Ralph Lauren, KBE (born Lifshitz; born October 14, 1939) is an American fashion designer, philanthropist, and billionaire businessman, best known for the Ralph Lauren Corporation, a global multibillion-dollar enterprise. He has become well known for his collection of rare automobiles, some of which have been displayed in museum exhibits. Lauren stepped down as CEO of the company in September 2015 but remains executive chairman and chief creative officer. As of 2019, Forbes estimates his wealth at $6.3 billion, which makes Ralph Lauren the 102nd richest person in America.

Ralph Lifshitz was born on October 14, 1939 in The Bronx, New York City, to Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants, Frieda (Cutler) and Frank Lifshitz, an artist and house painter, from Pinsk, Belarus. The youngest of four siblings, he has two brothers and one sister.

Lauren attended day school followed by the Manhattan Talmudical Academy, before eventually graduating from DeWitt Clinton High School in 1957. He went to Baruch College, at the City University of New York (CUNY) where he studied business, although he dropped out after two years.

Lauren was one of several design leaders raised in the Jewish community in the Bronx, along with Calvin Klein and Robert Denning.

From 1962 to 1964 he served in the United States Army and left to work briefly for Brooks Brothers as a sales assistant before becoming a salesman for Rivetz a tie company.

On December 20, 1964, Ralph Lauren married Ricky Ann Low-Beer in New York City. She is the daughter of Margaret Vytouch, and Rudolph Low-Beer. The two had met six months earlier, in a doctor's office where she was working as a receptionist and on alternate days teaching dance. She is the author of The Hamptons: Food, Family and History.

They have three children. Andrew Lauren (b. 1969) is a film producer and actor. David Lauren (b. 1971) is Executive Vice President of Global Advertising, Marketing, and Communications at Ralph Lauren Corporation. 

At 28 years old, Lauren worked for the tie manufacturer Beau Brummell, where he convinced the company's president to let him start his own line. The Ralph Lauren Corporation started in 1967 with men's ties.

Drawing on his interests in sports, Lauren named his first full line of menswear 'Polo' in 1968. He worked out of a single "drawer" from a showroom in the Empire State Building and made deliveries to stores himself. By 1969, the Manhattan department store Bloomingdale's sold Lauren's men line exclusively. It was the first time that Bloomingdale's had given a designer their own in-store boutique.

In 1971, Ralph Lauren Corporation launched a line of tailored shirts for women, which introduced the Polo player emblem to the world for the first time, appearing on the shirt's cuff. The first full women's collection was launched the following year. In 1971 Lauren also opened a store on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, California; this was the first freestanding store for an American designer.

In 1972, the Ralph Lauren Corporation introduced a signature cotton mesh Polo shirt in various colors. Featuring the polo player logo at the chest, the shirt became emblematic of the preppy look—one of Ralph Lauren's signature styles. The tagline for the ad campaign was: "Every team has its color – Polo has seventeen."

In 1974, he outfitted the male cast of The Great Gatsby in costumes from his Polo line – a 1920s-style series of men's suits and sweaters, except for the pink suit which Lauren designed especially for Robert Redford's Jay Gatsby. In 1977, Diane Keaton and Woody Allen wore Lauren's clothes throughout their Oscar-winning film, Annie Hall.

The first Ralph Lauren fragrances, produced by Warner-Lauren, Ltd. were launched at Bloomingdale's in March 1978. Lauren, a fragrance for women on March 12 and Polo, cologne for men on March 26. This was the first time that a designer has introduced two fragrances – one for men and one for women – simultaneously. The company entered the European market, and went international in 1981 with the opening of the first freestanding store for an American designer on New Bond Street in the West End of London, England.

Ralph Lauren opened his first flagship in the Rhinelander mansion, on Madison Avenue and 72nd Street in New York City in 1986. Lauren re-created the building's original opulence with a young design consultant named Naomi Leff, with whom he had previously worked on Ralph Lauren Home.

