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Lauren avoids the frenetic night life often associated with his industry. "I don't live in that world of 'Daaahling!' I can't stand it," Lauren says. Instead he tends his ranch, drives a collection of antique race cars, and jogs three or four miles each morning. Lauren's cultural interests tend to mirror his professional instincts. Last year he spent a reported $350,000 to sponsor an acclaimed historical exposition of riding tack and apparel, called "Man and the Horse," at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Though he professes to be nonpolitical, Lauren openly supported Democratic Hopeful Gary Hart during the 1984 presidential campaign.
The worldly prince of fashion remains an inveterate daydreamer, just as in his high school days. At times he has spoken of opening a steakhouse on Madison Avenue, a project that has yet to materialize. He has talked about starting a record company. Often Lauren has expressed an ambition to be an actor, though he turned down an offer to make a guest appearance on TV's The Love Boat.
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 that." So, evidently, do millions of customers who have come to believe that Polo is not just an elite pastime but a seductive style for the good life.
By Stephen Koepp. Reported by Bonnie Angelo/New York