Tommy Hilfiger originally designed for hippies

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Tommy Hilfiger originally designed for hippies
Tommy Hilfiger originally designed for hippies
Anonim

We started our series presenting designers with Thomas Sabo, and now we continue with a real American designer. On March 24, 1951, Tommy Hilfiger arrived as the second child in an Irish-American family that later grew to 11 members. His mother worked as a nurse and his father made watches at the local jewelry store. In high school, he was not good at either sports or studies: he was too short and struggled with dyslexia.

Tommy Hilfiger was born in 1951
Tommy Hilfiger was born in 1951

The beginnings

As a teenager, he acquired jeans in New York, which he sold for good money in his hometown of Elmira. At the age of 18, he opened a place called The People's Place, where he mainly sold hippie paraphernalia: trapeze jeans, smokes and records. The business did quite well until 1977, when he had to file for bankruptcy.

Before that, back in 1976, he fell in love with one of his employees, Susie Carona. After the bankruptcy, the couple married and moved to Manhattan. He and his wife were first employed at Jordache, but they were both fired after a year. It was discussed that he could work at Perry Ellis or Calvin Klein, but he dreamed of one thing: to launch his own brand.

Approaching the turn of the century

In 1984, he was surrounded by an Indian entrepreneur, Mohan Murjani, who was looking for a head designer for a men's sportswear company. Murjani allowed him to design under his own name, and the joint work was even advertised in Times Square. "I believe I am the next great American designer. The next Ralph Lauren or Calvin Klein," he declared in 1986. The blue-white-red trio seemed to work, in the early 90s the entire hip-hop society was wearing oversized Hilfiger stuff, and the brand persistently courted rap stars and celebrities. And how did the tactic work? Yes: in 1994, Snoop Dogg wore a huge Tommy Hilfiger T-shirt during one of his performances, which sent sales to unprecedented heights. He also designed school uniforms with similar pleasure: he liked the preppy style.

Even though he was successful in an economic sense, Hilfiger was not accepted by the fashion elite: when he was the recipient of the CFDA in 1994, the award was not even presented. Then they softened and a year later they gave it to him.

He had 8 siblings, he came second
He had 8 siblings, he came second

The 2000s

In 2000, Hilfiger divorced his wife of twenty years - with whom he has four children. His clothes were becoming less and less popular in hip-hop circles, and this was reflected in sales: they dropped by 75%. What's even worse: the Tommy Hilfiger brand was absolutely not cool anymore. For this reason, the designer reconsidered the brand's strategy and signed a contract with Macy's in 2007, and the brand's most popular pieces were sold exclusively at them.

In 2008, he married Dee Ocleppo, with whom he had a son named Sebastian in 2009. In 2010, he sold the already successful company for 1.6 billion dollars, and since then he is mostly found on the island of Mustique. In his latest collection, designed for the spring-summer season 2015, the color burgundy, stripes and leather dominate.

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