Ralph Lauren Started By Selling Ties Out of a Drawer
In 1967, a twenty-eight-year-old former glove salesman named Ralph Lifshitz possessed no formal training in fashion, no investors, and no storefront—only a staggering vision and a drawer in the historic Empire State Building. Working for the neckwear manufacturer Beau Brummel, Ralph looked at the standard, boring two-inch ties of the era and saw an archaic uniform. He wanted European luxury, cinematic romance, and bold, four-inch-wide silk statements inspired by Hollywood icons like Fred Astaire and Cary Grant. His employer balked, calling the wide, lavishly patterned ties commercially unviable and impractical for the conservative corporate market. Undeterred, Ralph convinced management to let him try his radical concept, carving out a sliver of operational space in a dingy Empire State Building drawer inventory. He personally packed his unconventional creations into a briefcase, navigating the bustling streets of Manhattan to hawk them directly to high-end boutiques and skeptical buye...