Ricky Lauren Natural Beauty (2025)

Being Mrs. Ralph Lauren requires more than a passing attention to detail. There's the blonde mane the color of frozen French butter (unsalted), the requisite flawless figure, the pool-blue eyes, and that perfect aristo air. Today, dressed in a pale-gray cashmere turtleneck and jodhpurs offset with a cognac belt, boots, and a matching watchband, striding through the hallowed halls of the Ralph Lauren offices, she's every bit the urbane, polished mogul wife.

Yet for all her cool beauty, there are no icy reserves to chip away. Somewhere along the way this woman learned the art of grace, and nobody inhabits that world quite as well as she.

With the release of her fourth book, the lifestyle cookbook The Hamptons: Food, Family, and History, she showcases the role in which she's most comfortable, that of happy (albeit haute) homemaker. A pastiche of personal photos and family recipes punctuated with signature Lauren lifestyle elements, it's a love letter from Ricky to her husband and their children, Andrew, David, and Dylan. "A lot of these recipes are of course to share with everyone, but they are for my children to have for themselves so they have a cookbook of their own of memories," she says.

Ricky and Ralph have been decamping to the Hamptons since the '70s, and through the years they have lived in many of the charming hamlets there, from Southampton to Montauk. Some of her most treasured moments have transpired out east, including a one-year-old Andrew taking his first steps, his small hands clasped around a broomstick, his father's hands clasped around his to gingerly lead the way.

Aside from those familial milestones, meals and the making of them are the focal point. "We would go picking potatoes, and the children would help," says Ricky, conjuring up one of her fondest memories. "They were little and they'd come with brown bags from the supermarket, and we'd fill them up. Then we'd go back to the house, and even the baby carriage would have potatoes in it." A surfeit of starch for her Good Old-Fashioned Garlic Mashed Potatoes recipe, which she likes to serve alongside baby "lollipop" lamb chops.

Ricky made sure that her kids always helped out—chores were de rigueur. "I remember days when the children would go to get the camp bus in the morning, everybody had a job in the kitchen. One would make the orange juice, another one would set the table, and another would pour milk in the glasses."

The idyll depicted in the book spans the past 40 years and evokes sweetly sentimental scenes—sojourns to the beach, bicycle rides at dusk, softball games on the lawn with the entire family outfitted in varying shades of denim.

"The Hamptons has always been a special place for us, starting when our children were very young," says Ralph. "Ricky's food and the creative way she sets our tables or fills a basket for a picnic on the beach have always been a personal gift to each of us. Her books, particularly this one, filled with her beautiful photographs and watercolors, heartfelt recollections and personal recipes, are another gift to our family and to all that love living simply and well. The beauty she sees in our lives is a daily inspiration."

Indeed, she inspires them to eat. Ralph has a soft spot for Wiener schnitzel (Ricky's parents hailed from Austria) as well as her mother's brownies. "Ralph wanted to put them in the store," Ricky says, "but I haven't made those in a while because we like to watch our diet."

Since the mid-'80s, the Lauren family's Hamptons headquarters has been in Montauk. Their sprawling oceanfront compound was designed in 1940 by an acolyte of Frank Lloyd Wright's. Yet the home's rustic feel and natural, raw grounds are a departure from the oft-seen East Hampton manors with their manicured lawns and privet hedges. The house has an unassuming facade and a laid-back feel that feeds into the Laurens' sensibility. "Montauk is more remote, more private, more of a fishing village, an artists' retreat," says Ricky. "It has its own magic."

She dedicated the book to Ralph, who she calls her "anchor." "He is the one who made it all possible." The legendary pair have been married for nearly 50 years. Their meet-cute happened at an eye doctor's office in New York City, where Ricky was working as a receptionist while attending Hunter College and Ralph came in for an appointment. He asked her out on the spot. On their first date, Ralph picked her up in his green Morgan sports car and spirited her to a pancake house upstate. Over coffee she told him that she was studying Shakespeare and Chaucer. "Then I started reciting The Canterbury Tales, and he said, 'This is a very strange girl, very odd,'" Ricky recalls. "'She's beautiful but she's strange.'"

They were married eight months later. Since then, Ralph went from designing ties to designing the ultimate American lifestyle brand. He has amassed a $5.6-billion-a-year empire—ranking among the industry's most influential icons—and has flourishing businesses in nearly every global niche. And he's built out his own life in a similarly impressive fashion, with gorgeously rendered homes not only in Manhattan and Montauk but in Bedford, New York; Colorado; and Jamaica.

Ricky has been by his side every genteel step of the way, including creatively, serving as her husband's muse. "I didn't like the girl with all the makeup and high heels," Lauren wrote in his 2007 memoir. "I liked the girl in jeans and a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, wearing her boyfriend's jacket. That's the girl I am attracted to. That's the girl I married—Ricky." He even created the now classic Ricky bag in her honor.

She's definitely a woman who knows her own worth. During her Bazaar shoot for this story, as the sun was setting in Montauk and she perched on a twig chair in a denim jacket and a patchwork bustle skirt on the lawn of the family's home, photographer Mark Seliger told her she looked like a million bucks. Ricky coyly shot back, "Only?"

"A lot of these recipes are for my children to have for themselves so they have a cookbook of their own of memories," says Ricky Lauren

"The Hamptons has always been a special place for us, starting when our children were very young," says Ralph Lauren.

CLICK TO SEE THE SLIDE SHOW.

Pictured Above: Horseplay. Ricky Lauren on the secluded beach in front of her home in Montauk. Vintage clothing and shoes throughout, Ralph Lauren Collection and Double RL. Jewelry throughout, Ralph Lauren Vintage Collection.

Ricky readies herself for a sunset champagne toast.

Hair: Julien Farel for Julien Farel Products International; makeup: Virginia Young for Chanel; production: Ruth Levy; animal talent: All Creatures Great & Small NY.