In April 1987, Lauren underwent surgery to remove a benign brain tumor and made a full recovery.
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The Polo Sport line was introduced in 1992 followed by over ten additional lines and acquired brands, including Ralph Lauren Purple Label in 1995 and Lauren Ralph Lauren in 1996.

On June 12, 1997, the company became a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange.

The 98-seat restaurant RL opened in March 1999 in Chicago in a newly constructed building adjacent to the largest Ralph Lauren store at the corner of Chicago and Michigan Avenues. It was followed by the opening of two additional restaurants – Ralph's at 173 Boulevard Saint Germain Paris flagship store in 2010 and The Polo Bar at Polo's flagship in New York in 2015.

The company launched its website and online shop in 2000 as polo.com by RL Media (a cooperation between Ralph Lauren and NBC). In 2007, Ralph Lauren Corporation acquired the NBC share of RL Media and the web site was relaunched as ralphlauren.com. In 2008, Ralph Lauren Corporation launched a brand called American Living, exclusively for JCPenney. It was the largest cross-category brand launch in the history of Ralph Lauren and JCPenney.

On September 29, 2015, it was announced that Stefan Larsson would replace the company's founder, Ralph Lauren, as CEO in November. Lauren will stay on as executive chairman and chief creative officer.

Lauren has appeared on over 100 magazine covers including Architectural Digest, GQ, Forbes, Town & Country, TIME and Vogue.

Lauren celebrated the 50th anniversary of his brand in a fashion show at Bethesda Terrace in Central Park on September 8, 2018. 

Lauren owns a 17,000-acre cattle ranch in Ridgway, Colorado and a 17,000 sq foot manor built in 1919 in Bedford, New York.

Ralph Lauren is well known as a collector of automobiles, with about 100 automobiles, some being extremely rare. He owns a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO, two Ferrari TRs, three 1996 McLaren F1's (one of them an ultra-rare McLaren F1 LM), a Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing, a 1929 Bentley 4½ Litre ("Blower Bentley"), one Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic, a 1937 Bugatti Type 57SC Gangloff, a Porsche 911 GT3 RS, a Bugatti Veyron, a 1930 Mercedes-Benz SSK "Count Trossi" (aka "The Black Prince"), a 1938 Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B Mille Miglia. and a rare Lamborghini Reventón Roadster.

His cars have won "Best in Show" at the prestigious Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance twice, his 1938 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic won in 1990 and his 1930 Mercedes-Benz SSK "Count Trossi" roadster won in 1993. In 2005 his collection was displayed at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. Seventeen cars from his collection were exhibited at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, in 2011. In 2017, Lauren's now $350 million car collection took center stage during New York Fashion Week.

In 1989 Lauren co-founded the Nina Hyde Center for Breast Cancer Research at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington D.C. in memory of the late Post fashion correspondent. He served as chairman and created the name and symbol for Fashion Targets Breast Cancer, a charitable initiative of the CFDA that founded in 1994 that marshals the goodwill and services of the fashion industry to raise public awareness and funds for breast cancer internationally.

The Polo Ralph Lauren Foundation established the American Heroes Fund following the September 11th attacks to allow Polo's 10,000 employees worldwide, as well as their customers, the opportunity to participate in the relief effort.

In 2003, Ralph Lauren supported the establishment the Ralph Lauren Center for Cancer Care and Prevention in Harlem. The Center is a collaboration between Ralph Lauren, Memorial Sloan-Kettering, and North General Hospital in Harlem, New York City.

The Star-Spangled Banner, the original 1813 flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the United States National Anthem, was preserved by a $10 million contribution to Save America's Treasures from Polo Ralph Lauren in 1998. The flag was then unveiled on Wednesday, November 19, 2008, in a new gallery at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, in Washington, D.C.

Ralph Lauren Corporation announced in July 2013 its commitment to restore the elite École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, one of the most influential art schools in France.

