COMPANY PROJECT ANALYSIS

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Polo Ralph Lauran

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Historical Background of Polo Ralph Lauran

Overview

Ralph Lauren brand, originally referred to as Polo Ralph Lauren, is the most iconic brand

to America and polo sports. To sell the American dream, he was the manifestation of the

universal ambition. For young entrepreneurs, polo represented the exact link to people, fashion,

horses, and most significantly, status. He brought together these four stakes to create a attractive

outfits that would make polo fashion a daily life. The fashionable cloth would bring comfort to

daily life at a higher level. Ralph Lauren found a way for the designers to enter into the business

of American menswear fashion. The brand represents preppy luxury and brings back memories

of romantic times worldwide (Templeton, 2013). The brand was forced to drop "polo" from its

name after the Ralph Lauren polo shirts had become popular in most parts of the world.

However, it distinguished itself from other companies as a proper fashion house and a polo shirt-

making company. Today, it enjoys added value from most of its restaurants, coffee shop, and the

polo bar in New York City.

The Ralph Lauren lines

Ralph Lauren operates with various brands. The following are some of the company's brand

lines:

Ralph Lauren: This is the company's luxury fashion brand.

Polo Ralph Lauren: The Company’s brand focuses on the men's line of tailored clothing and

sportswear. However, the company added a new for women on the tailored clothing in 2014

(Mahmoudian et. al., 2021).

Polo Sport: Polo sport is the company's line of active sportswear which was introduced in 1992.

Polo Ralph Lauren Children: It involves the company's line of kids' wear.

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Pink Pony: It is a charity brand benefiting the Pink Pony Fund and other cancer aid

organizations.

How Polo Ralph Lauren Company Started

Ralph Lauren founded polo Ralph Lauren in 1970 with a small shop in Bloomingdale's. It

started as a shop owned by a single designer, making it a legendary store's first-ever boutique to

be devoted to a single designer. Being a young entrepreneur at 28, Lauren oversaw every detail

of initiating his business in fashion and design (Mahmoudian et. al., 2021). Lauren successfully

opened his first separate store on Beverly Hills' Rodeo Drive one year later. He, however,

introduced his first collection for women in the newly opened store.

In 1972, Lauren's short-sleeved collared sports shirts entered the global market and

suddenly became an iconic shirt of American style. He also introduced the womenswear brand

line during the same year in response to the increasing requests from women. Therefore, the

rising demand for womenswear gave rise to the "True Fashionista household" name. In 1974,

Ralph Lauren designed all menswear for The Great Gatsby. Also, in 1977 most of Diane

Keaton's trademark outfits featured Lauren's pieces in Annie Hall (Templeton, 2013). Since then,

Polo Ralph Lauren has constantly expanded to include homewares, restaurant ownership,

fragrances, and many more. The Polo Ralph Lauren company went public in 1997. This made

Lauren the first True Fashionista fashion designer to own a signature store making over $400

million in sales per day.

Although Polo Ralph Lauren started its operation in 1968 with men's ties, it appears to

have always been the leading company in the fashion industry. This is because its products have

unique and timeless features. For example, the horse rider symbol on the Polo shirts is enduring.

Lauren was already in America's fashion industry in 1967 (Templeton, 2013). During the same

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year, he convinced the president of the tie manufacturers to allow him to create a new brand in

the fashion industry.

Ralph borrowed a $50000 loan and affixed the "polo" to his name. This was one of the

biggest steps he made to put his brand above the rest. At the same time, he devised a drawer in

the Empire state building he also delivered his products to the customers by himself. Manhattan's

department stores, however, decided to access the men's line exclusively (Templeton, 2013). As

a result, they gave Lauren a private shop; making it the first time for Bloomingdale's to open a

shop within their stores. This motivated Lauren, and in 2 years, he launched a women's line of

tailored shirts, which gave birth to the iconic polo shirt. In the subsequent year, Lauren

introduced a new shirt in 24-colorways.

Lauren was not essential innovative. However, the way he made it to the top was

completely new. He typically employed a genius marketing strategy to spoon-feed his potential

clients. His outfits comprised Ivy League and country clubwear, which resulted in a simple

superiority every American, aspired for (Davis, 2009). He acted as a real American celebrity and

a motivation to future designers. Every American would share a common desire for the polo

shirts and Harrington Jackets.

