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LAUREN ORDER
A NEW HBO
DOCUMENTARY PEEKS
BEHIND THE
LEGENDA RY DESIGNER’S
METICULOUSLY
CR AFTED WOR LD TO
REVEAL THE EMOTION
W ITHIN. BY JASON GAY.
PHOTOGR A PHED BY
ANNIE LEIBOVITZ.
IF HE HAD TO DO it all over again,
Ralph Lauren might change it up
and become the movie star he always
aspired to be. Or maybe he’d be an
infielder for his beloved New York
Yankees. But really, if Lauren had
to pick, he would probably choose
to be Batman, a superhero born in
1939—the same year he was.
“I still like Batman,” Lauren tells
me in his soft Bronx rumble. “I
dream about going through Gotham City.”
Lauren, of course, did not become Batman. That gig
went to Bruce Wayne. Instead, over the course of his
career, now in its sixth decade, he became one of the most
iconic designers ever, a brand and aesthetic unto himself,
with a name that immediately conjures an image both
aspirational and accessible.
Now Lauren’s indelible impact is being recognized with
a feature-length documentary, Very Ralph, which arrives on
HBO on November 12. Pro-
duced and directed by Susan
Lacy, the award-winning
documentarian behind
American Masters and recent
films on Jane Fonda and
Steven Spielberg, Very Ralph
is both a charming history
and a bit of a paradox: an
examination of a man who,
by his own admission, is not
terribly comfortable with
outside examination.
“It’s not easy having some-
one write about you, or see-
ing a film about you,” Lauren
admits. He and I are seated
on a long white couch in the
cozy living room of the Mon-
tauk, Long Island, beach house he shares with his wife of
55 years, Ricky. The place is not the sort of ego monument
common to other enclaves in the East End. Low to the
ground, hidden among scrubby shoreline trees, this wooden,
1940s-built home is the kind of rustic retreat that artists
built when they wanted to creatively recharge.
“People like this house when they come in—it’s easy,”
Lauren says. The blue-eyed designer, who turns 80 in Octo-
ber, looks tan and fit in a white shirt and matching shorts—
and ready for a 5K in a pair of running shoes that appear
fresh from the box.
Lauren says he turned away other
documentary approaches over the
years, and even shelved an unfin-
ished autobiography. But as he
began thinking of his company’s
approaching 50th anniversary, in
2018—and with a nudge from then–
HBO boss Richard Plepler, he met
with Lacy and came away impressed.
“She’s smart, and she was very clear:
‘It’s going to be my picture.’ ”
It’s an uncharacteristic surrender for a man who has
famously crafted every detail of his professional and personal
image. Lauren gave the cameras rare behind-the-scenes
access to his life, from Montauk to his New York office to
the family’s sprawling ranch in Colorado.
“I think it’s fair to say Ralph’s never had anything made
about him that he had no control over,” says Lacy. “I think
he trusted me. The first thing he said to me after he saw
the film—he was very emotional about it—he looked at me
and said, ‘I could never have
done this.’ ”
The documentary, almost
three years in the making, is
rich with the type of starry
testimonials you’d expect:
There is commentary from
fellow designers, including
Calvin Klein and the late
Karl Lagerfeld, along with
Oscar winners, fashion edi-
tors, and critics—even a for-
mer Secretary of State who
nearly became president. It
tells the fabled origin story
of the self-taught designer
who started with neckties
and—in a confrontation
that’s now legendary—
declined an early offer to sell them in Bloomingdale’s after
the department store said it wanted to alter Lauren’s ties
and put its own label on the back.
“That was the biggest moment because I walked out of
the store,” Lauren tells me. “I said to myself, ‘What did I
do?’ I didn’t have a business. I was trying to build one. But
I needed my own brand.”
He built that brand, in unprecedented form. With apol-
ogies to the shiny influencers collecting likes on Instagram,
Lauren pretty much invented the whole notion of a person
being a brand, with elaborate CONTINUED ON PAGE 208 COURTESY OF THE LAUREN FAMILY
