From Sport to Status

The logo on Leo's shirt is more expensive than seven Burj Khalifas. Even more shocking part is that it was discovered in Manipur, India. You see, Britishers stole something more valuable than Kohinoor from India. Back in the 1850s, tribal people in dense jungles of Manipur played a ancient sport. Players would ride horses, hit a ball with a wooden stick. Locals called this ball Hulu. The British saw this game and renamed it Polo. That's how the second most expensive sport in the world was born. But they soon faced a problem. Normal shirts had big collars that were making the players blind while riding in fast winds. So, [music] an American businessman named John E. Brooks invented world's first button-down collar shirt. Today, almost every formal shirt uses this design. Then, in 1920s, a French tennis champion named René Lacoste made these shirts even more comfortable by cutting the sleeves and introducing lightweight cotton. This created the foundation of the modern polo shirt. But the revolution was still waiting to happen. These shirts were still being sold only to polo players. But in 1960s, a salesman named Ralph Lauren realized that wearing a polo shirt actually meant being wealthy because polo represented wealth, elite clubs, and a high status lifestyle. So, he started offering these shirts to everyone with the cost or exclusivity of polo. That's how Ralph Lauren turned a sport from Manipur into a 24 billion-dollar empire just by selling the illusion of extreme wealth. Follow for more.