Designer Analysis Ralph Lauren By: Meghan Allen
The History of Ralph Lauren Ralph Lauren was born on October 14th 1939 in the Bronx, New York and discovered his passion for clothes in the seventh grade. While in high school he stated working in a local department store to fulfill his passion until he was done with high school. After he graduated he decided to try and go to school for business, but he realized that fashion was the field he should be in, so he quit school and joined the army until he can find a job in the fashion industry. After his time in the army he got hired as a tie designer by Beau Brummell and started designing ties that were very wide and colorful, which were opposite of the narrow neckties that were popular at the time. From then on Ralph Lauren became known with his tie designs and started to branch out and create his own company, along with a men’s clothing line called Polo, he wanted his men’s wear line to be a mix of American and English style clothing to show sophistication and class. Once his men’s line became a success he decided to create his women’s clothing line in 1971, from then on his brand has skyrocketed and he decided to create a children’s clothing line, cologne, footwear, home products, silverware, furniture and much more. Ralph Lauren has become an influential designer on the way that people dress, and he says that “"I believe in clothes that last that are not dated in a season. The people who wear my clothes don't think of them as fashion”. Ralph Laruen opened its doors in 1971 in Beverly Hills, California and now has over 116 stores in the United States and over 1300 boutiques. This company is globally known with stores all across the world; Ralph Lauren has been named the best designer in the world. From
his success, Lauren decided to create the Ralph Lauren Center for Cancer Prevention and Care at North General Hospital in Harlem, New York, and is continually giving back to other charities. As time grew on Ralph Lauren’s brand became more successful and he got more involved with his work with personal advertising and marketing. Ralph Lauren was the first designer to appear in his own commercials and advertisement, showing how much work and dedication he puts not only into his brand, but his family as well, as seen in his commercials. Ralph Lauren is involved in every step when creating his products, paying attention to the details that go into his products is what makes his brand so successful. Taking pride in his work, Ralph Lauren has received many awards such as the lifetime achievement award from the council of American Fashion Designers and was named Designer of the Year in 1996. Currently, Ralph Lauren’s company is increasing in their quarterly profits and has stores all across the world and online. The next move for this brand is in talk of expanding the brand to more stores as well as trying to start focusing on more accessories in stores.
Ralph Lauren Plots Retail Expansion Ralph Lauren Corp. wants more stores for its brands. Taking a cue from the changing dynamics of consumer spending from the emerging markets, the company is also eyeing a retail expansion that would see freestanding stores for its Polo, women’s Blue Label, Denim & Supply and children’s businesses, both here and abroad. “We’re articulating more clearly what we’ve begun to see as we go into markets such as the Middle East, Russia and Brazil where vertical stores are the primary retail channel,” Roger Farah, president and chief operating officer, told WWD on Wednesday as the company reported its third-quarter results. The change doesn’t lessen the presence of Ralph Lauren freestanding stores, which are more focused on the high-end luxury Black and Purple collections. While the firm will continue to seek choice locations for Ralph Lauren stores, the additional freestanding stores means it will have a broader availability of sites to cull from to better reach the consumer. According to Farah, most malls in Asia have a wing devoted to kids, and while the firm will still be selective in where its children’s stores will be located, the store sites for that business will be easier to find than when trying to find the ideal real estate for its higher-end luxury Ralph Lauren stores. “In the past, Denim & Supply and children’s were distributed to department stores, and we would add a little of that in our own stores. If you go to Brazil and China, they don’t have the same department store structure, and [as an example] we were underserving the demand from the Brazilian consumer when in Miami, New York or London,” Farah said. Also an avenue for future expansion is its accessories business, which is still under development. Asked about freestanding accessories stores, Farah said, “I think theoretically it could be yes, but that’s a long way away from [us] wanting or needing to do