ON ITS 40TH ANNIVERSARY, THE ULTIMATE ICONIC AMERICAN LABEL SEEMS SO MUCH A PART OF THE NATIONAL IDENTITY, IT'S HARD TO REMEMBER HOW BRILLIANTLY HARD THE MAN RALPH LAUREN WORKED TO MAKE IT A REALITY. PHOTOGRAPHER BRUCE WEBER REMEMBERS SHOOTING THE EARLY CAMPAIGNS

The term “all-American” gets tossed around a lot in pop culture, but it still unquestionably applies to designer Ralph Lauren. His definitive redefinition of classic country-club style–the tennis sweaters, the striped oxfords, the seersucker shorts, for example—speaks to prosperity without ostentation, beauty without flash, sex without sin. He’s to American fashion what Savile Row is to Britain—shorthand for fashion as lifestyle.

Key to the development of that attitude was the initial 1978 ad campaign, shot by photographer Bruce Weber and styled by Lauren’s longtime art director, Sandy Carlson Tarlow. “People ask me what it was like working for Ralph Lauren, and I think it was like being in a George Stevens movie,” says Weber today. “George Stevens was to me the epitome of the classic American director. Like A Place in the Sun—Ralph really had that feeling.” Weber—then, as now, a freelance photographer—met Lauren when he was assigned to shoot the designer’s family in the mid ’70s for Harper’s Bazaar. (Although Lauren started Polo Fashions with a $50,000 loan in 1968, at this point he had not yet become a mogul.) The young photographer went to Lauren’s East Hampton home, where they bonded over a love of animals, fashion, and the outdoors. Weber recalls Lauren accompanying him on an early assignment to photograph George Cukor’s Hollywood estate, where Katharine Hepburn and Cecil Beaton could be found wandering around. “Mr. Cukor had really exquisite taste,” he remembers. “His secretary dressed in old Chanel suits; the halls were lined with old movie posters. It was so much the way Ralph wanted to live.” Michael Martin

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All photography Bruce Weber