The TRAGIC Story of Bentley

The Bentley 3 Litre was a car chassis manufactured by Bentley. The company's first, it was developed from 1919 and made available to customers' coachbuilders from 1921 to 1929. The Bentley was very much larger than the 1368 cc Bugattis that dominated racing at the time, but double the size of engine and strength compensated for the extra weight. The 4000 lb (1800 kg) car won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1924, with drivers John Duff and Frank Clement, and again in 1927, this time in Super Sports form, with drivers S. C. H. "Sammy" Davis and Dudley Benjafield. Its weight, size, and speed prompted Ettore Bugatti to call it "the fastest lorry in the world", which was regarded as a compliment. Built in 3 main variants, Blue label, Red Label Speed models all carrying a 5-year warranty, and the coveted and rare Green Label 100 mph cars, which only carried a 12-month warranty reflecting the high state of tune.

From bon appetit to Uber Eats: why France’s beloved restaurants are in crisis

 

From bon appetit to Uber Eats: why France’s beloved restaurants are in crisis

Paul Taylor

When I started as a reporter in Paris in the 1970s, long, boozy lunches were the norm. Now only fast food and fine dining are thriving

 

Fri 2 Jan 2026 05.00 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jan/02/france-restaurants-crisis

 

Spare a thought for the poor French restaurateur. Once the iconic image of a sybaritic nation that loved nothing more than a boozy meal out with friends or colleagues, the French restaurant is in deep crisis. Traditional restaurants are closing faster than you can shout “garçon!”, as eating habits change and the cost of living pinches.

 

“It’s a catastrophe for our profession,” Franck Chaumès, president of the restaurant branch of the Union of Hospitality Trades and Industries (UMIH) said in a television interview recently. “Some 25 restaurants are going out of business every day.” The UMIH has demanded – so far in vain – that the government ration the opening of new restaurants, in proportion to the local population, and license only professionals who are qualified in cooking and accounting.

 

The only businesses that seem immune to the hollowing out of France’s hospitality sector are those providing haute cuisine at eye-watering prices to the super-rich and fast-food chains such as the ubiquitous McDonald’s, which does a roaring trade.

 

The days when business, politics and diplomacy were transacted over lengthy wine-fuelled lunches are mostly gone. When I started as a reporter in Paris in 1978, there was no point calling a ministry or corporate press office between 1pm and 3pm, even in a crisis. Everyone was à table. Nowadays, only parliamentarians perpetuate the gluttonous tradition.

 

Changing lifestyles, rising wholesale food prices and perverse tax rules are driving ever-more restaurant owners to the wall, as ordinary French people struggle to make ends meet. Gen Z and millennials eat less, drink less alcohol and spend less time at the dining table. Add to that the inroads of home-delivery services such as Deliveroo and Uber Eats – often ferrying food prepared in “dark kitchens”, without a dining room attached – and it’s easy to see how old-fashioned restaurants are struggling to survive.

 

“I used to serve 75 covers every lunchtime, and we had at least two home-cooked dishes of the day, with meat or fish and fresh vegetables,” says Alex Diril, who used to run a bar-restaurant in Paris’s fifth arrondissement, frequented by office workers, craftsmen and young people from nearby universities. “Things changed after the pandemic. Customers who used to eat out every day came maybe once or twice at the beginning of the week. You would offer people a fresh, healthy plat du jour, and mostly they wanted burgers and fries. As the wholesale cost of food rose, we couldn’t increase prices because of the competition from fast-food joints and sandwich places.”

 

Despite the hard work put into serving freshly cooked food, the restaurant was losing money. Diril cut his losses and stopped serving food at the end of 2024. His bar-tobacco shop is just one of thousands of victims of a crisis that is changing the face of France.

 

The Covid pandemic was a turning point in many ways. When restrictions eased, fewer than two-thirds of middle-class workers returned to the office full-time. Many continue to work from home at least part of the week, and some take a lunchbox or grab a sandwich on the fly when they do go to the office.

 

Tax and employment rules have compounded restaurateurs’ woes. VAT is charged at 5.5% on takeaway meals, but 10% on eat-in dining. Moreover, since Covid the luncheon vouchers that many French workers receive as part of their pay can be spent on food in supermarkets, not just in restaurants. That has dealt a body blow to lunchtime dining.

 

The advent of online shopping, coupled with restrictions on driving and parking in urban centres has also hit the restaurant business hard.

 

Statistically, the French have long spent more time eating and drinking than other comparable countries: two hours and 13 minutes on average per day, according to a 2015 study, compared to one hour and 18 minutes in the UK, and barely an hour in the US. But habits have changed since then, influenced by US fast-food culture as well as healthier eating. Young people are as likely to go to the gym as to a restaurant during their lunch break.

 

The 35-hour working week, introduced in France in 1998, forced many small restaurants with kitchen staff to reduce their opening hours. Try getting served in a provincial restaurant after 1.30pm and you are likely to encounter a Gallic shrug and a curt “la cuisine est fermée” (the kitchen’s closed), if not a surly “non, mais vous avez vu l’heure?” (haven’t you seen the time?). Serving staff are also increasingly hard to find. Since the pandemic, fewer French people want to work the unsocial evening and weekend hours on which restaurants depend.

 

Ironically, while the British government subsidised its citizens to “eat out to help out” – at the risk of spreading contagion – the French government showered restaurateurs with money to stay shut during the Covid lockdowns. While other businesses received interest-free loans to ease their cashflow, restaurants got outright grants. “I’d never seen so much money. We couldn’t believe our eyes,” says Martine David, who ran a family restaurant in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in southern France. There was a six-month boom when lockdown was lifted. French people regained their freedom and splurged pent-up savings on a meal out. But business never really returned to normal after the pandemic.

