Fashion Network

Born March 24, 1951, New York, in an Irish Catholic family Tommy Hilfiger is a well-known American fashion designer has been instrumental in bringing revolution in retail clothing market and creator of distinguished brands such as, “Tommy Hilfiger” and “Tommy.” He entered into the retail at an age of 18. Hilfiger would walk down to New York City to get his hands on jeans and bell-bottom pants which he personalized and resold at a local downtown Elmira, New York store, Brown’s.

In the later years he opened his own store known as ‘The People's Place.’ His business failed to meet the expectation of people and after seven years at the age of 25 he went bankrupt. Thereafter he started designing clothes for the rest of his stores in upstate New York (a total of 10), and moved to New York City with his wife. Even though he got the opportunity to work as design assistant with major players in the field of designing like Calvin Klein and Perry Ellis but he turned down the offers as he has greater plans in mind.

Hilfiger took over the company of Mohan Murjani (Gloria Vanderbilt jeans) with the help of two partners. A year after Tommy Hilfiger, Inc. was founded, the company went public and built the company into the empire it is at present.

Hilfiger remained the President of the company from 1982 to 1989, and has designed clothes under the Tommy label since 1984. In 1992, he became the Director of the Company and later Honorary Chairman of the Board and Principal Designer in 1994.

In 2007, Tommy Hilfiger sold his company for $ 1.6 billion, or $ 16.80 a share, to Apax Partners. Hilfiger lives with his wife and four children. His daughter Ally was featured in the popular MTV reality show Rich Girls. His son Rich Hil has been signed by Hip Hop super producer Swiss Beatz’ label Full Surface.