Sporting Style

For the famously ‘fashion-shy’ designer behind the uniforms for the US Olympic team and at Wimbledon, sport for Ralph Lauren has become the perfect arena for showcasing his designs, writes Peter Howarth

Opposite Ralph Lauren designs for USA Olympic uniforms; the US team at the Olympic opening ceremony. This page Team USA athletes in Olympic ceremony uniforms

Walking back to the official Ralph Lauren coach after the Olympic opening ceremony in East London, David Lauren picks his way through the crowds streaming out of the Olympic stadium buoyed up by the highly creative tableaux that Danny Boyle has just staged. Accompanied by his wife, Lauren Bush Lauren, niece of the former US President, the son of the brand’s founder and now its senior vice president, advertising, marketing and corporate communications, could be taken for a stray athlete in his white Team USA tracksuit top. Indeed the whole Ralph Lauren party looks like it has just stepped out of the competitors’ parade – the women sporting cheerleader-style navy skirts and matching branded sweats.

In fact we do encounter a few members of Team USA, who unlike the people from America’s most famous design house, are

Right Tennis wear from the Ralph Lauren Wimbledon 2012 range Below Boris Becker has been a Ralph Lauren ambassador for Wimbledon Opposite Nacho Figueras, polo player and brand ambassador for Ralph Lauren

actually wearing the official, Lauren-designed uniforms of blue blazer, shirt, tie and white trousers (or skirt) and sporty beret. They are on their way back to the Olympic village and David Lauren stops to exchange a few words. There are some 180 athletes in the American national team participating in the opening ceremony, and Ralph Lauren has been busy kitting them all out – from the six-foot-plus basketball players to the tiny gymnasts and a female weightlifter who apparently was moved to tears by the fact that she was given a skirt that had been tailored to fit her, a first in her experience of team uniforms.

And though now at two in the morning it is time to head home, David Lauren still wants to wish his countrymen good luck. He is a genuine sports fan. But beyond that, this is almost the final leg of Ralph Lauren’s remarkable summer of sport, which has seen the firm dressing not only the world’s most powerful Olympic team, but also the Wimbledon tennis championships, the US Open Golf Championship, the Open Golf Championship and the Black Watch polo team. Only the US Open Tennis Championship remains on its outfitting schedule.

Sport is a great association for Ralph Lauren, as he has to be the world’s most reluctant fashion designer. He once told Time magazine he was not a ‘kiss-kiss kind of fashion guy’, and when I met him in his office high above Madison Avenue – manly handshakes all round – he told me, ‘Men don’t look at fashion magazines,’ and was eager to make the distinction between fashion and style.

‘I’m not into trendiness,’ he said, relaxing on a sprawling leather sofa in cowboy boots, worn, ripped jeans, and a Western-style chambray shirt with a brown and cream beaded necklace around his neck. He looked like a man who works out four days a week (he does), suitably healthy, and tanned. ‘But I am into change – people will not come back into stores if there’s nothing new. But there is a consistency of taste.’

After a pause he added: ‘The word “fashion”, I don’t like the word. I like to buy a jacket and know that it suits me, that it’s mine. If someone says, “You’ve got a new look,” it’s a negative. I hope people say, “Hey Ralph, you look good, you look fit,” not that you’re wearing the new long coat or latest tweed jacket.’

That is why sportsmen are the perfect people to promote the man’s designs. And sport the perfect arena in which to showcase his clothing. That is why since 2005 one of his most recognisable ambassadors – in advertising campaigns for the Ralph Lauren Black Label fragrance and the exclusive clothing collection of the same name – has been polo player

Ignacio ‘Nacho’ Figueras.

David Lauren explains why his father chose Figueras for this role: ‘Nacho models for Black Label, which is a collection that reflects the essence of modern elegance. It’s timeless and it’s iconic, but it’s also fresh and it’s active. It’s the guy who travels, plays sports – he is truly international. Nacho is that guy.’

The relationship with an international polo superstar has also prompted Ralph Lauren to start formally sponsoring the sport for the first time. ‘We took the partnership with him [Nacho] even further when we began sponsoring the Black Watch team, which we have done since 2007,’ explains David Lauren.

The relationship between Ralph Lauren and polo goes back to 1967 when the then young would-be fashion designer decided to set up his own business selling wide, heavy, bright ties, and needed a name for his new venture. Nacho says it was Ralph’s brother Jerry who

came up with ‘Polo’. David Lauren explains: ‘The name Polo had a sensibility that was sporty and international, and it represented the kind of clothes that my father liked. He felt this particular sport was sophisticated, it was stylish, and he identified it with his brand – it was a name that invoked an imagery that represented what his clothes were going to be like.’

