Ralph Lauren

Ralph Lauren was born Ralph Lifshitz in the Bronx, New York in 1939, the son of Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants from Belarus. He attended the City College of New York before dropping out to work in retail, initially selling ties and then redesigning them into wide, colourful statement pieces he sold to Bloomingdale's. In 1967 he formed Polo Fashions with a $50,000 loan from a small business association and the backing of department store buyer Norman Hilton. The name Polo — evoking English country houses, Ivy League lawns, and Old Money America — announced from the first a brand built entirely on aspirational mythology rather than personal heritage. By the 1970s and 1980s, Lauren had created one of the most powerful lifestyle brands in history by selling not clothes but dreams of a certain kind of American life — the kind he had never personally lived but could imagine with photographic precision. The fragrance programme, launched with Polo Green (1978), became part of this mythology-building from its earliest years.

Polo (1978) was created by Carlos Benaïm — who later co-created Libre (YSL) and Paradoxe (Prada) — as an herbaceous-spicy composition of basil, leather, pine, patchouli, and vetiver that became the defining American masculine of its decade. Romance (1998), created by Harry Fremont (co-creator of CK One), used star magnolia, iris, chamomile, and musks to create a clean, romantic feminine that became one of the bestselling wedding and anniversary fragrances of the following two decades. Ralph's Club (2021), created by Jérôme Epinette, introduced a more sophisticated direction with iris, rose, tonka bean, and sandalwood — positioning the brand at the upper end of accessible luxury.

Polo for Men (1978) — a rugged, herbaceous-leather masculine by Carlos Benaïm — remains one of the most culturally significant American masculines ever created, evoking the country gentleman aesthetic that Lauren built his empire upon. Polo Blue (2003) updated the franchise for a new century with a fresh aquatic-woody character that became one of the largest-selling American masculines of the 2000s. Romance (1998) is the house's most enduring feminine — a clean, romantic magnolia-chamomile-musk that has been worn at more American weddings than perhaps any other fragrance of its generation. Ralph's Club (2021) represents Lauren's most artistically ambitious recent fragrance.

Ralph Lauren occupies accessible luxury — EDPs from €60-€100 — with an American mythology that adds aspirational value beyond the purely olfactive. Their customer is drawn as much to the lifestyle narrative as the fragrance itself.

Every Ralph Lauren fragrance at The Scent Stories® is 100% authentic, factory-sealed and brand-packaged — sourced from authorised channels and shipped worldwide.