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As a veteran reporter for WWD, admittedly my perception of the Polo Ralph Lauren Corp. was always first and foremost that of a luxury designer brand and secondarily a retailer. I never thought to weave the Rhinelander Mansion on Madison Avenue and 72nd Street (the mother ship of the Ralph Lauren empire) into the paper's articles tracking the progress of the Christmas season at such stores as Saks Fifth Avenue or Bloomingdale's.
Fittingly, on the eve of Ralph Lauren's 40th anniversary in business, I began an exploration of the designer's stores and quickly learned that, since my last official visit years ago to the uptown flagship, the business has dramatically evolved.
"We're looking at the world right now...even visionary, creative places where maybe no one has stores," said Charles Fagan, Polo's executive vice president of global retail brand development.
Fagan is standing in the two-and-a-half-year-old Ralph Lauren men's store on Bleecker Street in New York's West Village, casually attired in a Double RL ribbed henley T-shirt and trim military chino. One suspects that if Fagan were escorting me through the Rhinelander, as he did five years before, he would be in Purple or Blue Label, and tailored head-to-toe.
But today his look is apropos to this downtown community, and instructional in conveying the guiding philosophy behind Ralph Lauren's accelerating and increasingly complex retail network.
"It's to get into the head of the market," Fagan explained. "Spend time there, understand the mood, the spirit, how people live and why they live there, and if they're just visiting, why they're visiting. That's Ralph's approach to us."
After all the market research, then it's about customization. "The architecture, the decorations, the assortment and the staff - those are the categories we customize. Stores must feel like they live and belong in the community. They can't be foreign," Fagan said as he spread out an array of photos of far-flung stores around the world to underscore the message.
Twenty or so years ago, the opening of the East Hampton, N.Y., shop, with its clean white facade, box planters and overflow of greenery and chic country motifs, broke the mold. "The movement toward customization around the world is not a new strategy in terms of Ralph's approach. It's more about...