 

Restaurateurs now face a choice between reheating mass-produced pre-cooked frozen food from wholesalers to cut costs, or trying to attract customers who care about healthy eating with a short menu of locally sourced produce cooked to order, which has a higher labour cost. Sadly, the former are faring better than the latter.

 

Bon appetit!

 

Paul Taylor is a senior visiting fellow at the European Policy Centre

More women reporting abuse in Norway as member of royal family to go on trial for rape

 

More women reporting abuse in Norway as member of royal family to go on trial for rape

 

Country’s largest women’s health organisation says case of Marius Borg Høiby encouraging people to seek help

 

Miranda Bryant Nordic correspondent

Thu 1 Jan 2026 11.05 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/01/more-women-reporting-abuse-norway-since-royal-family-member-allegations-trial

 

Staff at Norway’s largest women’s health organisation have seen a rise in the number of women reporting abuse and sexual assault at the hands of their partners ahead of the rape trial of a member of the royal family, saying they hope the case helps to “break taboos”.

 

Marius Borg Høiby, the 28-year-old son of the Norwegian crown princess, is due to stand trial in February on 32 charges including four counts of rape, the domestic abuse of a former partner and the illegal filming of a number of women without their knowledge or consent.

 

His lawyer, Petar Sekulic, has said that Høiby “denies all charges of sexual abuse, as well as the majority of the charges regarding violence”. His client would “present a detailed account of his version of events before the court”, he added.

 

Høiby, whose mother is the crown princess, Mette-Marit, and whose stepfather is the crown prince, Haakon, Norway’s future king, could face 10 years in prison if he is found guilty of the most serious charges.

 

May Britt Buhaug, the secretary general of the women’s public health organisation Sanitetskvinnene, said her staff had recorded a rise in the number of women reporting experiences of domestic violence and sexual assault, which they expected to increase further when the trial started.

 

“Staff at our women’s health centres have seen an increase in women who make contact to ask for help and advice after experiences of violence and sexual assault. Media coverage of cases such as Høiby’s lower the threshold to ask for help. That women ask for help more easily is a positive effect. Openness breaks taboos,” said Buhaug.

 

According to statistics from the Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies (NKVTS), one in 10 women in Norway have experienced serious violence from an intimate partner.

 

Buhaug said: “Although tragic, it seems that this case can contribute to break the silence around intimate partner violence and rape.”

 

Meanwhile, an explosive new book, which Høiby unsuccessfully tried to prevent from being published, claims he has personally sold drugs on the streets of Oslo. Høiby has denied the allegations.

 

The negative headlines appear to have energised republicans. The king is Harald V, who has been the monarch since 1991 and is now 88. Because of the law of primogeniture used until 1990, it is his second child, Haakon, who is heir to the throne and not his elder child, Märtha Louise.

 

Craig Aaen-Stockdale, the leader of the group Norge som republikk (Norway as a republic), said its membership had more than tripled in the last two years – largely, he said because of the accusations against Høiby.

 

“In an otherwise democratic, egalitarian and liberal country the Norwegian royal family occupies a bit of a blind spot and has traditionally seen high levels of support. However, many Norwegians are now reconsidering their position on the royal family, who were previously viewed as a relatively harmless bunch,” he said.

 

“The ongoing omniscandal has really tarnished the reputation of the younger royals, including the future heir. In a few years we may be in a situation where the head of state has a chronically ill wife [Mette-Marit recently said she would have to have a lung transplant] and a son in prison. That is not fair on anybody.”

 

But Torgeir Pedersen Krokfjord, a co-author of the book White Lines, Black Sheep, which published the drug allegations, said the royal family remained popular among most Norwegians and had emerged relatively unscathed.

 

“One can only imagine how it must have been for them to deal with all this through the years, while battling health issues at the same time,” he said.

 

The royal palace and Høiby’s lawyer have been contacted for comment.

A 1940s film about the good old English pub. / The ‘heartbreaking’ number of pubs closing every week across UK revealed

The ‘heartbreaking’ number of pubs closing every week across UK revealed

 

British Beer and Pub Association said the Government needs to act quickly to save pubs across the country

 

Henry Saker-Clark

Monday 18 August 2025 07:35 BST

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/pubs-closing-uk-tax-budget-b2809371.html

 

Eight pubs a week ceased trading across the UK during the first half of the year, new figures reveal, as the industry grapples with escalating tax and labour costs.

 

Industry leaders have described the trend as "heartbreaking", urging the Treasury to implement supportive tax measures in the upcoming autumn budget.

 

Official government statistics show 209 pubs were either demolished or repurposed for other uses in the six months leading up to June.

 

This decline has seen the total number of pubs in England and Wales, including those vacant or available to let, fall to 38,780.

 

Since the beginning of 2020, commercial real estate specialists at Ryan found a staggering 2,283 pubs have permanently disappeared from communities across England and Wales.

 

Valuation Office Agency data indicates many of these establishments have been converted into residential properties, offices, or even day nurseries.

 

The South East bore the brunt of these closures in the first half of 2025, losing 31 pubs within just six months.

 

The closures come amid an intensifying backdrop for UK pubs, which were impacted by increases to the national minimum wage, national insurance payments and business rates payments.

 

In April, the national living wage rose by 6.7 per cent to £12.21 an hour for workers aged 21 and older.

 

At the same time, the Government increased the rate of employer national insurance contributions from 13.8 per cent to 15 per cent and also lowered the threshold at which firms would pay the tax.

