plan it that way. It was instinct, gut feeling, love, passion and honesty," said the designer, who has run the company named after him for more than half a century and has no plans to retire, even on his 85th birthday. "It's happened garment by garment."

SDA