In 2014, the Ralph Lauren Corporation partnered with the Royal Marsden, the largest and most comprehensive cancer center in Europe, to develop a world-class breast cancer research facility. They opened the Royal Marsden Ralph Lauren Center for Breast Cancer Research in 2016.

Rafael de Medina y Abascal, 20th Duke of Feria, GE (born 25 September 1978) is the son of the late 19th Duke of Feria and the Spanish top-model Nati Abascal. He belongs to one of the most important families of Spain, the House of Medinaceli, being a grandson of Victoria Eugenia Fernández de Córdoba, 18th Duchess of Medinaceli, and is a descendant of King Alfonso X of Castilla.

​Rafael de Medina Abascal (Madrid, 25 de septiembre de 1978), es el xx duque de Feria y xvii marqués de Villalba. Pertenece a una de las familias aristocráticas más importantes de España, los Medinaceli, descendientes directos del rey Alfonso X de Castilla. Es grande de España y tiene una de las herencias patrimoniales más importantes del país.

On 16 October 2010, he married Laura Vecino Acha, his long time girl friend in Toledo, in Hospital de Tavera Palace, his family estate. On 26 November 2012, Laura gave birth to twins: Rafael and Laura.
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Rafael de Medina currently resides in Madrid with his family.

​Rafael de Medina Abascal Nació en Madrid el 25 de septiembre de 1978, aunque vivió su infancia en Sevilla, ciudad de origen de sus padres, Rafael de Medina y Fernández de Córdoba, xix duque de Feria, hijo a su vez de Victoria Eugenia Fernández de Córdoba y Fernández de Henestrosa, duquesa de Medinaceli; y la modelo sevillana, Natividad Abascal y Romero-Toro, más conocida como Nati Abascal, nacida en 1943. Es descendiente, por tanto, de la Casa de Medinaceli, heredera legítima de la Casa Real de Castilla. Rafael de Medina tiene un hermano, Luis de Medina Abascal, nacido el 31 de agosto de 1980.

​Estudió en el colegio Alminar de Sevilla y en diversos internados españoles, el Colegio San José de Villafranca de los Barros, regentado por la Compañía de Jesús y más tarde en universidades inglesas y americanas como Washington D. C. o Nueva York.

Su padre Rafael de Medina y Fernández de Córdoba, fue acusado y condenado por corrupción de menores y tráfico de drogas, falleciendo a los 58 años por posible ingesta masiva de barbitúricos según la autopsia, que guardaba relación con episodios anteriores en los que había intentado suicidarse. El 4 de junio de 2002, antes de cumplido un año desde de la muerte de su padre, acaecida el 4 de agosto de 2001, recibió en sucesión el Ducado de Feria y el Marquesado de Villalba.

Trabajó durante un tiempo en el Banco Credit Suisse y posteriormente creó en 2007 su propia empresa, Scalpers, relacionada con el mundo de la moda.

Se casó el 16 de octubre de 2010 en el Palacio-Hospital de Tavera (Toledo) propiedad de los duques de Medinaceli, con su novia de toda la vida, Laura Vecino Acha, hija de Laura de Acha y Satrústegui y de Ramón Vecino Gay, nieta de Laura de Satrústegui Figueroa, que entronca genealógicamente con muchas familias de la aristocracia española.

​Rafael y Laura fueron padres de mellizos el 26 de noviembre 2012, un niño (Rafael) y niña (Laura) y vinieron al mundo mediante cesárea.

En septiembre de 2014, abandonó Scalpers, la firma de moda que fundó junto a unos amigos y que en ese momento dirigía, cediendo a su mujer, Laura Vecino, las acciones de la compañía. El abandono se debe a que pasó a ocupar el cargo de director de Mens Tailoring de Massimo Dutti, tercera marca de la empresa Inditex por índice de facturación.

