Brooks Brothers' Polo Collar Shirt and Polo Ralph Lauren both use the word “Polo.” Ralph Lauren also worked at Brooks Brothers when he was young. How do the two histories meet, and what does the shared word mean in each?
Two names crossed on the sales floor
In a retrospective on its earlier reporting, TIME notes that Lauren worked as a Brooks Brothers salesman and then for a tie company before starting his own neckwear business. This employment is a concrete connection between the two names, but it does not by itself prove that every later design or brand decision came from Brooks Brothers. Source: TIME
Ralph Lauren's Polo began with ties
Ralph Lauren's official timeline records the launch of a neckwear line called Polo in 1967. The pony logo appeared in 1971, first on the cuff of a women's shirt, and the polo shirt followed in 1972. The brand name, logo, and representative shirt did not all begin at the same time. Source: Ralph Lauren Japan timeline
For Brooks Brothers, Polo describes the collar's origin
Brooks Brothers Japan connects the name Polo Collar Shirt to the solution of fastening collar points that was observed in the sport of polo. Here, the word preserves the functional origin of a garment detail. Source: Brooks Brothers Japan, Polo Collar Shirt
Therefore, a Polo-related marking on an old Brooks Brothers shirt does not mean it is a Polo Ralph Lauren product. The full label must show whether Polo names a collar type or a brand.
From sport to a life lived in clothes
In an official recollection, Ralph Lauren describes admiring athletes as a boy and imagining a dream world through clothing. He explains that the pony logo retained a connection to sport while representing clothes that could be worn both on the field and in daily life. Source: Ralph Lauren, Love of the Game
Read together, Brooks Brothers' Polo points to the functional origin of a collar, while Ralph Lauren's Polo evokes an idea of clothing and life expanded from sport. This is an interpretation based on each company's account, not proof that one name was directly inherited from the other.
The interest lies less in deciding who borrowed the word and more in seeing how one sport became two different American clothing stories.