Reading The Fashion Conspiracy reminded me how the fashion industry has produced its own versions of the Cinderella story. Moving from conspiracies to happy-ever-after stories, I was struck again by the career beginnings of a young guy from the Bronx named Ralph Lifshitz, son of an Orthodox Jewish immigrant from Minsk. He lived in the Mosholu Parkway section and attended DeWitt Clinton High School in New York City. By this time, he’d changed his last name to Lauren. From the very beginning of his modest start in the clothing trade, he preferred the preppie style.

His rise to fashion designer stardom is straight out of the best fiction, and was undoubtedly based on hard work. Ralph Lauren had a persistent dream that became reality. “We sell a way of life” was his mantra, and in this he has been wildly successful. What I like about his brand is the consistency of its visualization, down to selling a fantasy lifestyle (how many polo players do you know?). The Art Reading Room has two biographies on his life and work, but the more recent title says it all - Ralph Lauren: the man, the vision, the style. Perhaps I also have a bit of a bias towards a designer who uses Southwestern Native American textile themes in his leisure clothes. I still remember the Fashion Week in the late 1990s when his models all wore exquisite turquoise squash blossom necklaces and heavy silver concho belts...