 

Many pubs were also hit by changes to discounts on business rates, the property tax affecting high street businesses.

 

Hospitality businesses received a 60 per cent discount on their business rates bills up to a cap of £110,000 but saw this cut to only 25 per cent in April.

 

Industry bosses had warned that the jump in taxes particularly would lead to an acceleration in pub closures.

 

Emma McClarkin, chief executive of the British Beer and Pub Association, said the Government needs to act quickly to save pubs across the country.

 

Emma McClarkin, chief executive of the British Beer and Pub Association, said the Government needs to act quickly to save pubs across the country

 

She said: “It’s absolutely heartbreaking and there is a direct link between pubs closing for good and the huge jump in costs they have just endured.

 

“Pubs and brewers are important employers, drivers of economic growth, but are also really valuable to local communities across the country and have real social value.

 

“This is a really sad pattern, and unfortunately a lot of these pubs never come back.

 

“The Government needs to act at the budget, with major reforms to business rates and beer duty.”

 

Alex Probyn, practice leader of property tax at Ryan, warned the squeeze on the pub trade is intensifying.

 

He said: “Slashing business rates relief for pubs from 75 per cent to 40 per cent this year has landed the sector with an extra £215 million in tax bills.

 

“For a small pub, that’s a leap in the average bill from £3,938 to £9,451 – a 140 per cent increase.

 

“The combination of soaring business rates, higher national insurance contributions, the rising national minimum wage and packaging taxes are all quietly draining profits until staying open becomes impossible.

 

“When that happens, developers are quick to snap up the plots for more lucrative uses.”

Last Orders, London?

Opinion

Guest Essay

Last Orders, London?

By Jimmy McIntosh

 

Mr. McIntosh runs the Instagram account @londondeadpubs and is the editor of Sir! Magazine. He wrote from London.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/opinion/london-pubs.html

Dec. 31, 2025

 

One afternoon some weeks ago, a little after 1 p.m., groups of office workers — a mass of navy quarter-zips and smart-casual suits — huddled together in the dim mahogany-paneled main room of the Devonshire, a pub tucked behind the Piccadilly Circus tube station in central London.

 

Almost all of them had backpacks at their feet and pints of Guinness in their hands. From my spot near the bar, I could see a food influencer filming outside, and hear a tourist couple in the corner marveling at the sheer Britishness of the interior: the ornate ceilings and carpet; the etched mirrors; the rich leather banquettes.

 

As far as I could find out, there’s been a pub on this spot for most of the last 200 years — one opened in 1793, the same year Louis XVI faced the guillotine in France — but this latest iteration opened only at the end of 2023. It quickly became a success story: a public house not just back from the dead but thriving, thanks to its reincarnation as a quintessential British pub, with traditional interiors; elevated versions of the usual pub menu classics like Scotch eggs and sausage rolls; and good low- and no-alcohol drink options. A place where those who can afford to can have a few drinks and a relaxed dinner.

 

But the Devonshire and pubs like it are also symptoms of how London’s drinking culture, and the city itself, is changing. For one thing, it’s become irrationally expensive to go for a drink in London. Ten years ago, the average price of a pint of beer in the city was a little under 4 pounds, about $5. Today it’s more like $8, and for that price you could easily buy four cans in the supermarket.

 

 

For another thing, we’re all much more aware that knocking back pints every other night might not be the best thing for our health, and many of us, particularly Gen Z-ers, are drinking less. For these and other reasons (the pandemic didn’t help) a lot of pubs have closed, and many, many others have changed, often considerably. Some definitely for the better.

 

But as someone who has long been exploring and documenting the capital’s diverse pubs, from the upmarket to the occasionally threatening, I’ve noticed a pattern: a shift toward a sort of monoculture. I worry that we’re losing the variety that’s fundamental to the fabric of the city.

 

Head in any direction out of London’s center and there are ghosts of the city’s old pubs all around. Roughly a fifth of the capital’s pubs have closed in the last 20 years, according to the Office of National Statistics. Many of those have been so-called wet-led pubs, which serve no food other than the occasional bag of nuts or potato chips, and are clustered in less affluent neighborhoods — often colloquially known as “old-man pubs.”

 

It’s a tale of two cities, told through its public houses. On one side, the foodie establishments offer the quintessential pub experience to a consumer-class clientele. They are the kind of places that regularly make the capital’s “best of” lists, and often thrive. On the other are the community drinking dens that are less of a destination and more of a space for neighbors to commune and let off steam. Many of those pubs are struggling.

 

London’s love affair with the public house goes way back — Romans introduced “tabernae” (sort of wine bars/liquor stores) when they arrived in 43 A.D. And the concept of the “public house,” later “pub,” as we know it today, emerged out of legislation passed in the 16th century by Edward VI, which formalized the licensing laws that allowed inns and taverns to sell to the public.

 

The British boozer has always been about more than just getting drunk — though that has, admittedly, often been a large part of it. Inns were places for weary travelers to eat, drink and rest. Ale was a drink for everyone when tea and coffee were still the preserve of the rich. Even now London’s pubs are places to meet friends and colleagues. They’re the site of first dates (even if most people are finding those dates on apps), and they’re still places to watch rugby and soccer, or play pool and board games — I’ve even spotted the occasional board meeting. They are places, above all, to gather.

 

Maybe, unexpectedly, young people can save them. The young are still boozing, just in a completely different way. Research showed that the proportion of legal-age Gen-Z drinkers who claimed to have consumed alcohol in the past six months actually rose slightly, from 66 percent in March 2023 to 76 percent this past March. But they’re often drinking low-alcohol beer and alternating each round (or “zebra striping”) with a nonalcoholic drink.