​Charles Robert Redford Jr. (born August 18, 1936) is an American actor, director, and activist. He is the recipient of various accolades, including two Academy Awards, a British Academy Film Award, two Golden Globe Awards, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2014, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Appearing on stage in the late 1950s, Redford's television career began in 1960. He earned an Emmy nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Voice of Charlie Pont (1962). His greatest Broadway success was in Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park (1963). Redford made his film debut in War Hunt (1962). He starred with Natalie Wood in Inside Daisy Clover (1965) which won him a Golden Globe for the best new star. He starred alongside Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), which was a huge success and made him a major star. In 1973 he had the greatest hit of his career, the blockbuster crime caper The Sting, a reunion with Paul Newman, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award; that same year, he also starred opposite Barbra Streisand in The Way We Were. The popular and acclaimed All the President's Men (1976) was a landmark film for Redford.

In the 1980s, Redford began his career as a director with Ordinary People (1980), which was one of the most critically and publicly acclaimed films of the decade, winning four Oscars including Best Picture and the Academy Award for Best Director for Redford. He continued acting, playing the male lead in Out of Africa (1985), which was an enormous box office success and won seven Oscars including Best Picture. He received a second Academy Award—for Lifetime Achievement—in 2002. In 2010, he was made a chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur. Redford is also one of the founders of the Sundance Film Festival.

Robert ​Redford was born on August 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, California, to Martha Hart (1914–1955) and Charles Robert Redford (1914–1991), an accountant and milkman. Redford is of English, Scottish, and Irish ancestry.

Redford's family moved to Van Nuys, Los Angeles, while his father worked in El Segundo. Robert attended Van Nuys High School. He has described himself as having been a "bad" student, finding inspiration outside the classroom, and being interested in art and sports. 

After graduating from high school in 1954, he attended the University of Colorado Boulder in Boulder, Colorado for a year and a half, but was kicked out of school because of his heavy drinking. He went on to travel in Europe, living in France, Spain, and Italy. He later studied painting at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and took classes at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (Class of 1959) in New York City.

On August 9, 1958, in Las Vegas, Nevada, Redford married Lola Van Wagenen, who dropped out of college to marry him. A Mormon ceremony took place on September 12 at Lola's grandmother's home. They had four children: Scott Anthony Redford (September 1, 1959 – November 17, 1959), Shauna Jean Redford[59] (born November 15, 1960), David James Redford (May 5, 1962 – October 16, 2020), and Amy Hart Redford (born October 22, 1970).

​Robert Redford made his screen debut in Tall Story (1960) in a minor role. After his Broadway success, he was cast in larger feature roles in movies.

In Inside Daisy Clover (1965), which won him a Golden Globe for best new star, he played a bisexual movie star who marries starlet Natalie Wood. 

After this initial success, Redford became concerned about his blond male stereotype image and turned down roles in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Graduate. Redford found the niche he was looking for in George Roy Hill's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), scripted by William Goldman, in which he was paired for the first time with Paul Newman. The film was a huge success and made him a major bankable star, cementing his screen image as an intelligent, reliable, sometimes sardonic good guy. He won a British Academy of Film and Television Award (BAFTA) for that role.

Starting in 1973, Redford experienced an almost-unparalleled four-year run of box office success. The western Jeremiah Johnson's (1972) box office earnings from early 1973 until its second re-release in 1975 would have placed it as the No. 2 highest-grossing film of 1973. The romantic period drama with Barbra Streisand, The Way We Were (1973), was the 11th highest-grossing film of 1973. The crime caper reunion with Paul Newman, The Sting (1973), became the top-grossing film of 1974 and one of the top 20 highest-grossing movies of all time when adjusted for inflation, plus landed Redford the lone nomination of his career for the Academy Award for Best Actor. The romantic drama The Great Gatsby (1974) was the No. 8 highest-grossing film of 1974. As well, 1969's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid placed as the No. 10 highest-grossing film for 1974 as it was re-released due to the popularity of The Sting.

