Mencyclopaedia: Ralph Lauren - Telegraph America's master of melting-pot menswear New York Fashion Week has just begun, so the never knowingly understated US fashion industry is poised for its entertaining orgy of attention seeking. Yet the most telling prognosis of American fashion's health will not be revealed on some Manhattan catwalk - it was released to the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday. In October, November and December of last year the Ralph Lauren Corporation - unarguably the heftiest high-fashion company in North America - sold goods totalling $1.79 billion (£1.14 billion) and notched a profit of $215.7 million (£137.7 million), a 27 per cent increase on the same period in 2011. That's more than a million pounds a day for a company that, despite its womenswear, kidswear and even homewear divisions, was founded to make clothes for men. Lauren, born in the Bronx and christened Ralph Lifshitz, is the son of first-generation Belorussian Jewish immigrants. He changed his surname when he was 16 - he later said his schoolmates teased him, and he was sick of it - and was, within very limited means, such a dandy when young that his neighbour, Calvin Klein, later recalled gawping at Lauren's sidewalk style. One of Lauren's first jobs was working as a salesman for Brooks Brothers - New York's pre-eminent old-school gentleman's outfitter - and in 1963 he saw Douglas Fairbanks Junior stride by resplendent in a wide-revered double-breasted suit. Mencyclopaedia: Brooks Brothers "Back then," Lauren told Oprah Winfrey in 2002: "everyone was wearing cookie-cutter clothes: button-down shirts, thin ties. I wanted the spread collar, the wide tie, the shaped suit. So Lauren started with the wide tie, gaining financial backing (later paid back) to create a line of novelly broad post Mad Men-era neckwear that, after initial pushing, sold to the city's department stores. Within five years Lauren had followed that Hollywood yen and opened his first store, now offering the full rebooted Fairbanks wardrobe, on Rodeo Drive. From here, the rise of Ralph was remorseless - but twice turbo-boosted, first by the publicity won from making suits for The Great Gatsby in 1974 and then later after the introduction of his polo player logo (first seen on the cuff of a women's collection shirt). This, as one Eighties commentator noted, "killed the crocodile," surpassing Lacoste as America's go-to marque for aspirational preppiness. Left to right: Robert Redford in the Great Gatsby and one of Ralph Lauren's ties PHOTO: GETTY Today, that polo player is so globally ubiquitous that some characterise Lauren as a one-trick pony, whilst others - particularly sniffy Manhattanites - mistake his breadth for shallowness (the New York Times called him "our genius of the superficial"). Mencyclopaedia: Lacoste On a visit to his Madison Avenue headquarters, however, you can see just how deeply Lauren and his design teams research their subjects before making their clothes. Once past the cherrywood panelled gentleman's club foyer and into the menswear studio, you see that each collection (including Purple, Black, RRL, Denim & Supply and Polo) has its own meticulously sourced film set to act as a mood board. For RRL, the outdoorsy but luxurious casual line, the inspiration when I visited ran from Johnny Cash shirts and Fifties slide guitars to ranch gateposts and Navajo blankets. For the premium suits of Purple Label, the look was English country house: all gleamingly burnished Chesterfields and herald-topped stone fireplaces (you can see why Lauren is such a fan of Downton Abbey). Lauren's knack is for making utterly appropriate high-design clothes that allow the wearers to tap into their film-fuelled fantasies without looking like they've just come out of a fancy dress shop.