Ralph Lauren is a name synonymous with American fashion. And yet, the story of how he built one of the largest fashion companies in the world from nothing isn't quite so well-known.
Lauren's net worth is now estimated to be nearly $6 billion, according to Forbes.
Here's how he amassed that wealth, and what he uses it for.
SEE ALSO: How a former lawyer quit his office job to revolutionize how men buy luxury bespoke suits
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Ralph Lifshitz was born in New York City in 1939, the youngest of four by Russian Jewish immigrants. As a teenager, he changed his last name to Lauren and walked around his Bronx neighborhood wearing outlandish styles like army fatigues and tweed jackets.
Source: O, The Oprah Magazine
After dropping out of Baruch College two years in, he enlisted in the US Army and served from 1962 to 1964. He then had a short stint as a tie salesman at Brooks Brothers and another, now-defunct tie company.
Source: O, The Oprah Magazine
By 26, he was designing and selling his own neckwear. He put together "rags" and fashioned them into ties. He designed a distinctive fatter, European-style neck tie, making them "out of a drawer" in the Empire State Building.
Source: O, The Oprah Magazine
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