Ralph Lauren quotes: fashion billionaire’s best quotes on style, fashion, the business he’s really in, and a whole lot more.
“What I do is about living. It’s about living the best life you can and enjoying the fullness of the life around you – from what you wear, to the way you live, to the way you love.”
“We all get report cards in many different ways, but the real excitement of what you’re doing is in the doing of it. It’s not what you’re gonna get in the end – it’s not the final curtain – it’s really in the doing it, and loving what you’re doing.”
“The world is open to us, and each day is an occasion to reinvent ourselves.”
“If you are out there, you must want to be.”
“You have to create something from nothing.”
“A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspires the power and energy to get it done.”
“Knowledge is not a passion from without the mind, but an active exertion of the inward strength, vigor and power of the mind, displaying itself from within.”
“Success isn’t based on ‘look what I can do!’ But more on an inner sense of self and believing you have something to say in your own consistent way. And I think we all have to fight to maintain our unique style and taste in a world that would have us conform.”
“The key to longevity is to keep doing what you do better than anyone else. We work real hard at that. It’s about getting your message out to the consumer. It’s about getting their trust, but also getting them excited, again and again.”
“Personal style is about a sense of yourself, a sense of what you believe in, and wearing what you like.”
“Style is very personal. It has nothing to do with fashion. Fashion is over quickly. Style is forever.”
“Personal style is about taking a risk, trying something unexpected, and having fun with fashion, but always being true to yourself.”
“Fashion is not necessarily about labels. It’s not about brands. It’s about something else that comes from within you.”
“Fashion is about change. It’s about youth. It’s about aspiration. It’s about what’s going on in the world. It’s a blend of many things that are happening. Coming from many different directions. You have to be tuned in all the time.”
“For me, style is about quality, integrity, and timelessness. It is free of trends but always feels fresh and new.”
“I like romance, I like glamour, and I like realism. I think that’s a great combination.”
“I think the people who work with me are people who love style themselves. I’m leaving the office and they’re still working. They’re passionate.”
“Books open windows to the world and have the power to transform lives.”
“I came from nowhere. I had nothing.”
“My father was an artist. When life was harder and he couldn’t get jobs, he painted houses, but he was artistic. When I went to see his work, it was special. Somewhere along the line, I felt I was special. I didn’t know why.”
“As a school kid, I had a sense of leadership, a sense of feeling good about what I did… where I was. I sort of felt like I was special but I did not know why. I mean, I had my own mind. I did my own thing. I wore the kind of clothes I wanted to wear when no one was wearing the same clothes. I felt like I was a leader, not a follower. I had a sense of myself.”
“My life has been a dream. If someone had to write a story about it, it would seem a little unreal. It’s the kind of story I would read and say, ‘Nah, that’s not possible.'”
“I have had a lot of good things happen, but I’ve also had a lot of terrible things happen.”
“People ask, ‘How can a Jewish kid from the Bronx do preppy clothes? Does it have to do with class and money?’ No, it has to do with dreams.”
“I never went to fashion school. I didn’t know what a designer was. I knew I had something, but I didn’t know what it was. And it could just have easily been nothing.”
“I didn’t graduate. At 19 I was a salesman for Brooks Brothers. Then I went into the Army, and when I got out I was an assistant buyer for Allied Stores. After that Beau Brummel hired me. They are a clip-on tie company in Cincinnati. I sold them an idea – using different kinds of fabric for wider ties. I had the ties made by a contractor, packed them myself, and delivered them to the stores wearing a bomber jacket and jeans. They went wild for the ties.”
“I was very influenced by movies; I was very influenced by a world that had a sense of dream.”
“And I’m excited when I find somebody stimulating to talk with. That’s one of the great treasures in life.”
“Having success at an early age gave me more of a sense of what’s important in life rather than always driving to make it.”
“I never said to myself, ‘I’m going to be the greatest.’ I just wanted to do my own thing.”
“I didn’t have a vision as in, ‘This is where I’m going.’ I had a vision as in, ‘This is what I love to do.'”
“I am constantly drawing inspiration from everything I see – the places I travel, the people I know, and the movies I see.”
“Ralph Lauren has always stood for providing quality products, creating worlds, and inviting people to take part in our dream. We were the innovators of lifestyle advertisements that tell a story and the first to create stores that encourage customers to participate in that lifestyle.”
“What’s interesting about fashion is it’s a world, and I think that’s what I’ve done – I’ve made a contribution and I think I’ve built a world. The world is beyond just clothes. Taste and style is beyond clothes. It’s in food; it’s in quality.”
“The clothes that I design and everything I’ve done is about life and how people live and how they want to live and how they dream they’ll live. That’s what I do.”
“I’ve never wanted to be in fashion. Because if you’re in fashion, you’re going to be out of fashion.”
“I am not looking like Armani today and somebody else tomorrow. I look like Ralph Lauren. And my goal is to constantly move in fashion and move in style without giving up what I am.”
“What I believe in is the timelessness of an attitude, the timelessness of style.”
“I don’t design clothes, I design dreams.”
“My goal was always to be myself.”
“I exercise at the gym with a trainer. I feel it’s very healthy, very important – important for everybody. I feel it’s good for you. It makes you feel better. It loosens you up a little bit.”
“As I started to buy cars, I didn’t know that I was building a collection. I just wanted the cars I was dreaming about. Once you drive a good one, it is like having a fever.”
“There is a way of living that has a certain grace and beauty. It is not a constant race for what is next, rather, an appreciation of that which has come before. There is a depth and quality of experience that is lived and felt, a recognition of what is truly meaningful. These are the feelings I would like my work to inspire. This is the quality of life that I believe in.”
“Enjoy your family. Do things that you like to do. Stay strong. That’s the secret to remaining happy.”
“I think I’m very fortunate to be born in America. And lucky to be able to have lived and had the opportunity to do what I want to do.”
“I went through the extremes of amazing notoriety and also the dreaded things that you never thought you’d have to live through. Not everything works the way you want it to, but if I sit back and think, ‘Am I happy about this?’ Yeah. I wouldn’t have done anything any better.”
“The best thing you can do is go away from this saying, ‘I can do this too,’ because it’s all possible and I’m living proof.”
“If I were to cater to Kanye, he would know that I’m catering to him. The fact that I make what I make – he gets it. He gets the quality and he respects it. And I think that’s the key, why I work all the time is to do that. That’s the fun.”