In 1974 Redford became the first performer since Bing Crosby in 1946 to have three films in a year's top ten grossing titles. Each year between 1974 and 1976, movie exhibitors voted Redford Hollywood's top box-office star. In 1976 he co-starred with Dustin Hoffman in the No. 2 highest-grossing film for the year, the critically acclaimed All the President's Men. In 1975, 1977 and 1978, Redford won the Golden Globe for Favourite World Film Star, a popularity-based award that is no longer awarded.

​All the President's Men (1976), in which Redford and Hoffman play Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, was a landmark film for Redford. Not only was he the executive producer and co-star, but the film's serious subject matter—the Watergate scandal—and its attempt to create a realistic portrayal of journalism also reflected the actor's offscreen concerns for political causes. The film landed eight Academy Award nominations, including for Best Picture and Best Director (Alan J. Pakula), while winning for the Best Screenplay (Goldman). It actually won the New York Film Critics Award for Best Picture and Best Director.

In 1976, Robert Redford published The Outlaw Trail: A Journey Through Time. Redford states, "The Outlaw Trail. It was a name that fascinated me - a geographical anchor in Western folklore. Whether real or imagined, it was a name that, for me, held a kind of magic, a freedom, a mystery. I wanted to see it in much the same way as the outlaws did, by horse and by foot, and document the adventure with text and photographs."

Sydney Pollack's Out of Africa (1985), with Redford in the male lead role opposite Meryl Streep, became a large box office success (combined 1985 and 1986 grosses placed it at No. 5 for 1986), won a Golden Globe for Best Picture, and won seven Oscars, including Best Picture. Meryl Streep was nominated for Best Actress but Redford did not receive a nomination. The movie proved to be Redford's biggest success of the decade and Redford and Pollack's most successful of their seven movies together.

Redford did not direct again until The Milagro Beanfield War (1988), a well-crafted, though not commercially successful, screen version of John Nichols's acclaimed novel of the Southwest. ​

Redford continued as a major star throughout the 1990s and 2000s. He released his third film as a director, A River Runs Through It, in 1992, which was a return to mainstream success for Redford as a director and brought a young Brad Pitt to greater prominence. In 1993, Redford played what became one of his most popular and recognized roles, starring in Indecent Proposal as a millionaire businessman who tests a couple's morals; the film became one of the year's biggest hits.

In August 2018, Redford announced his retirement from acting but later regretted the decision.

​With the financial proceeds of his acting success, starting with his salaries from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Downhill Racer, Redford bought an entire ski area on the east side of Mount Timpanogos northeast of Provo, Utah, called "Timp Haven", which was renamed "Sundance." The name Sundance comes from his Sundance Kid character. Redford's wife Lola was from Utah and they had built a home in the area in 1963. Portions of the movie Jeremiah Johnson (1972), a film which is both one of Redford's favorites and one that has heavily influenced him, was shot near the ski area. 

Robert Redford founded nonprofit Sundance Institute in Park City, Utah, 30 miles (48 km) north of the Sundance ski area in 1981, and has been deeply involved with independent film since then. Through its various workshop programs and popular film festival, Sundance has provided much-needed support for independent filmmakers. In 1995, Redford signed a deal with Showtime to start a 24-hour cable television channel devoted to airing independent films. The Sundance Channel premiered on February 29, 1996.
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Redford is also the President and co-Founder of Sundance Productions, with Laura Michalchyshyn, which produced films like Emmy nominee All The President's Men Revisited (Discovery), Isabella Rossellini's Green Porno Live!, and To Russia With Love on Epix.

​The Sundance Film Festival caters to independent filmmakers in the United States and has received recognition from the industry as a place to open films. In 2008, Sundance exhibited 125 feature-length films from 34 countries, with more than 50,000 attendees.

Redford and Lola divorced in 1985. In the 1990s Sibylle Szaggars moved in with Redford into his home in Sundance, Utah. In July 2009, Redford Sibylle Szaggars married at the Louis C. Jacob Hotel in Hamburg, Germany.  

In May 2011, Alfred A. Knopf published Robert Redford: The Biography by Michael Feeney Callan, written over fifteen years with Redford's input and drawn from his personal papers and diaries.