 

And, perhaps also unexpectedly, Gen Z has developed a taste for the old-man pub. Gen Z values authenticity, and there’s nothing more authentic than a pub that’s remained unchanged and unpretentious for the best part of 50 years. Maybe part of it is a reaction to the minimalist millennial interiors that plagued bars and pubs of the 2010s, all exposed brick, strip lighting and uncomfortable wooden seating — about as homey as a bank branch.

 

Maybe it’s related to the fact that these pubs are often less expensive, too. It’s virtually impossible for young people to manage rent in London’s center. And as they’re priced out to the edges of the city, they often turn to the community pubs in those areas. The King’s Head in North London is one such pub. Its banquettes may be fading, its carpet well worn, but there’s an easy warmth, karaoke and cheap pints. It is in many ways the archetype of what a London pub should be: multigenerational, bacchanalian and — and this is key — affordable.

 

Pubs have always been the boozy stage upon which Londoners’ lives play out. As people drink less for their health and the cost of living rises, they’ll have to change. But if we’re not careful we’ll end up with a city dotted with identikit representations of the Traditional British Boozer all selling the same thing to whoever can still pay for it, and we’ll lose something important: That pubs are supposed to be for everyone (of legal drinking age).

 

So what’s the answer? Maybe just recognition that even if people aren’t drinking like they used to, we all still need places to gather. That inclusive, affordable places with low- and no-alcohol drink options, nuts, weeknight quizzes, pool tables and a convivial, welcoming atmosphere are something worth preserving.

 

We don’t need every pub in London to be a sea of quarter-zips.

 

Jimmy McIntosh runs the Instagram account @londondeadpubs and is the editor of Sir! Magazine.

The Rhinelander Mansion and Ralph Lauren.

The Rhinelander Mansion

Ralph Lauren use

Renovation

867 Partnership began renovating the building in 1984, converting the second floor to retail space and the third through fifth floors into office space. The facade was also restored. The fashion designer Ralph Lauren, head of the Polo Ralph Lauren Corporation, leased the basement and the first four stories in January 1985, with an initial lease of 20 years and an option to extend it another 29 years. Lauren had considered leasing the Charles Scribner's Sons Building and a Trump Tower storefront on Fifth Avenue before deciding upon the Rhinelander Mansion. He submitted plans that March to expand the mansion's rear and to renovate the exterior. Lauren planned to convert the house into New York City's first standalone Polo Ralph Lauren clothing store (at the time, all of his New York City sales were through other stores). One company executive said they wanted to "restore the charm and dignity the building had to create an interior that's elegant and clubby", and Lauren himself told Architectural Digest that "I've always thought that showing clothes in a townhouse would be the ultimate for me". Rhinelander Florist, Eat, and La Cuisiniere all had to relocate to accommodate the Polo Ralph Lauren store.

 

Naomi Leff & Associates were hired to design the house's renovation; this was a contrast to other Ralph Lauren stores, which had been designed by Ken Winslow. Polo Fashions executive Buffy Birrittella assisted Lauren with the renovation. The Rhinelander Mansion's renovation required as many as 400 workers at a time. As part of the project, workers installed furniture and decorations that were reminiscent of the house's original design, including oak floors and mahogany balustrades. Although many of the original architectural drawings and decorative details were no longer extant, Leff's firm restored some of the original decorations, such as stairways and plasterwork.The main entrance was moved to the corner of the building Ralph Lauren employees traveled to Europe to acquire antique decorations and furniture for the interiors. The renovation team also acquired materials such as 82,000 square feet (7,600 m2) of mahogany, in addition to felt walls and drapery. The interiors were fitted with such lavish displays as antique toys, rattan cages with live canaries, and real grass.[33] One commentator called the mansion's store "the first flagship store to actively engage with filmic fantasy as a whole of brand merchandising strategy".

 

Though the store was originally supposed to open in November 1985, it was delayed by factors ranging from constant bomb threats to stringent preservation requirements.The 20,000-square-foot (1,900 m2) store opened on April 21, 1986, following a preview event. According to Lauren, the project cost over $14 million,though other sources described the renovation as costing up to $18 million or $30 million. Leff's firm also gained media attention when the renovation was completed. Following the renovation, Polo Ralph Lauren requested a $4 million federal tax credit for the building's restoration, as the structure was on the NRHP. The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (OPRHP), which had to endorse the tax credit, spent over a year reviewing Lauren's request, as many of the original decorative details had been covered up or even destroyed.

 

1980s and 1990s

Polo Ralph Lauren was the sole operator of the 867 Madison Avenue store, in contrast to other Ralph Lauren stores that had co-owners. Lauren intended to sell new clothing designs at the Rhinelander Mansion before selling them elsewhere.[ Originally, the first two stories were for men's clothing and accessories; the third floor was for women's clothing; and the fourth story was for home furnishings. The arrangement was deliberate: the store was marketed as primarily a menswear store, and Birrittella said that, while women would walk through men's clothing departments, the inverse was not true. After the Rhinelander Mansion store opened, Lauren said: "I saw families go upstairs and shop, and that's an experience." The Rhinelander Mansion store earned between $80,000 and $120,000 daily in its first month; within a year, the store had made $31 million. During Christmas holiday seasons, Polo Ralph Lauren replaced the house's awnings and redecorated its interior. The company spent more than $100,000 in 1988 to refurbish a room on the third floor for the women's collection, and it opened a "country store" on the fourth floor the same year.

