Hilfiger was born the second of nine children in a Catholic household. His father Richard was a watchmaker of Swiss-German descent and his mother Virginia was a nurse of Irish descent. He has dyslexia. He graduated from Elmira Free Academy in 1969 and briefly attended GST BOCES Bush Campus. His brothers Andy and Billy both pursued careers in music.
In 1971, using $150 in savings, Hilfiger co-founded People's Place, a clothing store in downtown Elmira that also contained a record shop and a hair salon. Dissatisfied with sourced inventory, he began sketching his own designs. People's Place went bankrupt in 1977. Hilfiger subsequently moved to New York City, founded the company Tommy Hill in 1979, and spent time in India observing factory production. In the early 1980s he founded 20th Century Survival and the women's clothing line Click Point.
In 1984, businessman Mohan Murjani backed Hilfiger to establish a men's sportswear line. The Tommy Hilfiger Corporation was formally established in 1985. Hilfiger left Murjani International in 1989, with Silas Chou providing new financial backing and former Ralph Lauren executives brought on board. The company went public in 1992 and Hilfiger was named Menswear Designer of the Year by the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) in 1995. The brand expanded into women's clothing in 1996 and opened stores in Beverly Hills and London by 1998.
By the mid-1990s, the Hilfiger brand became popular across both the "preppy" and hip hop fashion scenes. When Snoop Dogg wore a Hilfiger sweatshirt on Saturday Night Live, it sold out of New York City stores the following day. Rappers including Puffy and Coolio walked in Hilfiger's runway shows. The brand also maintained close ties to the music industry through sponsorships: Pete Townshend's Psychoderelict tour (1993), Britney Spears' ...Baby One More Time Tour (1999), and Lenny Kravitz's Freedom tour (1999). R&B artist Aaliyah became the brand's spokesperson in 1997. The fragrance True Star, featuring Beyoncé, was released in 2004. By 2004, the corporation had revenues of approximately $1.8 billion and 5,400 employees.
In December 2005, Hilfiger sold the brand to Apax Partners for $1.6 billion ($16.80 per share), with the transaction completed in May 2006. In March 2010, Phillips-Van Heusen — owner of Calvin Klein and Izod — bought the brand from Apax Partners for $3 billion. Global retail sales reached $6.4 billion in 2013 and $6.7 billion in 2014.
In 2000, the company was among more than twenty defendants in a class action lawsuit brought by garment workers in Saipan, a U.S. Commonwealth territory where "Made in the USA" labels were permitted but federal labor laws including the minimum wage did not apply. The company settled the suit in March 2000.
In 2005, the CBS reality show The Cut tracked sixteen contestants competing for a design job under Hilfiger's label. Contestant Chris Cortez was selected as the winner.
Selected awards:
1995: CFDA Menswear Designer of the Year
1998: Parsons School of Design — Designer of the Year
2006: Harvard Foundation — Peter J. Gomes Humanitarian of the Year
2009: UNESCO Support Award
2012: CFDA Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award, presented by Anna Wintour
Hilfiger launched the Tommy Hilfiger Corporate Foundation in 1995, renamed Tommy Cares in 2012. The Fresh Air Fund's Camp Pioneer programme was renamed Camp Tommy in 1999. He committed $2 million over five years to Millennium Promise in 2009 for relief efforts in Uganda. He and his wife have served on the board of Autism Speaks.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.
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