A Letter From the Publisher

By Richard B. Thomas

When TIME editors scheduled this week's cover story on Designer Ralph Lauren, Bonnie Angelo, TIME's Eastern regional bureau chief, tackled the bulk of the reporting herself. "Most stories I've worked on have dealt with politics," she says, "so the fact that this one was about business interested me."

To stitch together the Lauren tale, Angelo interviewed the designer and his key associates, then spoke with fashion editors, Wall Street analysts, various competitors and Actress Candice Bergen, a Lauren client. For good measure, Angelo took an advance peek at Lauren's new furniture line.

When Angelo came to New York City in July 1985 to take over her Eastern regional responsibilities, she realized that the fashion industry is a source of major news in the area. She began her career with TIME in the L.B.J. era, reporting from Washington on events ranging from Viet Nam War protests to the Watergate scandals and the resignation of Richard Nixon. In 1977 Angelo was named London bureau chief, a job she held for the next 7 1/2 years, through the political emergence of Margaret Thatcher, the royal wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana, and the Falklands war. Despite her fascination with Britain, Angelo, who has reported stories from 60 countries, says she arrived in New York "with wide eyes and great excitement."

Some of that excitement comes with the territory. Angelo now deploys seven correspondents and a multitude of stringers up and down an area that extends from the northern suburbs of Washington to the Canadian border.

Says she: "We cover entertainment, social trends and problems, education, business and industry, and we have our share of politics too with figures like New York Governor Mario Cuomo. No other U.S. bureau has that kind of variety."

The Lauren story was a change of pace for Staff Writer Stephen Koepp, whose previous cover articles were on banking and the collapsing price of oil. A Wisconsin native, Koepp professes to be interested more in journalistic than in sartorial brilliance. Says he: "When I lived in the Midwest, I bought my clothes at Sears, but I did buy a Lauren shirt five years ago at a factory outlet in Connecticut. Only now is the shirt beginning to fray." Perhaps this exposure to current fashion will tempt him to consider replacing it before too many more years go by.