flâneur

Founders: #288 Ralph Lauren

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What I learned from reading Ralph Lauren: The Man Behind the Mystique by Jeffrey Trachtenberg. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes ---- Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best and listen to episode 311 John Fio — Creating Magic for Consumers, episode 307 Jeremiah Lowin: Explaining the New AI Paradigm, and episode 293 The Business of Gaming. ---- [2:01] When I lumped him together with a handful of other designers during casual conversation, he snapped: “Don't put me with those designers. My business is not compared to anybody else's." [3:00] In practice Ralph Lauren is a tough, intensely ambitious businessman. [3:00] Ralph has always possessed immense self-confidence; it is central to his character, an asset as valuable as his sense of color, fabric, style. [4:00] Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life by Justine Picardie. (Founders #199) [7:00] Few outsiders understood fully how lucrative the licensing business had become. Ralph would have been a successful designer in his own right. However, he would never have qualified as one of the world's richest men without licensees willing to pay h

[00:00] A: Ralph Lauren has built the most successful apparel company in the United States. His favorite declaration about himself is what you see is what you get. When he describes his work, he insists that it does not constitute trendy fashion and that his customers care more about well made clothes than the latest party dresses from Europe. He takes such distinctions seriously. Once, when I lumped him together with a handful of other designers during during casual conversation, he snapped, don't put me with those designers. My business is not compared to anybody else's. This is an…

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