Top image: Photograher Alessio Boni, fashion Gro Curtis from HERO 14. Jacket by POLO RALPH LAUREN SS16, model ROBBI at TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY.

Next month, Ralph Lauren is to be honoured with the Outstanding Achievement Award at the 2016 Fashion Awards, hosted by the British Fashion Council at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

The New York-based designer, who founded his eponymous label in 1967 first began as a tie company, when Lauren convinced his employer, the tie manufacturer Beau Brummel, if he could have his own tie line. He worked out of a single drawer in a showroom in the Empire State Building and used the name “Polo” to give the company an English feel. Fifty years on, Lauren has transformed that initial tie company into a quintessentially American brand and built a fashion empire inspired by country-club prep and the Americana. He has acted as a mentor, dressed everyone from Hollywood to the Whitehouse and established himself as a household name.

During the ceremony, Lauren will be celebrated “for his invaluable contribution to the fashion industry” and his philanthropic endeavours, such as the Pink Pony Fund which supports programs for early diagnosis of cancer, education, treatment and research. BFC chairman Natalie Massenet said: “Ralph Lauren is an exemplary designer and businessman. He has helped to define an era in both American and global fashion with his singular vision; I know that most of us would say he has inspired us immeasurably.”

In receiving the Outstanding Achievement Award, the designer follows in the footsteps of recent recipients Karl Lagerfeld, Anna Wintour, Terry and Tricia Jones, and Manolo Blahnik.