 

The house was placed for sale at the beginning of 1989, and several foreign firms expressed interest in buying the mansion. An Irish company, Power Corporation plc, bought the house in mid-1989 for $43 million; Power Corporation's executive vice president called the building a "trophy property" because of factors such as the Ralph Lauren store's sales revenue and the consumer price index. At the time, Polo Ralph Lauren's rent was eight percent of the Rhinelander Mansion store's sales revenue.The Rhinelander Mansion flagship was one of Polo Ralph Lauren's most profitable stores in the early 1990s, and the store had outgrown the mansion.In 1991, the company leased space at 888 Madison Avenue, across the street from the mansion, for its sportswear division. The company decided to renovate 888 Madison Avenue, opening a Polo Sport store there in September 1993. Unlike the Rhinelander Mansion, the Polo Sport store was designed in a contemporary style. The opening of the Polo Sport store at 888 Madison Avenue further increased sales at the flagship store in 867 Madison Avenue.

 

Despite the flagship's popularity among tourists, as well as the location's high revenues (which reached $33.8 million in 1993), it operated at a net loss in the mid-1990s due to high expenses. The mansion's owner Power Corporation was also experiencing financial difficulties and discreetly placed the house for sale in 1992. The firm sought to resell the house for $46 million, but there were few potential buyers. By early 1997, Power Corporation was still negotiating to sell the house to one of several potential buyers, including Polo Ralph Lauren.The mansion was sold in November 1997 to an unidentified German entity for around $36 million. At the time, Polo Ralph Lauren was the sole tenant of the mansion, paying $3 million annually in rent. 867 Madison Avenue retained its country-club atmosphere through the end of the 20th century. A 1998 Los Angeles Times article noted that the flagship store's patrons were given complimentary drinks.

 

2000s to present

In the early 2000s, a Women's Wear Daily reporter wrote that the Rhinelander Mansion maintained its manor-like character, while the store inside had 50 salespeople "who behave more like servants at an English estate than typical retail clerks". Polo Ralph Lauren kept the mansion's drapes closed to entice visitors, while the decorations and artwork inside were swapped out every few weeks to attract repeat customers. By then, men's and women's clothing departments each occupied about half of the house's space. Polo Ralph Lauren acquired yet another building across the street, at 872 Madison Avenue, in 2004; that structure housed the store's baby-clothing department, which had opened the previous year. The boys' clothing department moved to another structure nearby, at 878 Madison Avenue, in 2004. A writer for The New York Times said in 2006 that the block of Madison Avenue adjoining the Rhinelander Mansion had become a "Disney-like mall of Ralph Lauren stores". Lauren also opened stores downtown to attract younger customers who did not travel to the Rhinelander Mansion.

 

The Rhinelander Mansion was sold again in 2005 for $80 million to Sloane Capital Group, an investment group led by the Irish investors Aidan Brooks and J. P. McManus. Although Polo Ralph Lauren had offered to buy the house, Sloane Capital had submitted a higher bid. The Rhinelander Mansion remained Polo Ralph Lauren's flagship through the late 2000s. Cheaper items were placed near the main entrance, while more pricey objects were deeper inside the mansion. Ralph Lauren opened an eyewear division within the mansion in 2006. Ralph Lauren announced plans in 2008 to rebuild the neighboring structure at 888 Madison Avenue into the company's second New York City flagship. The womenswear and home appliances departments were moved from the Rhinelander Mansion to the new flagship when the latter structure opened in 2010. The Rhinelander Mansion was converted into Ralph Lauren's flagship menswear store, while the company's eyewear and children's divisions were located elsewhere.

 

When the Rhinelander Mansion opened in September 2010, each story was occupied by different menswear brands.The first floor contained watches and Polo-branded items; the second floor had the Purple Label brand and a luggage department; the third floor accommodated a "world of heritage" department and the RRL brand; and the fourth floor was used by the Black label collection, the RLX activewear label, and a sportswear room. Ralph Lauren opened a shoe salon for men on the mansion's ground floor in 2013. At Lauren's request, the Polo division was relocated upstairs in the mid-2010s, resulting in decreased sales. The company instead displayed expensive accessories and objects in the storefront windows. In the 2010s, the Ralph Lauren Corporation also hosted shows outside its stores at Madison Avenue and 72nd Street.

 

Brooks and McManus continued to own the building through Tribeca Holdings, which agreed in 2016 to sell the building to an unnamed buyer at an undisclosed price.The store closed temporarily in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City. In December 2023, Ralph Lauren renewed its lease for the building until 2034.

Inside Ralph Lauren’s Old-Money Comeback / Inside Ralph Lauren’s luxe reset—and the CEO who made it stick

Magazine·Ralph Lauren

Inside Ralph Lauren’s luxe reset—and the CEO who made it stick

 

Patrice Louvet brought discipline, premium focus, and modern marketing to steer the American icon out of its discount spiral.

 

Alex Fradkin for Fortune

https://fortune.com/article/ralph-lauren-luxury-fashion-retail-patrice-louvet/

Phil Wahba

By Phil Wahba

Senior Writer

 

October 2, 2025 at 5:30 AM EDT

17 min read

 

This April, designer Ralph Lauren commandeered Manhattan’s sumptuous Clock Tower Building for his eponymous company’s fall 2025 fashion show—and proceeded to pack the place with boldface names and influencers young and old, all curious to see what the brand had come up with.