that. [The priority is] making sure the accessories presentation in the existing stores is improved. For many years, accessories were primarily to support our apparel merchandise.” As the company eyes new real estate sites, or those currently in operation, it’ll first consider a redo of the layout of the floors to better showcase its growing accessories business. And the accessories business will be growing due to consumer demand. Farah explained: “For the emerging market consumer, accessories doesn’t have to fit. It’s not seasonal for the most part and is readily identified as a status item, whether signature handbags or eyewear or iconic watches. In the emerging markets, those are the early signs of achievement and [of them] having arrived. Accessories is much more of a statement that can be seen by others.” Shares of Ralph Lauren Corp. rose 5.9 percent Wednesday to close at $174.63 in Big Board trading following the firm’s report of a 27.6 percent spike in third-quarter profits that
bested Wall Street’s expectations and projection for continued growth ahead. Ralph Lauren, chairman and chief executive officer, said, “Our orientation as a designled marketing and merchandising organization has enabled us to deepen our connection with our customers, particularly as we expand our portfolio of products and lifestyle sensibilities.” For the three months ended Dec. 29, net income was $215.7 million, or $2.31 a diluted share, from $169 million, or $1.78, last year. Excluding $13 million in pretax impairment and restructuring charges in the quarter connected with the discontinuance of the Rugby operation, net income would have been up 33 percent to $224 million, or $2.40 a diluted share. The company beat Wall Street’s consensus estimate of $2.19 by 12 cents, according to Yahoo Finance. Even at the high end of estimates, it still beat that by one cent. Total net revenues rose 2.2 percent to $1.85 billion from $1.81 billion. Included in that was a 2.3 percent increase in total net sales to $1.8 billion from $1.76 billion, which contained a planned decrease in wholesale sales of 2.1 percent to $733.9 million and a 5.6 percent gain in retail sales to $1.06 billion. The balance of revenues was attributable to a 1.2 percent increase in licensing income to $50.2 million. On the retail front, contribution from new stores and ecommerce operations partially offset lower sales at Asian concession shops and store closures connected with the firm’s Greater China network repositioning efforts. Consolidated comparable-store sales rose 4 percent. For the nine months, profits grew 6.2 percent to $622.8 million, or $6.63 a diluted share, on a revenue gain of 1.2 percent to $5.3 billion. The company said it expects fourth-quarter net revenues to rise by a midsingle-digit percentage, reflecting an 8 to 11 percent gain in retail revenues and wholesale revenues. In the third quarter, the company also saw the growing importance of e-commerce platforms in extending its direct-to-consumer reach. The company now has e-commerce operations in 11 European countries, and recently launched sites for Ralph Lauren in Japan and Club Monaco in North America. Korea will be launched later this year, followed by China. According to Farah, e-commerce will continue to play an important role with consumers globally. He explained that consumers often get product information online, and that due to “price arbitrage, since products are priced differently in different markets,” those that have the wherewithal to travel globally will pick and choose where to buy certain products. While there may be differing consumer preferences or climates around the world, there is one thing that doesn’t change. “Our best-selling products sell well worldwide.…That’s more common than I would have guessed,” Farah said.
Article Explanation This article, from Women’s Wear Daily, is relevant to the Ralph Lauren brand because it shows the customers how well this company is doing and how the company is always thinking about expanding and making better products for them. Ralph Lauren’s company is looking for more stores to enhance their brand and market here in the United States and overseas. By adding more stores the company wanted to enhance the presence of accessories in their stores along with adding more variety instead of just showcasing their high end line. This shows that this brand is always looking out for its customers and what they wanted to see in the stores, more variety and new products. With the new stores they plan on focusing on redoing the floor plan and bring in some of their other line like their children’s clothing and their denim and supply’s, making it more accessible to other consumers. Ralph Lauren is a growing company so they plan on opening more free standing stores to better assist their customers and make their products more accessible.
