As you can imagine, ralph lauren, founder of the global lifestyle empire known for its craftsmanship and quality design, isn’t allergic to beautiful things. “I have a lot of toys,” the designer says when I visit him at the Ralph Lauren headquarters on Madison Avenue in New York City. If his office wasn’t so meticulous, you might think it cluttered. Instead, it’s like an art installation, a diorama, a perfect walk-in collage of bibelots, art, photographs and “just some of the things I love because they are beautifully designed”. 

Aged 75 and in business since 1967, when he started out making men’s ties under the label Polo, Lauren is a great appreciator. And appreciation is the essence, as well as the competitive advantage, of the Ralph Lauren businesses, which include apparel, home, accessories and fragrance collections. Here is a bicycle handmade in wood, a gift from a Spanish friend. There is a hanging sculpture of the magnificent men and their flying machines, and a Polo teddy bear wearing a motorcycle jacket and Ray-Ban sunglasses, the same style the designer always wears. There’s an image of Batman, because Lauren loves Batman, and a large graphite work by the artist Woodrow Blagg sits behind the glass-top desk. Nearby is the electric guitar that Paul McCartney not long ago tuned for the designer, leaving his PMC-monogrammed guitar pick in the strings.

In one of the dozens of photographs of friends and family, this one with his brother Jerry in the south of France more than 20 years ago, the designer is wearing white shorts and a paper-thin heather-grey cashmere turtleneck. He looks like a movie star. There are photos with Ricky, his wife of 50 years and a psychotherapist, and their three children, David, Andrew and Dylan, taken at their homes in New York, Montauk, Jamaica and Colorado. In a photo with the late Princess of Wales, Diana is beaming. “She was lovely,” Lauren says. They met in the mid-1990s when they were seated together at a luncheon in New York given by Harper’s Bazaar. The princess asked the designer how often he got to London. He answered that he visited often and was planning a trip quite soon. “I don’t know what made me so brazen but I asked her, ‘If I call you, can you meet me for lunch?’” Diana answered yes enthusiastically.

They lunched at the very proper Connaught hotel. The princess brought her lady-in-waiting and the designer brought his son Andrew, who works in the film business. Much as he is dressed today, a tweed suit jacket and a pair of well-worn Tony Lama cowboy boots he bought in the 1970s, Lauren wore jeans to the lunch. Diana was amused and also impressed. “I didn’t know that they allowed jeans at The Connaught,” she said. “I know the right people,” Lauren responded with princely charm. Diana asked him all kinds of questions. “She loved fashion and she loved John F Kennedy Jr.” Wait, what is he saying? “I mean, she was curious about everyone and everything. Like someone who was locked up in her own world, she really wanted to know what was going on outside.” The designer pauses. “She was very sweet.”

Our conversation segues to the art world and the big contemporary art sales that are coming soon. I just assumed Lauren possesses a great art collection. “Not really,” he says. “I have a collection of photographs that I love. I’m in the decorative world. I’m always making something look more beautiful by adding images that are inspiring to me. The art world always felt so far away from me in terms of getting to know it and understanding things. Where do you start? I’m already living in a world of colour and art that is closer to me than buying something just for pure investment or status.” Instead, Lauren has acquired a collection of classic automobiles, that is considered one of the finest in the world—some 70 in total, including a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO, a 1929 Blower Bentley and a 1938 Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B Mille Miglia. The Museum of Decorative Arts at the Louvre in Paris exhibited 17 cars from his collection in 2011.

He admits, however, that he was tempted by the Four Marlons, a painting of the actor Marlon Brando by Andy Warhol to be sold at Christie’s soon after our interview. He’d even telephoned his contact at the auction house to ask, “Is this something I can afford?” (The painting sold late last year for US$69.6m, and he could have afforded it.) “Did you know Brando?” I wonder. “No, but I knew Andy Warhol.” In New York in the 1970s and ’80s one knew Warhol, especially if you might advertise in his magazine, Interview, or commission him to paint your portrait. 

