Ralph Lauren — fashion with roots in the Russian Empire
Ralph Lauren was born Ralph Lifshitz in the Bronx on 14 October 1939, the youngest of four children of Frank and Frieda Lifshitz, Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants from what is now Belarus.
His father, Frank (Efraim) Lifshitz, came from Pinsk. He emigrated to the United States in 1920 with his own father and a sister. His mother, Frieda Cutler, came from Drahichyn, also in present-day Belarus, and arrived in 1921. Both towns had belonged to the Russian Empire before the First World War; by the time the family left, the region was contested between Poland and Soviet Russia, and the Treaty of Riga assigned it to Poland in 1921, which is why some sources describe Frank as coming from Poland.
Frank worked as a house painter and considered himself an artist. "My father, people say he was a house painter, but he wasn't," Lauren later said. Frieda kept a kosher home and sent her sons to a yeshiva. The children - Thelma, born in 1929, then Lenny, Jerry and Ralph - grew up near Mosholu Parkway. At sixteen Ralph and his brother Jerry changed their surname to Lauren; Lenny kept Lifshitz.
He studied business at Baruch College for two years, served briefly in the Army and took a sales job at Brooks Brothers. In 1967 he began selling men's neckties under the name Polo, and in 1970 received the Coty Award for his menswear. The company grew into women's and children's wear, accessories and home furnishings, and since 2008 has outfitted the US Olympic and Paralympic teams. He stepped down as chief executive in September 2015 and remained the company's executive chairman and chief creative officer.
He has received the Key to the City of New York, the CFDA's Lifetime Achievement Award, France's Legion of Honour and, in 2014, the Smithsonian's James Smithson Bicentennial Medal for his part in preserving the Star-Spangled Banner flag. In June 2019 he became the first American designer made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire. On 4 January 2025 he became the first fashion designer to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
"Father Frank Lifshitz left Pinsk for the United States in 1920 with his father and a sister; mother Frieda Cutler, from Drahichyn, followed in 1921."
Migration storyTracing the roots — Pinsk and Drahichyn (now Belarus)
His father, Frank Lifshitz, came from Pinsk and his mother, Frieda Cutler, from Drahichyn, both towns of the Russian Empire before the First World War. Frank emigrated in 1920 and Frieda in 1921, when the region was passing to Poland; Ralph was born in the Bronx in 1939.
Father Frank (Efraim) Lifshitz, a house painter and artist, from Pinsk; mother Frieda Cutler from Drahichyn. Both towns belonged to the Russian Empire before the First World War and were assigned to Poland in 1921.
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Pinsk and Drahichyn (now Belarus). At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.
A career defined by ambition
"I don't design clothes. I design dreams."