A year later, that decision was certainly endorsed by one of the most stylish films ever made, The Thomas Crown Affair, starring Steve McQueen as an immaculately turned-out connoisseur-thief who memorably plays polo. Asked if it is a favourite of his and his father’s, David replies, ‘Yes, it’s one we love. It’s a big hit with all my family – it’s required viewing for the Laurens!’

The famous logo – a player with mallet raised – didn’t appear until 1971. Its debut was on the cuffs of a range of women’s blouses. The image actually came from a tie label of Ralph Lauren Polo executive Joe Barrato, who says the logo was, at that time, a public domain graphic anyone could use, just like something on clipart today. Apparently, it was Barrato’s idea to put it on the cuffs of the blouses to make them stand out. Statusconscious Manhattanites loved them and a graphic icon was born.

Since then, of course, that polo player has adorned a whole range of items – both menswear and womenswear – and has, in the sports arena, even appeared on the polo shirts of Wimbledon ball boys and ball girls. And lest you think that bit of branding is somewhat schizophrenic, consider this: like polo, tennis ticks the Ralph Lauren boxes. Here’s David Lauren on why the company chose to sponsor Wimbledon (a relationship that started six years ago): ‘My father had long been inspired by the rich heritage and traditions of England, and these were expressed in the game of tennis itself and the English attitude towards it, but also in the style and sensibility of the early players. To play a major role in such a historic sporting event and partner with the All England Club and Wimbledon felt right.’ More surprising than polo logos at the home of lawn tennis then, is that it took so long for the firm to get properly into bed with the sport of polo itself. The iconography of this game runs through the company. It’s visible not just in the logo, but also in the vintage shirts and mallets that decorate the stores and the Ralph Lauren wood-panelled English-country-house-style headquarters in Manhattan. (It’s a big job finding this stuff, David Lauren explains: ‘We have a fantastic creative team who source these products from all over the world.)

The family Lauren, too, though not polo players, certainly are riders. Do they have horses on the family’s Double RL ranch in Colorado, I wonder? ‘Yes we do – no polo ponies though, they are a very different animal!’ says David Lauren. And does he ride often? ‘Yes, at the Ranch. It’s a great feeling to be in the outdoors and take in the surroundings. It can be time to be alone, or the opportunity to do something together as a family or with friends. It’s fun to have a John Wayne moment every now and then.’ So given all this, why did it take until 2007 to sponsor a team – Nacho Figueras’s Black Watch polo team (Palm

From far left US Paralympic wheelchair basketball player Matt Scott; Luke Donald at the US Open Golf Championship in June; Ryan Lochte, 2012 Olympic 400-metre individual medley champion

Beach, Bridgehampton and Buenos Aires) – and, until this January, to sponsor a tournament – the St Moritz Polo World Cup (sadly cancelled this year due to lack of snow)?

Nacho Figueras has a theory: ‘It is true,’ he agrees, ‘It has been too long. Ralph knows there should be a symbiosis, of the clothes and the sport. So I asked him, why did it take until I came along?’ And his response? ‘He told me that in the early days the business was like a train. A runaway train. Polo kept growing and growing and I can see that, I see how much time he puts in, how focused he is. Looking back, he should have done it earlier, perhaps, but for years the train just wouldn’t stop.’

David Lauren is certainly of the ‘better late than never’ opinion: ‘We felt it was the perfect time to venture into this world, via the Snow Polo tournament, as for us it marked the beginning of a year of sport. The Snow Polo was to kick this all off, leading us into Wimbledon in June, The Open in July, and the Olympics and Paralympics over the summer, for which we are the official outfitters of Team USA.’

And why choose snow polo as the first tournament sponsorship? ‘With the St Moritz Polo World Cup being the most worldrenowned and famous tournament on snow, we felt that this particular partnership reinforces our leadership in the world’s major sporting events, and showed that we are serious in our dedication to supporting the game of polo,’ he says. ‘We already have an affiliation with the location after opening our first store in St Moritz two years ago, so it was a natural progression for us and was the perfect fit.’ That fit means Ralph Lauren will be back to sponsor the snow polo next January 2013 and will be designing the outfits for it. It also means the firm will continue to invest in sport generally, safe in the knowledge that its founder approves of this non-fashion approach to promoting his brand.

When we spoke, back in Manhattan, Ralph talked enthusiastically about the icons who have inspired him – people like Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Steve McQueen, Joe DiMaggio, John F Kennedy and Clint Eastwood. These stars certainly looked great, but they were never merely fashionable, and their style has endured. From McQueen in desert-biker chinos and T-shirt and Eastwood in rancher jeans, to DiMaggio in active sportswear, Kennedy in preppy Ivy League gear, and Grant and Hepburn in elegant East Coast tailoring, these are timeless US archetypes who represent the variety of the nation’s character. They have great personal style in common, but transcend mere passing fashionable fads. As Ralph Lauren once said of Ernest Hemingway: ‘I love his beard. I love the cragginess. I love the ripped shirt. I love the non-fashioness of the guy.’