Ralph Lauren was born in The Bronx, New York. As a teenager, Ralph changed his last name to Lauren and began creating his own sense of style, sometimes mixing army fatigues with tweeds. Designer Calvin Klein, also a native New Yorker, has said, "When I was a child in the Bronx, I would see him and think, 'Who is this person? Who dresses like that?'" Lauren showed early signs of entrepreneurship by selling ties to fellow students at school and later went to Baruch College to study business, but dropped out after two years. Later, he opened a necktie store, selling his own designs under the “Polo” label. Bill Blass came from Fort Wayne, Indiana, his mother a dressmaker and his father a hardware salesman. In his autobiography, Blass wrote that the margins in his school books were filled with sketches of Hollywood inspired fashions instead of notes. At fifteen, he began sewing, selling evening gowns for $25 each to a New York manufacturer. At seventeen, he had saved up enough money to move to Manhattan and study fashion. He excelled in his fashion studies immediately and at eighteen was the first male to win the Mademoiselle Design for Living award. He established his own label in 1970, the same year this joint portrait of the two friends was taken taken in Jack Robinson’s studio.