Norman’s Baby

1.

Back in the day there was a private car attached to the end of the two choicest commuter trains, the one that left the Red Bank station at seven thirty in the morning, and the other, which left New York Penn station at five-fifteen, delivering the captains of industry to their wives’ waiting station wagons (ever wonder why they called them that?) in time for a couple of Manhattans and their home-made Chicken à la King over rice with peas. The guys – almost only guys – and the occasional guest, wife, or kid – who went to the City from the Shore every day, paid handsomely to ride in a carpeted parlor car, complete with bartender/attendant, plush easy chairs, card tables, newspapers and coffee in the morning, more newspapers and a full bar in the evening. They played gin rummy and talked about (and bet on) the Yankees and the Giants, dished the latest trash about the latest swapping of wives or whatever, and generally acted in the time-honored ways of exclusive club-members everywhere.

And the way they dressed? Terrific.

Once in a while my old man asked me to come to the city and help out during market periods, running errands, cutting swatches and stuff. I got to ride with him on the private car. It was a lesson in mid-century American Cool and my first real life exposure to affluence. Pocket watches and fobs, vests and tie-tacks, hats in winter and summer, raincoats, umbrellas, the stuff of grownups became real to me. Cigars, gold lighters and silver pens, cigarette cases, pocket notebooks: the good life. One old guy named Scudder who they said owned the Newark Evening News got off in Middletown, the stop before Red Bank, because he lived across the river in the Valhalla of the area known as Navesink. He wore white linen, three piece suits and panama hats like a coffee plantation owner.

On one such summer evening as the train rattled to a stop in the Red Bank Station my old man poked me in the ribs with his elbow and asked in a low voice, “What do you think of the suit Alan’s wearing?” (Alan Abrams, his cousin’s first husband, went on to be a famous criminal, but that’s another story.)

“Huh?”

“The suit? See how it’s tight at the waist? The hourglass shape? The side vents? It’s English.” 

He was dismayed to realize that, even though I was the scion of a great American clothing family, I had no idea what he was talking about. I had never looked at the shape of a suit jacket before.

            “That’s what Lauren wants,” he said.

2.

Volumes have been written about the Life of Ralph, from his bourgeois Bronx beginnings to his spectacular, Madison Avenue mega-success. A couple of these books are actually interesting; and some get the part about my father more or less right, although they always refer to Norman as “a manufacturer,” which is not at all what he was. “Impresario” or “entrepreneur” would have been more accurate, since my old man was no more of a factory guy than was Ralph himself. So you may have read about this rock star of the rag trade, you probably know at least part of the story; born Ralph Ruben Lifshitz, or whatever, Brooks Brothers salesman, blah, blah, blah. But just in case you don’t remember, here’s the emes. (That means truth; an example of how talking about the clothing business sounds better in Yiddish, as in:) Here’s the emes: Ralph didn’t know bubkes about tailoring, but he had chutzpah.   

In 1966 Norman was hitting his stride. Orders were coming in like never before; money was everywhere. The influence and renown of Norman Hilton Clothes had reached almost mythic proportions. It was the “in” thing, sold in every better respected shop in the country. Carrying the line separated one’s shop from the riffraff; the company’s salesmen had to choose which stores were the best store in each city.

It was a logical next step for Norman to add products, to as they say “extend the brand” to capitalize on this bonanza. How better than to produce dress shirts and neckwear under the Norman Hilton label, accompaniments to the suits and sport jackets.

At the time, all over the industry, and especially in the hallowed halls and elevators of the Sperry Rand building at Fifty-second Street and Avenue of the Americas, where the head offices of every major clothing firm were located, people were talking. In the Ground Floor Bar across the street in the CBS building, and wherever retailers, wholesalers, editors and assorted mavens mingled, they were all talking about a young guy who was making outrageous, 5-inch-wide neckties that were selling for twenty dollars, about four times the price of any other tie. The “kid” (he was just over 30) worked for a St. Louis company called Beau Brummell Cravats. His name was Ralph Lauren.

My father always thought big. There was no way, as anyone who knew Norman and Ralph would quickly attest, that talent the likes of Lauren would be content working in the confined environment of the Norman Hilton business, but those kinds of practical considerations never bothered my dad. His closest assistant, Peter Strom, was dispatched to St. Louis to spring Ralph from his contract with Beau Brummell and for a brief period the Norman Hilton dress furnishings line was designed by Ralph Lauren.

My father told me that it was clear in their very first conversation; while Ralph would work to create the Norman Hilton dress shirt and neckwear lines, his true ambition was to make a line that went above and beyond the Norman Hilton style, a complete collection of clothes, from shoes to hats, sportswear to dinner clothing, knitwear to leathers, all of which would have a richly romantic, updated look. He knew from the beginning that it would be called Polo.

 It is not even slightly surprising that Norman immediately saw the potential in Ralph’s idea, and not just on account of the young man’s obvious talent. The natural shoulder era had reached its apogee, just as every style trend would. He knew something was going to come and take its place. It was the 60’s, don’t forget. Change was in the air, like Jimi Hendrix, like marijuana smoke.

Norman sold his stock in Winnebago (a prescient move, as it turned out,) to come up with the seed money, $75,000, to capitalize Polo Fashions, Inc., which he and Ralph owned as equal partners. This company sold all of Ralph’s designs of shirts and ties to retailers. And since this is my story and not Ralph’s, I’ll tell you briefly what happened: in a short time Ralph figured out that having Norman for a partner was only half the fun of being on his own. He started a new company known as Polo/Ralph Lauren, which could sell anything other than shirts and ties and would not have to give my father half of the proceeds. A decade later Ralph bought my father’s share of Polo Fashions for three quarters of a million dollars; a reasonable return, although nothing like half of what Polo/Ralph Lauren was worth.

But the money isn’t interesting. What’s interesting is that the endorsement that Norman gave Ralph, the introduction he offered him to the Big Leagues of US retailing, the pedigree that the Norman Hilton reputation for quality imputed to all things Polo, was a cornerstone of Ralph’s initial success. Ralph’s prodigious talent, drive, and vision might never have been given an audience otherwise. These are the conditions of fate; this is how mythology is born. Somehow, in helping to kindle the fire that became the Polo sun, my father was setting fire to his own house. The sales and management talent that he had trained and engendered, in Peter Strom and the rest of the sales team, the romance and allure which Norman had created around his own product line, all of this went to Polo, which sputtered a bit at first and then exploded into star-like success, while the Hilton family enterprise, tethered to manufacturing facilities and outdated structures, sputtered eventually out.