“Andy would always telephone me to ask for some advertising for his magazine,” Lauren remembers. “And do you know he told people that he gave me Polo, as the name for my Polo by Ralph Lauren line?” Warhol didn’t, but the memory makes the designer laugh.

The past year has seen a fine tally of milestones for Lauren. He received the James Smithson Bicentennial Medal in the US, presented to him by Hillary Clinton in recognition of his philanthropic contribution to preserving the Star-Spangled Banner Flag, which flew over Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore in 1814 and inspired the poem that would become the national anthem. At Windsor Castle, the Duke of Cambridge gave a dinner honouring Lauren for creating the Ralph Lauren Centre for Breast Cancer Research at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London. At the presentation of a recent children’s fashion collection, Lauren announced a programme to support and promote childhood literacy charities around the world. He dressed the Team USA athletes, about 650 people, for the 2014 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. Then, celebrating the launch of his Polo for Women collection during New York Fashion Week last September, Lauren held a groundbreaking technological, four-dimensional hydro-holographic fashion show in Central Park that people are still talking about.

Last but not least, the designer remained keenly focused on expanding his global retail business in Asia. He opened a new 20,000sqft flagship store for men and women at Lee Gardens in Hong Kong and with it launched an exclusive, limited edition capsule collection of clothing, jewellery, watches and leather goods.

This afternoon in New York, we’re sitting at a large cocktail table of his design covered with books and photographs. It’s teatime and Lauren graciously offers us something to drink. We agree not to talk about the protests in Hong Kong, the Umbrella Revolution. The new boutique at Lee Gardens opened right in the midst of it. I’d really like to know his thoughts. Many luxury brands reported significant falls in sales at their Hong Kong boutiques, but Ralph Lauren has a right to diplomacy and discretion, doesn’t he? He isn’t an elected official. He is making fashion, not policy. Besides, the story is changing daily and whatever is said today is unlikely to sound relevant later.

Lauren is hoping to visit Asia this year. He’s only been once before, about 10 years ago. “When I started my business I never thought I’d be in Asia. I never thought I’d be in Japan or China. Now Asia is such a great part of Ralph Lauren.”

We discover that our fathers were immigrants from Europe. We talk about the hopes and aspirations we saw growing up. Lauren’s family lived in the Bronx, an area north of Manhattan settled by many Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe in the early 20th century. It was where another designer, Calvin Klein, also grew up. Klein remembers how stylishly Lauren dressed. “Who dresses like that?” he had wondered every time he saw Lauren in the neighbourhood wearing things like vintage leather bomber jackets or English tweeds found in thrift shops.

The Bronx was the home of so many of the rags-to-riches tatler_tatler_stories that made the US famous as the land of opportunity. Lauren’s father was an artist who supported his family by painting houses. His son’s success personifies the American Dream. But why call it the American Dream? The US hasn’t got an exclusive on aspiration. “Isn’t it everybody’s dream to have a better life? To take care of their children, see them well educated and healthy?” Lauren says.

John Fairchild, for many years the publisher of his family-owned newspaper Women’s Wear Daily, is a great fan of Lauren’s work. Early on, he attributed Lauren’s success to the designer’s ability to ennoble new fashion with the security and aspiration that are inherent in the great styles from the past—the American cowboy, for example, the British country squire, or a glamorous Hollywood star like Marlene Dietrich or Greta Garbo. But don’t confuse the designer’s aesthetic for nostalgia. “I call it appreciation—an appreciation for beauty, for charm, for craftsmanship. Fashion is over quickly. Style is forever.”

Ralph Lauren’s name represented “a certain quality and style,” Fairchild said. He noted that it was this quality that made designers including Yves Saint Laurent and Valentino “have something of Ralph Lauren” in their wardrobes. Everyone in fashion, male or female, wears Ralph Lauren.

Even for the most talented, fashion isn’t an easy business. “I always say I used to be six-foot-six when I started my business,” Lauren says. 

