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For good or ill, Lauren's first creations sparked the wide-tie-and-lapel boom of the late 1960s and early '70s. His ties were four inches wide, compared with the then standard 2 1/2 inches, came in vibrant Italian-silk patterns and were priced at $15, more than double the conventional rate. "For anyone who liked clothes, to have a Polo tie was such a luxury. It was really a coveted item," recalls a former employee, Anthony Edgeworth, now a noted photographer. Lauren sold $500,000 worth of ties in his 1967 start-up year, when his entire business fit into one large drawer in a rented space in the Empire State Building. At least one powerful department store, Bloomingdale's, tried to persuade Lauren to make his radical ties narrower. But his novel design became such an instantaneous rage that Bloomingdale's gave in. Before long, retailers were ordering 100 dozen of the young designer's creations at a time.
The very next year Lauren struck out on his own, with $50,000 in backing from Norman Hilton, a Manhattan clothing manufacturer. He began producing an entire menswear line, including wide-collar shirts and wide-lapel suits, that was more flamboyant than the contemporary Ivy League look yet not as loud as the psychedelic style of the same era. Before long, Lauren had 30 employees helping to promote and sell his fast-expanding Polo collection. Chic department stores like Bloomingdale's showcased his collections, and the fashion press took notice. "He's acquired a certain reputation for clothes that are, you know, with it. But not too with it. Not enough to shock the boys at the bank," wrote Fashion Critic Bernadine Morris.
It was perhaps inevitable that Lauren would eventually try his hand in the challenging womenswear market, but his touch proved less sure there. His first tailored shirts for women, in 1971, were a success. Nonetheless, his initial attempt at a full line of womenswear in 1972, inspired partly by British riding clothes, was deemed too unsubtly imitative of menswear lines. Critics were startled and yet intrigued. "A phenomenon to bewilder anthropologists," sniffed The New Yorker.
But soon the Lauren look began to catch on. The designer quickly became something of a champion for well-bred suburbanites who felt manipulated by European couturiers. "Nobody is impressed with elaborate clothes anymore," he declared in 1974. "A girl who is solid doesn't want to be known as a fashion lady." Today his quietly elegant womenswear collections bring in about $210 million at retail.
Lauren achieved something of pop-star status during the 1970s. It started after he began displaying his engaging smile in advertisements in 1974, when Saks Fifth Avenue asked him to appear in a print ad for the store's Polo boutique. Lauren, 5 ft. 5 or so, projected considerable well-tanned sex appeal. In the same year he designed the male wardrobe for the opulent remake of The Great Gatsby, which starred Robert Redford. In 1977 Lauren's creations attracted a further celebrity following when Diane Keaton adopted them in a layered, tomboyish look for Woody Allen's Annie Hall. Lauren's label began to proliferate rapidly, appearing on cologne and boyswear in 1978, girlswear in 1981, luggage and eyeglasses in 1982, home furnishings in 1983 and women's handbags in 1985. He turned down dozens of offers to design such items as telephones, autos and chocolates.