 

On a pass through the room, maneuvering around the building’s marble Corinthian columns and grandiose staircase, you could spot Anna Wintour of Vogue, not far from actor Anne Hathaway (in a beige trench coat) and country star Kacey Musgraves (in a white tank top and cowboy hat). Nearby, Julia Louis-Dreyfus of Seinfeld and Veep fame was hanging out with Lauren’s wife, Ricky.

 

The show, “The Modern Romantics,” unveiled a collection of women’s wear—an area where the company is avidly boosting its presence. Models sported aviator jackets, cashmere wraps, and boots in styles that blended masculine and feminine, mixing hard materials like leather (lots of it) with soft ones like lace. The fashion press would later declare the event a home run. And once all 47 models had walked the runway, the 85-year-old Ralph Lauren himself appeared to rapturous applause on the mezzanine, taking it all in.

 

Watching the designer from below, beaming deferentially, was a dapper, bespectacled man sporting a natty pocket square: Patrice Louvet, Ralph Lauren’s CEO. Though he’s hardly tabloid famous, the fashionistas in attendance knew him well; he was deep in conversation with Wintour for part of the evening. And if Ralph Lauren the company is firing on all cylinders financially and culturally these days, it’s in large part thanks to Louvet, whose business acumen has complemented Ralph Lauren the man’s nearly infallible instincts.

 

Louvet, CEO since 2017, came from Procter & Gamble, a world of toothpaste and razor blades, but he has arguably saved the most important American fashion company from the threat of obsolescence. In the years before his arrival, Ralph Lauren—long a barometer for the financial health and cred of U.S. fashion—had seen declining sales and profits, and more worryingly, declining brand equity. In its quest for growth and a wider customer base, it had become a fixture at discount chains like J.C. Penney, Kohl’s, and T.J. Maxx—retailers that don’t exactly scream “timeless luxury.” And Ralph Lauren’s welter of overlapping sub-brands was confusing its customers.

 

“There are a number of levers you can pull to continue fast growth that you can convince yourself are not problematic,” Louvet tells Fortune, describing that spiral at company headquarters in Manhattan on a hot day in early summer. He’s dressed in an immaculate navy blue suit from Purple Label, the company’s luxury men’s wear line. “You say we will do a little bit more, it’ll be fine, then yet more the next quarter, and you keep dialing it up,” he continued. Until one day, like a frog that’s been boiled gradually, your brand equity dies.

 

For Louvet, the solution for a company with decades of history was to return to what made it coveted in the first place. “Ralph founded this company as a luxury company, and what we needed to do was go back to this mindset,” says Louvet, who’s 61.

 

Under Louvet, Ralph Lauren exited more than 1,000 U.S. department stores, reducing the brand’s very high exposure to that declining retail format. It has built more stand-alone stores and focused its product assortment on pricier items around which it can sustain its understated-but-upscale fashion narrative.

 

Over eight years, Louvet has refashioned a company whose top line, $7.1 billion in the most recent fiscal year, is on a steady upward course, and whose profits and operating margins are at 13-year highs. Average unit retail, a metric that serves as a composite of the prices a company charges for all its products, has doubled. (It helps to be selling calfskin shoulder bags for $2,200. Suits like the one Louvet wore to our interview retail for a tidy $2,995.) Not everything is extravagantly priced—a perennial hit is the $398 U.S. flag cotton Polo sweater—but fewer items are discounted every year.

 

The luxury halo appears to have returned—just in time for a period when more people are dressing up again after years of wearing athleisure everywhere. “Ralph Lauren has always been synonymous with quality, and that really resonates with consumers today,” says TD Cowen analyst John Kernan. Savvy marketing has helped the 58-year-old company become a hit with Gen Z shoppers and influencers, a promising sign for the long term. One big recent coup: In the social media posts where Taylor Swift announced her engagement to football star Travis Kelce, both were wearing Ralph Lauren.

 

Louvet is quick to share credit, not least with the man whose name is on the door of every store and on every product. As executive chairman and chief creative officer, Ralph Lauren still plays a central role in how the company operates. Even more so than most CEOs, leaders who work with founders need emotional intelligence, and Louvet, by all accounts, has plenty; he knows how to lead without being the star of the show.

 

“Ralph founded this company as a luxury company. What we needed to do was go back to this mindset.”

Patrice Louvet on Ralph Lauren’s Revival

 

David Lauren, chief branding and innovation officer and the only one of Lauren’s three children to become a company executive, is among Louvet’s fans. “When you find someone who also brings a unique humility, kindness, self-awareness, and maturity,” he says, “it’s an amazing combination.

 

Ralph Lauren, born Ralph Lifshitz in the Bronx in 1939, has been famous for longer than most American shoppers have been alive. Though he never went to fashion school, doesn’t do his own sketches, and has no training in how to cut fabrics, he’s always had a sharp eye and no shortage of chutzpah. Lauren first won attention in 1967, with neckties that were wider than was fashionable at the time. When Bloomingdale’s told him it would buy his ties only if he narrowed them and replaced their Polo tags with Bloomingdale’s labels, he said no; a few months later, Bloomingdale’s relented.

 

Lauren has always said he wanted to see the clothes he saw in the movies in stores. And selling that fantasy—whether the WASP aesthetic of a Connecticut estate, or the preppy panache of upscale college kids, or the cowboy feel of his own Colorado ranch—has remained at the heart of his aesthetic vision. As filmmaker Ken Burns said in the 2019 documentary Very Ralph, “You’re not just buying an article of clothing, you’ve joined a narrative.”

 

Even so, says fashion historian Emma McClendon, Ralph Lauren has never tried to be cutting-edge. “What they’re attempting to be is the standard-bearer of American style,” she says. Being “timeless,” a word company executives use ad nauseam, is perhaps the cornerstone of its identity. By the 1980s and ’90s, Ralph Lauren’s suits became the uniform for many men on Wall Street, and Lauren has dressed first ladies from Nancy Reagan to Melania Trump, along with countless celebrities.

