Tommy Hilfiger: A Bankrupt Elmira Shop to a Times Square Hangman Ad

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Tommy Hilfiger was born in 1951 in Elmira, New York, the second of nine children of a watchmaker and a nurse, and grew up with severe dyslexia. In 1971, after a summer job at a Cape Cod clothing store, he put $150 of savings into People's Place, an Elmira shop selling bell bottoms bought in New York City alongside a hair salon, a record shop and rock concerts in the basement. The store went bankrupt in 1977. He moved to New York, took commerce classes, worked for labels including Jordache, and spent weeks in factories in India learning production, which he later called his real design school. In 1984 Mohan Murjani hired him, first for a Coca-Cola clothing line, then backed his own label in 1985.

The launch featured a George Lois billboard in Times Square styled as a hangman puzzle that set Hilfiger beside Ralph Lauren, Perry Ellis and Calvin Klein. With backing from Silas Chou and former Ralph Lauren executives, the company went public in 1992, sponsored tours for Pete Townshend, Sheryl Crow, Britney Spears and Lenny Kravitz, and was embraced by hip-hop, with Aaliyah as a 1997 spokesperson. In 1999 it was named in a class action over sweatshop conditions in Saipan, where goods could be labeled Made in USA without federal minimum wage rules, and it settled with other manufacturers in March 2000. Apax Partners bought the brand for $1.6 billion in 2005 and sold it to PVH for $3 billion in 2010, with Hilfiger staying on as principal designer.

• Snoop Dogg wore an oversized Tommy rugby shirt on Saturday Night Live in 1994, and it sold out across New York City the next morning.
• Hilfiger won the CFDA's menswear designer of the year award in 1995.
• The company acquired Jennifer Lopez's Sweetface line in 2003 and launched the True Star fragrance with Beyoncé in 2004.
• CBS aired his business and design competition show The Cut in 2005.
• He received the CFDA's Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012 and published the memoir American Dreamer in 2016.