He is five-foot-six. Any advice for operating a family dynasty? He answers that Ralph Lauren “isn’t really a family dynasty in that I didn’t inherit it, I built it, and right now the only family member who actually works here is my son David”, a former magazine editor-in-chief.

Considered an e-commerce and social media visionary—Ralph Lauren was one of the first luxury fashion brands to embrace these online platforms—David is the senior vice-president of advertising, marketing and corporate commerce and also sits on the board of directors. He is married to Lauren Bush, the granddaughter of George HW Bush, the 41st US president, and the niece of George W Bush, the 43rd.

Daughter Dylan is the founder of Dylan’s Candy Bar, considered the largest candy shop in the world. Son Andrew, who recently appeared in some of the Ralph Lauren advertising campaigns, works in the film industry.

“That said, about us not being a dynasty, I do think about the unity of the family. Whenever I have a conversation about the business, everyone speaks up. They each feel connected to something that is unique to them.” Lauren pauses. “So the dynasty component is that we are a close family and everyone is involved. I don’t know where the future is going and how it will work. Certainly David will be here and I don’t know what Andrew is going to decide.” He pauses again. “We continue creating in the manner in which the company began. We’re always thinking into the future. Even if it is a public company, I’m still building it. I’m not looking for how I’m going to get out of it.”

I ask what is the easiest part of being Ralph Lauren, and the hardest? “The easiest part is coming to work every day and loving it. My life has been so good. The hardest part? Well, it’s losing your life. Sickness. Those are the things I worry about.”

I ask Lauren to answer a few short questions with the first things that come to mind. “What’s your favorite meal?” Without hesitation he answers, “The bacon cheeseburger at Ralph’s in London.” Ralph’s is his restaurant. There are similar Ralph’s in Chicago and Paris. At all the locations, the beef is from the family’s Double RL ranch in Colorado. “When is a woman her most beautiful?” “After sex.” “What advice do you give when you’re asked what someone should wear?” He doesn’t like to give fashion advice. “I always say wear what looks good on you,” he says. “So if you were the fashion police for a day, what would you ban?” “I wouldn’t ban anything. Wear whatever you like.”

Earlier, we’d talked about how he responds when someone asks him to make her a dress, perhaps even a famous actress on her way to the Academy Awards. The designer asks her to tell him about her life? “Then, when I’ve got her in the right perspective, I know what she should wear.” Such was the case when Lauren Bush asked her future father-in-law to make her wedding dress. “They were married in Colorado. Lauren and I spoke for a while, and then I knew exactly what she should look like.” The designer likens making fashion to making a movie. Bush’s wedding dress “looked like a dream,” he says. “I can do dreams.”

I continue with the short questions. If he could meet anyone he hasn’t met, living or deceased, who would it be? “Ernest Hemingway.” What’s the best advice he’s ever given or received? “Stick to what you believe in; believe in yourself.” His Polo tie business wouldn’t have happened had he let a certain department store tell him how to design his ties. It was the swinging 1960s and he designed wide; they wanted narrow. So Lauren, who didn’t have any money without the department store, bravely went elsewhere. The rest is fashion history.

On a blue-mood day, what does he do to cheer himself up? “I’m lucky. It usually passes. I’m a Libra­­—we’re balanced. Besides, the fashion business is like playing football. You have to deal with a lot of interference before you make the goal. You get used to it.” What’s his favourite sport to watch? “Basketball. Tennis.” What’s his idea of a perfect weekend? “Driving one of my cars. Relaxing. Watching TV.”

Looking back, what does he wish he knew then that he knows now? “That the appreciation of your life is really something not to postpone or waste. When you’re young, you just don’t know how fast life passes.” What is he proudest of? “My family. My children. And how I’ve always been able to stick to my guns and succeed in a tough world.” And what is he least proud of? “I’d like to be better with all the techie, digital stuff.” “Do you even have a mobile phone?” I ask, as there isn’t one in evidence. “Oh sure,” he answers. “But it’s in the car.”

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