 

But over the decades, the company’s hyper-speed rise sowed the seeds of an existential crisis. Much of its growth was fueled by licensing deals. By 2000, some 26 outside companies were making and advertising the wares Lauren designed, limiting the company’s control over everything from quality to distribution to brand equity. And the company faced enormous pressure to keep the pace going after it went public in 1997.

 

Management delivered: Between 2007 and 2015, Ralph Lauren revenue rose 80%, to a peak of $7.6 billion. But the quest led the company down some ill-advised roads. By the late 2000s, convinced it could retain credibility while selling lower-end brands at discount chains, Ralph Lauren was everywhere from Saks Fifth Avenue to J.C. Penney. Trying to be all things to all people “is often the beginning of the end for luxury brands,” says Silvia Bellezza, a former LVMH executive who teaches marketing at Columbia Business School.

 

Ralph Lauren also took risks in its manufacturing, overproducing for fear of leaving revenue on the table—which in turn led to mass discounting of unsold goods. It was unclear what this company was anymore: one that competed in luxury with the likes of Brioni, or one that sold socks at $10 for a four-pack at T.J. Maxx.

 

As business began to erode, the Lauren family had one vital advantage: They held the vast majority of voting shares (85% currently). That control shielded Ralph Lauren from the drastic decisions that could have been imposed by an activist investor, and it gave the family the room it needed to fix the company.

 

In 2015, Lauren announced he was stepping down as CEO (but staying on as chief creative officer). He handed the reins to Stefan Larsson, who had seen wild success as global president of Old Navy, and whom Lauren encouraged to bring in fresh thinking. Larsson began the difficult process of reform: In 2016, Ralph Lauren laid off 8% of its staff, eliminating 1,200 jobs. It also began closing stores, including its new Polo store on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue—a move that fomented a sense the company was in crisis.

 

But for a founder with such a strong point of view, ceding any measure of control proved to be difficult. Larsson was gone by May 2017, after only 20 months. Media reports at the time suggested that Lauren and Larsson agreed on where the company should be heading but not on how to get there. (Larsson, who is now CEO of PVH, the parent company of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, says he remains a big fan of the company. “I was honored to play a part in its journey, contributing to that strong foundation and heritage that Ralph and Patrice have so successfully tapped into,” he told Fortune.)

 

Enter Patrice Louvet. His nearly 29 years at P&G had endowed him with enviable brand-building chops and mastery of the intricacies of global supply chains. He also knew how to run a big team. Ralph Lauren’s workforce had ballooned to 25,000, generating an org chart that was bureaucratic and full of overlap; Louvet patiently simplified it. “The company was hungry for someone who could organize it into a smoothly functioning system,” says David Lauren. “A lot of creativity didn’t have an outlet.”

 

After the Sturm und Drang preceding his arrival, Louvet’s people skills were just as big of a draw. One of his first moves might seem banal: creating a mission statement that galvanized the troops after the 2016 layoffs. Louvet, who has a multi-hour weekly lunch with Lauren to talk shop and life, marvels at how his boss regularly asks him big existential questions, like “Are you happy?” “No one at P&G ever asked me that. It’s an amazing question,” Louvet says. And he now asks the same question of his own direct reports.

 

However tight the partnership, Lauren ultimately calls the shots. Louvet’s contract contains a provision stipulating that Lauren has final say on brand and creative decisions, along with hiring and dismissals of top executives in design and marketing. (Larsson’s contract had no such provision.)

 

Louvet says he and Lauren simply found the areas in which each is best suited to lead: “It’s not written, ‘Patrice, you do this; Ralph, you do that,’ and yet naturally we have fallen into our respective roles.” Lauren himself is quick to hail their collaboration. “This company has never been a one-man show,” he said in a statement. “No one achieves this alone.”

 

Brand erosion has a way of going slowly at first, then snowballing. That was the situation Louvet inherited at Ralph Lauren. Sales fell $1.3 billion, or 18%, between 2016 and 2018, and profit was plunging. (Sales began to rebound in 2019 but tanked again during the pandemic.)

 

Some of Louvet’s changes involved making Ralph Lauren smaller to make it stronger. Building on Larsson’s work, he continued to get the brand out of department stores that were not showcasing it well. The company has exited about two-thirds of the North American department stores where it had a presence at its peak. In 2011, Macy’s alone sold $1 billion worth of Ralph Lauren goods, accounting for 22% of the fashion brand’s sales. Now it’s a fraction of that.

 

All the while, Ralph Lauren expanded its own store base. Its footprint remains relatively small: It has 269 company-operated stores worldwide. But at those stores, it tunes the setting for maximum impact. Lauren’s cinematic sensibilities inspire the look and establish a visual vocabulary that sets a Ralph Lauren blazer apart from a rival’s. The Ralph Lauren flagship, on Madison Avenue in Manhattan, exemplifies this approach. Sturdy wooden desks, leather armchairs, and horse-themed photography suggest an exclusive country club, but one with warmth. It’s a marked contrast to the department store vibe of the 2010s—think piles of unfolded Polo Bear sweaters strewn across tables.

 

Stand-alone stores also help Ralph Lauren build buzz. The women’s store, across Madison from the flagship, is home to the popular Ralph’s Coffee, which has lines around the block on most days. (It’s the original Ralph’s: There are now 30 worldwide, with more on the way.) The company has placed its luxury handbags right by the coffee shop, the better to entice upscale locals and tourists alike. Louvet hopes Ralph Lauren can become as dominant in handbags as it is in sweaters and polo shirts.

