- This article is about the person. For the company, see Tommy Hilfiger (company)
Thomas "Tommy" Hilfiger (born March 24, 1951,
Elmira,
New York,
USA) is an American
fashion designer best known for founding the lifestyle brand
Tommy Hilfiger Corporation in 1985. After starting his career by co-founding a chain of clothing and record stores in
upstate New York in the 1970s, he began designing
preppy sportswear for his own eponymous
menswear line in the 1980s. The company later expanded into women's clothing and various luxury items such as
perfumes, and went public in 1992. In 1997 Hilfiger published his first book, titled
All American: A Style Book, and he has written several since, including
Tommy Hilfiger through
Assouline in 2010. Hilfiger's collections are often influenced by the fashion of music subcultures and marketed in connection with the music industry, with celebrities such as American
R&B icon
Aaliyah in the 1990s. In 2005, contestants in the
CBS reality show The Cut competed for a design job with Hilfiger in a similar fashion to
The Apprentice. In 2006 Hilfiger sold his company for $1.6 billion to
Apax Partners, and it was sold again in 2010 to
Phillips-Van Heusen for $3 billion. Hilfiger remains the company’s principal designer, leading the design teams and overseeing the entire creative process. Hilfiger was awarded the
Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award from the
Council of Fashion Designers of America in 2012.