From the fashion industry, Ralph Lauren deviated into a complete lifestyle. at the same

time, he launched the first fragrance in 1978. After introducing a pastel-collared Oxford shirt, the

polo brand increasingly gained popularity in the United Kingdom in the 1980s (Davis, 2009).

This shirt became so popular in the United Kingdom that it was a must for it to get into clubs.

Lauren did all he could to adapt to the changing tastes and cultural obsessions for his company to

stay relevant in the fashion industry.

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The company launched the Polo sport and Polo silver collection in the 90s, targeting the

spectators depending on their moods. The company never renewed itself with shifting trends but

always rebranded to meet the needs of its clients. Boldly, Lauren always maintained a high polo

style in any setting. It gained popularity from Polo players to cowboys, rappers, students, and

everyone (Templeton, 2013). Generally, most people enjoyed being in its outfits, especially men.

After a long journey of building the brand, Lauren is reintroducing the memories of the 1990s. It

is now launching the polo silver and polo sports collections with a few refurbish styles. The

company typically reintroduces this collection with modern silhouettes even as it maintains the

brand colorways.

The novel was the street style in the 1990s. The street style from these cases was initially

meant for a comfort style house to improve the whole brand. Although these cases were then-

scandalous, they have become commonplace in the streets of Tokyo and New York City. This

implies that Lauren's brand was ahead of time, and perhaps the polo sport will go through a

rebirth with the current drift of polo throwbacks (Mahmoudian et. al., 2021). Generally, Polo

Ralph Lauren was a successful brand. It made its name even bigger when Ralph he affixed the

"polo Bear", into the brand name which is portrayed various occupations, generally sporting a

tack hammer. However, the symbol would turn out to be the brand's icon. Polo Ralph Lauren has

now grown to be a loyal lifestyle brand, and all other brands in the fashion industry are sprawling

in its direction.

The distinguishing features of the industry

Polo Ralph Lauren is a publicly-traded fashion company in the United States. Alongside

France, Italy, Japan, and the U.K., the United States is also amongst the leading countries in the

Fashion industry. Apart from professional business clothing, the U.S. fashion industry is

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principally informal. The U.S. clothing always reflects its diverse cultural roots, specifically

those of new immigrants. For example, cowboy hats, jeans, boots, and motorcycle jackets are

symbolic clothing of the U.S. diverse culture. The latest trend in America towards sustainable

clothing has made the fashion industry very competitive, with organic cotton clothing (Park &

Lee, 2021). This has made the U.S. fashion industry develop various features that distinguish it

from other countries and within the states. The following are some of the distinguishing features

of the U.S. fashion and design industry:

Market size

According to Park & Lee (2021), the U.S. fashion market value was approximately 368

billion U.S. dollars in 2019. It is uniquely defined by its biggest retailer stores like TJX and

Macy's, each with an estimated $20 billion sales value. The American market for the fashion

industry is characterized by store-based retaining, which was also valued at $268 billion (Park &

Lee, 2021). Also, it has e-commerce store-based retailers who brought in over $100 billion of the

sales revenue in the same year.

However, the US market size for retail products from the fashion industry is expected to

grow steadily as the internet continues to influence social and economic activities globally.

Contrary to these expectations, the employment opportunities within the fashion industry have

been decreasing in the last few decades (Park & Lee, 2021). This decrease in employment within

the fashion industry has resulted from the general transition of America’s manufacturing sectors

to other regions in the world.

In 2019, the sales revenue of retail stores for women's outfits increased to approximately

$39 billion, making the total sales revenue for women earn $187.8 billion. On the other hand,

Men's outfits declined to $9.1 billion that same year, leading to a total of $85.9 billion of sales

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revenue (Park & Lee, 2021). Accordingly, the sales revenue for clothing stores declined to $2.9

billion per month due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Usually, the fashion and design

industry has numerous durable products, most operating in the United States.

Companies like Nike, the Gap, and TJX receive most of their sales revenues from the

retail markets. Generally, the America’s fashion and design industry is always dynamic, trying to

adapt to customers' changing needs. Also, technology advancement has been a key factor

influencing the changing state of the U.S. apparel market. This is because the industry has

always attempted to keep up with the emerging technology to make customers' shopping

experience more enjoyable.

Market growth rate

It should be no surprise that the size of the U.S. fashion industry is huge because it is one

of the leading shopping industries among consumers worldwide. Also, the fact that the industry

is currently valued at hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars tells out that it has a huge market size.