 

The company also sells antique jewelry and vintage clothing at that store, to add to the treasure-hunt fun so many retailers forsake in pursuit of efficiency. Back at the men’s flagship building, there’s a new, hyper-luxurious suite that the biggest spenders can use for private shopping or private events. Downtown, the popular Double RL store in SoHo sells leather jackets and jeans adored by creative types, albeit those who have a bit more money.

 

Dotting the world with stores is not in the cards. Louvet says the company will remain focused on its “gateway cities” (it currently has 30 and plans to add 20 over the next three years), while serving others via its website or its wholesale partners. But the elevated presentation at its own stores has allowed it to more clearly differentiate its subbrands. One of Louvet’s early moves was to sell mass-market brand Club Monaco, the better to strengthen the remaining brands’ identities.

 

“We sometimes get reduced to, ‘You’re the preppy style guys,’” Louvet says. “But actually this brand is multidimensional. You want to be a cowboy in Colorado? Double RL gives you that. And you want to be some dandy on Savile Row? Purple Label can give you that. You want to be a college kid at Boston University? We have rugby shirts.”

 

That clearer differentiation among brands allows Ralph Lauren to sell some of its Purple Label men’s dress shirts for $800 while selling similar-looking ones under Polo for $138—without confusing, or angering, shoppers.

 

The company has also gotten much better at marketing to those shoppers and gathering information about them. Ralph Lauren’s marketing budget is about 7.3% of sales, roughly double what it was a few years ago. It’s become more targeted and effective, seeking the young consumer who favors “old money” and classic looks but wants more affordable prices than Hermès or Balenciaga offers.

 

Ralph Lauren now has much deeper data it can analyze, not just for personalizing ads but to figure out what products would do best under what sub-brand. “We are more precise, more targeted, more intentional,” says chief product and merchandising officer Halide Alagöz. While roughly 70% of Ralph Lauren’s goods are similar year in, year out, that data helps the company reduce the risk of misfires for the other 30%, or simply to know if a new jean jacket might make more sense for RRL or for Polo.

 

Alagöz insists that the science of merchandising doesn’t choke off the art. New collections continue to reflect designers’ passions: For example, Ralph Lauren recently launched an acclaimed collection, Oak Bluffs, evoking the crisp style at historically Black colleges and in the Black enclave on Martha’s Vineyard. It also collaborated with Major League Baseball to create sweaters, satin jackets, and the like bearing iconic team logos.

 

Whatever the balance of art and science, the company is winning over young customers. Research firm Kantar’s BrandZ tracker found Ralph Lauren has the fourth-highest brand equity in the luxury apparel category among young people, a marked improvement from just five years ago.

 

This popularity has come much to Louvet’s relief. He recalls being asked by friends before starting his CEO job whether Ralph Lauren could still be relevant. “It was clear at the time that for the younger generation, the answer was no,” he says. Now, young people are dying for a table at the Polo Bar, a celebrity-packed eatery that is one of the hardest places to land a reservation in Manhattan. The bar features a $110 steak and a $495 martini: Timeless luxury, in food and beverage form.

 

In 2022, as Ralph Lauren began to recover from the pandemic, it unveiled a three-year growth plan, grandiosely titled “The Next Great Chapter.” Women are central characters in this story: The company is sharply focused on its nearly $2 billion women’s business, which represents only about 30% of apparel sales. Categories like handbags and outerwear are under-tapped, the company believes, as are markets like India and cities other than the gateways. “I am planting the seeds for my successor,” Louvet says.

 

The positive reviews the women’s show garnered in April demonstrate that Louvet has much to work with. But in fashion, by definition, a brand can never sit on its laurels. “It’s got to stay fresh,” says Louvet. Indeed, his boss demands as much. “As soon as we’re done with a fashion show, [Ralph] celebrates for about 12 seconds, maybe 15, and then he’ll say, ‘What’s the next thing going to be, and how are we going to raise the bar?’”

 

Doing more with fewer brands

Ralph Lauren’s portfolio includes a dozen or so sub-brands—considerably fewer than a decade ago—and each has a particular target clientele. Here are the biggest, in descending order of fanciness

 

Ralph Lauren collection (women) and Ralph Lauren Purple Label (men)

The ne plus ultra brands on the roster, where the company competes with luxury heavyweights like Brioni and Hermès. Many items are hand-tailored, and quite a few made in Italy. (A Purple Label cotton-linen denim Western men’s shirt fetches $995, while a large calfskin tote goes for $4,400.)

 

Double RL

A reference to the initials Ralph Lauren and his wife, Ricky, share, Double RL is a high-end line inspired by vintage work wear and American West iconography. A comparable T-shirt that costs $50 at Polo costs about $80 at RRL. Mostly focused on men’s wear since its 1993 founding, Double RL is now going after the women’s market.

 

Polo Ralph Lauren

The company’s flagship brand. While far less expensive than Collection or Purple Label, Polo, with its immediately recognizable, ubiquitous polo player logo, is not exactly cheap, with some sweaters going for $400. The brand focuses on preppy looks that evoke an active lifestyle.

 

This brand is focused on more technical sports apparel, offering a range of moisture-wicking Polo shirts and outdoor gear such as pullovers and windbreakers. There is an emphasis on golf apparel.

 

Lauren Ralph Lauren

This women’s line caters to what Ralph Lauren calls “aspirational” luxury seekers, with lower prices than the company’s other brands.