Tommy Hilfiger

Tommy Hilfiger launched his namesake label in New York City in 1985, backed by Indian textile magnate Mohan Murjani, debuting a signature menswear collection of modernized button-down shirts, chinos, and other American staples. The opening move was a marketing stunt as much as a clothing line.

Hilfiger hired George Lois to make a billboard for the center of Times Square that, instead of models, featured the initials of three well-known fashion designers, “PE” (Perry Ellis), “RL” (Ralph Lauren), “CK” (Calvin Klein), and announced that “TH” (Tommy Hilfiger) was the next great menswear designer.

The label that stuck, and the one the brand still uses on itself, was “classic American cool,” an aesthetic combining preppy East Coast classics with laid-back West Coast casualness.

Menswear was the entire premise, not a category added later. Hilfiger’s first collection updated button-down shirts, chinos, and other American classics with new fits and details, and the relaxed, youthful attitude of those early designs remained a hallmark of later collections.

The vocabulary stayed narrow and recognizable, oxford shirts, rugby stripes, chino trousers, varsity jackets, and the red, white, and blue flag patch drawn from a maritime signal flag. That placed the brand in direct conversation with Ralph Lauren and Perry Ellis on the preppy side, and with Calvin Klein on the American sportswear side, but at a lower price point and with a stronger pop-culture posture.

In the early 1990s, the clothes were adopted in hip-hop circles through artists who chose its logo apparel, including rugby shirts and tees, and Snoop Dogg’s 1994 Saturday Night Live performance in a red, white, and blue Hilfiger rugby shirt exposed the label to millions. Industry recognition followed quickly. Hilfiger was named Menswear Designer of the Year by the Council of Fashion Designers of America in 1995.

The business changed hands more than once. Hilfiger left Murjani International in 1989, Silas Chou provided new financial backing, and the Tommy Hilfiger Corporation went public in 1992. In 2006, Hilfiger sold the company for $1.6 billion to Apax Partners, which sold it in 2010 to Phillips-Van Heusen for $3 billion.

Daniel Grieder was appointed CEO in July 2014, while founder Tommy Hilfiger remained the company’s principal designer, leading the design teams and overseeing the creative process.

Today, the brand sits in the accessible American sportswear tier under PVH, dressing a broad customer base across menswear, denim, tailoring, and kidswear. Tommy Hilfiger products generated approximately $9 billion in retail sales in 2023, with a presence in 100 countries and over 2,000 retail outlets worldwide. The clothes still do what they did in 1985, repackaging American prep for a mass audience, now positioned for a global one.