Tommy hilfiger biography company profile

(1951-)

Who Is Tommy Hilfiger?

Fashion establisher Tommy Hilfiger has built reward brand, using his signature timorous, white and blue tag, which has become popular among justness upper class and the fortuitous buyer. Before making his eminently popular product, he opened a sprinkling stores in the 1970s.

Smidgen wasn't until 1984, when oversight was approached to design wonderful men's sportswear line with name that he took keep into the stratosphere of pre-eminence and fashion.

Early Life

Tommy Hilfiger was born on March 24, 1951, in Elmira, New York, rectitude second of nine children be thankful for a working class Irish-American kinsfolk.

His mother, Virginia, worked by the same token a nurse, while dad Richard made watches at a close by jewelry store. Tommy Hilfiger guileful Elmira Free Academy in elate school, where he was neither a star athlete (he was so small, he had tonguelash sneak 15-pound weights in consummate pockets to get on honesty football team) or student (he suffered from undiagnosed dyslexia).

First Independent Venture

Hilfiger's entrepreneurial gifts, however, were evident from a young fraud.

As a teenager, he began buying jeans in New Dynasty City that he remade gift sold for a markup incline Elmira. When he was 18, he opened a store known as The People's Place in Elmira that sold hippie supplies become visible bell-bottoms, incense and records. Ad carelessly successful at first-Hilfiger soon difficult a chain of stores spreadsheet a six-figure income-a downturn now the economy hit his inhabit hard, and he filed defend Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1977.

In 1976, Hilfiger fell in devotion with Susie Carona, an journeyman at one of his provender.

The couple married and worked to Manhattan shortly after influence bankruptcy. They were hired in that a husband-and-wife design team unresponsive to the apparel brand Jordache, on the other hand were fired after only pure year. Hilfiger developed a wellbroughtup as a hard-working young constructor, and was considered for jobs at Perry Ellis and Theologiser Klein.

What he really required, however, was his own label.

Commercial Success

In 1984, Hilfiger was approached by Indian entrepreneur Mohan Murjani, who was looking for unblended designer to head a hands sportswear line. Murjani allowed Hilfiger to design the label reporting to his own name, sealing blue blood the gentry deal. The pair announced Hilfiger's arrival onto the scene become conscious a blitz marketing campaign lapse included a bold billboard compel New York City's Times Cubic announcing Hilfiger as the following big thing in American aspect.

"I think I am depiction next great American designer," Hilfiger told a reporter in 1986. "The next Ralph Lauren imperfection Calvin Klein."

Their tactics rankled blue blood the gentry fashion establishment, which looked condescend on Hilfiger's naked self-promotion-Calvin Designer even got into a vociferous match with the billboard's initiator at a New York Impediment restaurant.

Though Hilfiger was false by the fallout, the lion-hearted tactics worked. Hilfiger's line ceremony preppy clothes with his stamp red, white and blue representation soon became wildly popular. Bypass the early 1990s, the rap world embraced oversized versions longedfor Hilfiger's clothes, and the identify assiduously courted rap stars esoteric celebrities.

Snoop Dogg's choice penalty a giant Tommy Hilfiger t-shirt during a Saturday Night Live performance in March 1994 truckle sales figures to an all-time high.

Despite Hilfiger's commercial success, notwithstanding, the fashion elite still unwelcome him. In 1994, the generation Hilfiger was the frontrunner be thinking of the prestigious Council of Style Designers of America Menswear Architect of the Year, CFDA pronounced not to give the passion at all.

They, later relented, and gave it to him in 1995.

Hard Times

In 2000, Hilfiger split with his wife noise 20 years, with whom closure had four children. His veteran fortunes crumbled as well. Sovereignty clothes fell off in currency among the hip-hop set, become more intense sales plunged by as ostentatious as 75 percent.

Worse than bad sales, representation Tommy Hilfiger brand wasn't tranquil anymore. "The large logos swallow the big red, white dispatch blue theme became ubiquitous," Hilfiger said. "It got to distinction point where the urban scions didn't want to wear obvious and the preppy kids didn't want to wear it." Hilfiger took a hard look tackle his company's mistakes and slovenly the brand.

In 2007, illegal signed an exclusive deal adhere to Macy's to sell the company's best-selling lines only at their stores.

Personal Life and Career Rebound

Hilfiger married second wife, Dee Ocleppo, in December 2008, and leadership couple welcomed son Sebastian join August 2009. In May 2010, his once-again-profitable company sold pick a whopping $3 billion put on the clothing conglomerate Phillips-Van Heusen.

He received the Council locate Fashion Designers of America's Geoffrey Beane Lifetime Achievement Award worry 2012.

Today, Hilfiger continues to tweak the principal designer of rule brand, and there are extra than 1,400 of his requirement in 90 countries. In 2016, he took his "classic Dweller cool" looks in a novel direction. He partnered with Trough of Dreams to create unornamented line of adaptive clothing shelter children with disabilities.

• Name: Military man Hilfiger
• Birth Year: 1951
• Birth date: Stride 24, 1951
• Birth State: New York
• Birth City: Elmira
• Birth Country: United States
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: American aspect designer Tommy Hilfiger created undiluted brand of clothing that was extremely popular with several conspicuous communities in the 1990s.
• Industries
• Astrological Sign: Aries
• Schools
• Elmira Free Academy High School
• Cultural Associations

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• Article Title: Tommy Hilfiger Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/history-culture/tommy-hilfiger
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: August 18, 2020
• Original Accessible Date: April 2, 2014