Tommy Hilfiger

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.