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Lauren oversees his empire and its 1,000 employees in a ten-floor warren of offices that occupy a narrow, prewar building on Manhattan's West 55th Street, about 15 blocks north of the hectic garment district. The decor of Lauren's headquarters suggests the backstage of a theater: cramped and slightly eccentric, with forest green walls and a bowl of M&M's on a table in the reception room. Lauren's personal office contains some of his favorite props: a wood-burning fireplace, a fleet of toy racing cars, family photographs and piles of fabric swatches. He often wears a studiedly scruffy uniform: a cotton work shirt, faded Levi's and well-worn cowboy boots. "This is who I am," he claims. "You've got to be who you are."
Above all, Lauren is the boss. He huddles for most of the day with fashion assistants and corporate colleagues, at one moment expostulating before a trio of dark-suited subordinates and the next pondering an advertising display among a group of young designers clad in a palette of pale blue variations on his own favorite garb. Lauren pays his employees well and rewards loyalty, but he can be a blunt taskmaster. "He is absolutely terrible about hiding his feelings," says Buffy Birrittella, Polo/Ralph Lauren's vice president for advertising and communications. In an industry notorious for its creative egos, Lauren has long enjoyed a reputation for relative humility, but that could be changing. During the past year "he has got a little bit of a big | head," says one old friend. Insists Lauren: "I am not aloof. I am very basic." His descriptions of his work, however, tend to be heavily larded with words like integrity, elegance, traditional and American.
He needs a swatch of imperiousness just to get through his work schedule. He renders his decisions at a tremendous clip, daily passing judgment on dozens of ideas for products ranging from rugs to umbrellas. He generally drafts the broad schemes for new wares, often leaving his staff to come up with many of the specific details, materials and manufacturing plans. "I really love the idea of dark paisley sheets," he announced at a meeting one day. When his designers scurried back into conclave with fabric samples, Lauren demanded, "No, no! I want them darker, darker, darker!"
Lauren constantly scours his surroundings for design ideas. His taste is eclectic, though not unpredictable: he is chronically hooked on classics. "I love jeans, cowboy boots, tweed jackets, pin-stripe suits, old race cars, Porsches, Indian blankets and baskets," he says. Lauren once chased down a Colorado cowboy whose battered jeep he wanted to buy on the spot. Observes WWD Editor McCarthy: "Everything he sees or does comes back to his work. He is totally consumed by it."