Ralph Lauren Customer and Products Ralph Laruen is known for its high quality and class with every product, when looking at the demographics, his target customer for his women’s line Lauren by Ralph Lauren are obviously women, but they usually are between the ages of 18-44, but most of the women are between the ages of 25-34, with the annual income of over $100,000. Many of these customers do have kids and they are either in college, or they have higher education degrees. Even though the target age does include 18 year olds, these customers would most likely be in college working on a higher degree to make the higher income to then later fall into the ideal target range. Usually Ralph Lauren’s customers value their wealth since they worked hard to get it and they value their leisure time as well as fine living and exclusivity. Lauren’s customers like to look prestigious and glamorous and they want to live a privileged lifestyle, hence why Ralph Lauren’s products tend to be more expensive and give off a sophisticated and classy look to them. Ralph Lauren’s signature element to his products is his logo of the horse and man playing polo. He puts this logo on all of his clothes, and on the left corner of his well-known polo shirts. Another one of Lauren’s signature element from his women’s line is his classic cashmere cable-knit sweater that you can wear to the office, with a pair of jeans or a formal occasion. Ralph Lauren is famously known for his signature two button polo shirt with his logo, arranging in many different colors.
Ralph Lauren’s women’s clothing is priced from $20 with his sale items to $225 for his signature polo shirt. He also has a range of products such as his dresses, shoes and handbags that can be priced up to $3000. As for the size range, Lauren by Ralph Lauren has petite sizes 214, and also has Woman sizes 14-22. I am happy to see that this designer makes larger size clothing for every size woman and that he calls those sizes Woman sizes instead of plus sizes like many other designers do. Most of his garments are made out of cotton, but he does make some of his bottoms out of suede, leather and silk for his more upscale and expensive pieces which are for a more formal look. Some other fabrics that Ralph Lauren uses are denim for his jean collection Denim & Supply, and corduroy. These fabrics are used because they are the easiest to work with and many of the customers respond best when designers use cotton, since it is the easiest to care for as well. Ralph Lauren uses higher quality material like the suede; leather and silk for some of his more elaborate and detailed pieces. All of Ralph Lauren’s clothing can be found on his e-commerce site along with any of his own retail stores, like the one on Michigan Ave. Some other retailers that sell Ralph Laurens clothing and products are department stores like Macy’s, Bloomingdales and the Ralph Lauren Outlet. TJ Maxx and Marshals also carries Ralph Lauren clothing and accessories from previous
seasons in their stores at a lower price. Ralph Lauren is currently coming up with new ways to market his products and looking for ways to increase his brand. What made me want to research this designer is the way he markets himself and the brand, it is great to see that he believes in family and wants to involve them in his business. He has a well sized family of three children and his wife of almost fifty years. He has helped his children reach their goals such as his daughter Dylan, who owns Dylan’s Candy Bar, the largest candy store in the world. I was also curious on how his company came about and why he designed his clothes to look very English prep, when he was born here in America and many of his stores are based here. One thing I do like about this designer is that he thinks that clothes should not be dated for every season and that you shouldn’t have to have separate wardrobes for the spring and fall. He designs pieces that you can wear all year long, instead of switching out for the changing weather. Lastly I like how he is involved in the process of his work, unlike some designers who leave it up to other people to create and make their ideas, Ralph Lauren watches over each step of the creation of his garments. His classic chic design gives the people who wear them a since of class and importance, even though his clothes are too expensive for me to buy, I still admire the quality and overall timeless look that his clothes project. Ralph Lauren’s collection and style has inspired many other designers like Calvin Klein and Donna Karan to follow in his footsteps to put the same sense of elegant living and class into their collections. Both Klein and Karan had different ideas of what would sell whether it is sex or empowering women in a suit, but as the trends change they have gone back to Ralph Lauren’s simplicity style which seems to sell the best. When Ralph Lauren was first starting out with his
designs for the ties, the Second World War was just ending and he wanted to make garments that had a bright and different look to them, instead of the drab dark look that the clothes had at the time. As time passed Ralph Lauren was known for including his family in his work, when many designers were trying to keep their private lives out of the public, Ralph Lauren introduced his family with his brand making him the first designer to use his family with his work. This was an important aspect in his business because it showed his customers that his clothes are for everyone and what type of values he had behind his clothes. Still today, Ralph Lauren has become one of the world’s favorite and most beloved designers for not only his designs, but for what he stands for and how he gives back. Ralph Lauren will continue to build his company in the years to come and will forever be a timeless fashion designer.
Bibliography:
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