Tommy Hilfiger
(1952 - )
Tommy Hilfiger was born in 1952, one of nine children. In his senior year of high school Hilfiger and two friends opened People’s Place, a clothing shop in their hometown of Elmira that sold candles and bell-bottom jeans.
Hilfiger enjoyed decorating windows and designing in-store merchandise displays.
In the mid-1980s, Hilfiger accepted an offer from Mohan Murjani of Murjani International (clothing manufacturer) to fund his own men’s wear company, and in 1985 Tommy Hilfiger was launched. His first collection contained a variety of preppy classics like chinos, oxford shirts, and polo knit tops. Unlike other big-name American designers, Hilfiger tapped into hip-hop street styles, making him one of the hippest and wealthiest designers of the 1990s.
In 1995, he was awarded the Menswear Designer of the Year Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America. Hilfiger made a name for himself by prominently putting his name and logo on his clothes and marketing them to urban youth in a way that no other American designers had ever done.
He expanded his franchise by opening a number of stores, signing licensing agreements around the world; and offering a wide range of lines, such as underclothing, accessories, fragrances, home décor, designer jeans, women’s wear, children’s wear, and a higher-end men’s wear collection. Hilfiger established the Tommy Hilfiger Corporate Foundation in 1995.