According to Park & Lee, (2021), the industry's sales figures for 2021 were predicted to be

$437.29 billion. Typically, the forecasted value represents a strong fashion industry, with a

market growth rate of 18.4 percent based on the estimated figures of 2020. The high growth rate

of the U.S. fashion industry isn't payable as much considering the increase in interest in fashion

products among consumers. The industry is still recovering from the steep fall in sales in 2020

and 2021.

At $369.39 billion in 2020, the U.S. fashion industry size was significantly tumbled. This

figure marked a 21.9 percent tumble, meaning that the U.S. fashion industry has lost more than

$100 billion since 2019. Typically much of this loss is attributed COVID-19 pandemic, which

has greatly affected the sales figures and the growth rate of the fashion industry (Park & Lee,

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2021). The emergence of the pandemic led to the closure of most fashion retailers, including

brick-and-mortar. The retailers were closed down to comply with local pandemic regulation,

which also meant a plunge in visitors and then sales.

The cutbacks of inessential items for household products also led to the decline in the

growth rate of the U.S. fashion industry in 2020. However, the industry's sales were expected to

return to normal from 2021 onwards, with sales forecast at $473.42 billion in 2022 (Park & Lee,

2021). Despite the fall of sales revenues of the U.S. fashion industry, the total U.S. fashion e-

commerce sales are set to increase by over $80 billion by 2024.

Value Chain

U.S. fashion and design industry has a strong value chain that describes all activities of

firms and workers. The value chain of the U.S. fashion industry provides the firms and workers

with a working framework to develop suitable products for the consumers. The industry

activities described in its value chain include product designing, production, marketing, and

distribution to the consumers (Pal & Gander, 2018). However, a single firm can contain all the

activities described in the industry's value chain. Accordingly, different firms can share or

distribute activities in the supply chain among themselves.

The value chain of the U.S. fashion industry has numerous discernable product

differences, with the most common class of U.S. fashion industry products being fiber type. The

next common course of products is the fabric construction process (Pal & Gander, 2018).

Generally, the value chain of the U.S. fashion industry simplifies the production process of

clothing items. It makes the work of firms and workers effective and efficient.

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The Popular Culture of Fashion

Popular culture is also a distinguishing feature in the fashion industry of most countries.

Some cultural practices like the popular music culture have continuously inspired new fashion

styles. For example, in the disco era, the fashion style for men artists was flashy pantsuits while

women's fashion style was shiny metallic dresses. In the disco era, the trends in the fashion

industry were racially unbiased, although there were certain stereotypes—like the Black urban

pimp (Macchion et. al., 2015). Generally, lifestyle trends greatly affect the fashion industry

because celebrities popularize outfits.

Recently, music stars are moving into partnerships with fashion firms, making the

industry grow even further. For example, rapper Shawn "Jay-Z" and his two partners launched

the Rocawear clothing company (Park & Lee, 2021). Also, most popular celebrities are

increasingly photographed on red carpets with the latest styles of outfits. Such moves by music

celebrities show that the fashion industry is highly dependent on the popular culture of fashion

for growth.

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References

Davis, H. (2009). Polo Ralph Lauren advertising retrospective: Using interior design to help

define the corporate brand. Corcoran College of Art+ Design.

Macchion, L., Moretto, A., Caniato, F., Caridi, M., Danese, P., & Vinelli, A. (2015). Production

and supply network strategies within the fashion industry. International Journal of

Production Economics, 163, 173-188.

Mahmoudian, A. S., Jaras, M., Jarhi, A., Khajavi, A., & Mircheraghi, S. F. (2021). Heart Polo

Ralph Lauren Womens Shopper Tote Canvas Bag Beige Dual Handle L New. Heart Polo

Ralph Lauren Womens Shopper Tote Canvas Bag Beige Dual Handle L New, 27(3), 302-

317.

Pal, R., & Gander, J. (2018). Modelling environmental value: An examination of sustainable

business models within the fashion industry. Journal of Cleaner Production, 184, 251-

263.

Park, S., & Lee, K. (2021). Examining the impact of e-commerce growth on the spatial

distribution of fashion and beauty stores in Seoul. Sustainability, 13(9), 5185.

Templeton, S. (2013). It’s Not About the Clothes: Branding Strategies of American Heritage

Brands Brooks Brothers and Ralph Lauren.

Turker, D., & Altuntas, C. (2014). Sustainable supply chain management in the fast fashion

industry: An analysis of corporate reports. European Management Journal, 32(5), 837-

849.