Tommy Hilfiger

Tommy Hilfiger, a lifestyle brand

Recognised for its classic American cool and preppy style, as well as its inclusivity Tommy Hilfiger is a leading designer in lifestyle brands. The brand is recognised worldwide for its inclusivity and youthful spirit.

How it all began

Tommy Jacob Hilfiger was born on the 24 March 1951 in Elmira, New York and upon graduating High School in 1969 he spent his summer working in a clothing store. Saving his hard earned wages along with his life savings of just $150 which he decided to use to open his own clothing store, The People’s Place, during the 1970’s in his hometown of upstate New York.

Needing stock for the store, Tommy drove to New York City to buy clothing such as bell-bottoms and leather jackets, fashion items iconic to the time. Not happy with the clothing, Tommy began to draw his own clothing designs.

“Designing made me happier than anything I’d ever done. I knew from that early work that designing would be my life.” – Tommy Hilfiger.

When The People’s Place went bankrupt in 1977, Tommy decided to learn the
commerce and business side of the Fashion Industry. He moved to Manhattan and launched his career in fashion design. He began by designing preppy clothing for his own menswear line, and in 1984, he was approached by a businessman called Mohan Murjani, who was the man responsible for launching the brand Gloria Vanderbilt. With Murjani’s investment his namesake brand, Tommy Hilfiger was born and launched with a new clothing line for men. This debut was promoted with a high-profile marketing campaign which included a large billboard set up in Times Square, New York. This later expanded into women’s clothing and various luxury
items such as perfumes and fragrances.

Style and Value

The brand offers premium styling and value to customers across the globe under both the Tommy Hilfiger label and the Tommy Jeans label. They have a wide range of collections available including menswear, women’s and kids, denim and footwear.

The brand is also licensed for eyewear, watches and home furnishings.
Tommy’s distribution network is extensive with over 2,000 retail stores worldwide including North America, Europe, Latin American and the Asia Pacific region.

Celebrities and TV personalities

The Tommy Hilfiger collections have been known to be influenced by music and marketed with the music industry at the forefront. Celebrities such as the late American R&B artist, Aaliyah were ambassadors for the brand.
In 2005 a CBS reality show ‘The Cut’ was launched, a show in the style of the apprentice. The sixteen contestants would compete for a job as a designer with the brand and their own fashion line. Chris Cortez was chosen by Tommy as the “next great American designer”.

During the 90’s Tommy’s daughter, Ally and her then best friend, Jamie Gleicher, the daughter of Leo Gleicher (the founder of Innovation Luggage and head of Gleicher Enterprises) were featured for an MTV Reality Show. The show aired for one season on MTV following the girls as they graduated High School and spent the summer jetsetting around the various Holiday resorts owned by the Hilfiger family.

Philanthropy and the future

Having a passion for charity work and a desire to make the world a better place for the generations to come, Tommy is significantly supportive of a variety of Charitable organisations, most notably the global TommyCares organisation, Save the Children and the World Wildlife Fund and Next for Autism. The brand also has a vision to create fashion that ‘Wastes Nothing and Welcomes All’ through its Tommy Hilfiger Fashion Frontier Challenge and People’s Place Program.

Awards, Accolades and Accomplishments

Tommy has earned a variety of prestigious and distinguished awards from the Fashion Industry, these include the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s (CFDA) Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012 and British GQ’s Design Legend of the Year in 2020.

In November 2016 Tommy published his memoir, American Dreamer where he
reflects on his fashion industry experience and recounts his setbacks, achievements and the determination he needed to succeed in creating and building a successful multi-billion dollar brand of a global scale.

Selling The Company

The company has been sold twice since 2006, originally by Tommy to Apax Partners for $1.6 billion and then in 2010 it was sold to Phillips-Van Heusen, owner of Calvin Klein, for $3 billion. Despite the sale of the brand, Tommy Hilfiger remains the company’s Principal Designer and leads the design teams in the creative process with guidance and leadership.

Website: tommy.com Founder: Tommy Hilfiger Founded: 1985 Headquarters: New York, United States