Millionaire Tommy Hilfiger'S Road To Success

I am 60 years old.

He has achieved fame and fortune, and children have been around his knees, but in his view, everything is just beginning.

What will happen in the next ten years? New hotels? Hilfiger cars? More children? He doesn't know now, but he gets excited.

Lucky boy

You can not see many staff in the exhibition hall of Tommy Hilfiger on the eleventh Avenue in Manhattan. If you arrive unreasonably, you may find that the front desk is silent.

The LCD TV on the wall is playing a brand promotion film, a Caribbean scenery, and the slogan appears in two subtitles, English and Chinese.

In the spacious exhibition hall, the latest series of Tommy Hilfiger are displayed in the windows.

Clothing and accessories.

Two or three staff quietly finishing the details, and three or four people standing in the hall corner whispered conversation.

This is the day before the brand 2012 autumn winter women's wear conference. The same series of men's wear just ended the first night.

"Before the start of this men's wear show, everything was ready.

Each model wears what size, even to every button, each zipper, arranged in good order.

The device and background music of the T station are guaranteed.

Tommy Hilfiger said.

He sat safely in the armchair. The tea table in front of him was placed in the 2010 album of the 25th anniversary commemorative album.

He spoke in a low voice. You could just hear the opposite side of the table, but wanted to move closer.

This whispering style of conversation, cautious in terms of diction, reminiscent of his old friend Andy Warhol.

Trend and tradition

If you sell cowboy bell bottoms or country club sportswear, Hilfiger always has the ability to cut into pop culture from an unexpected angle.

In 1985, he launched his own brand with an advertisement made by George Lois, an advertising legend, and began his prep style big bang for the next ten years.

His design style is classic, and a little smart change, weaving a Reagan era's American dream.

By the end of the 1980s, his brand had taken a firm foothold. His father never complained that his son didn't listen to his own words to learn accounting.

From sketching to design, from tailoring to making price, he relies on self-study.

In 1990s, he played the role of the hip hop circle and became the spokesman of the American luxury sports style.

At that time, most designers were far away from the stars. He boldly made the stars wear their own designs.

In 1994, hip-hop singer Snoop Doggy Dogg wore Tommy Hilfiger clothing in the TV program "Saturday Night Live", and the brand sales jumped to $90 million in that year.

The star effect, of course, has helped Hilfiger a lot, but on the other hand, enthusiasm that most designers do not possess has also contributed to his success.

Deep down, he is still a music lover and a businessman. He is happy to associate the brand with hip-hop culture - bright colors, wide clothes, and huge logo, so as to extend the authentic prep style.

"I think young people in the Rap community want to belong to their own brand.

But in retrospect, I think that trend is only a stage.

It taught me never to follow the trend, because the tide is changing all the time.

In the early twenty-first Century, the rapid development of Hilfiger brand made it lose control of its style, and the charm of the brand was lost.

"We have experienced a phase of setbacks."

Hilfiger concedes lightly.

Since then, he has shifted the focus of his business to the most famous part of the brand: the cute, clean and fashionable preparatory style, but the clothes his father wears are even more beautiful.

Gradually, the brand has regain its old reputation.

The iconic American style made him rich. Interestingly, most of the brand's income came from abroad. It seems that those who do not live in the United States are more likely to accept the ideal American life of Hilfiger.

At the beginning of building the brand, Hilfiger decided to make a lifestyle brand.

27 years later, everything seemed to him to be just beginning.

He is planning to enter the furniture and hotel industry, and popularize his own style in the world. It is an American style that is familiar to all over the world and familiar to everyone. It is almost the "Baby House" Uncle Tom's cabin, because it is too familiar to be described, and it is inevitable that it is cliche. Hilfiger's consistent ability is to turn the cliche into a fresh and fluent style.

"I want to design a hotel or a restaurant.

I want to publish books and try to make movies.

I've been thinking about what I can do next, and I don't want to stop. "

He said.

The hotel on the top of the agenda should be the hotel.

"Its name may be FAME, and the four letters represent fashion, art, music, and entertainment.

I will hang pictures of Hollywood stars and rock stars on the wall to show classic American cars, American motorcycles and American movies - you know, the feeling of retro 1950s.

He said.

He is looking for the right house everywhere - not necessarily in New York, or even in the United States, but with a strong American style.

"At the very beginning, I was a Native American designer," he said. "In the next 15 years, I slowly began to develop in Europe and Asia.

In the process, I find that young people in China, Japan, the United States, London and Paris enjoy very similar things - similar styles and similar styles of Club.

Most of them like sports and love life. "

Hilfiger is not a genius like Yves Saint Laurent.

In essence, he is a young man who loves life.

In the new season's series, he displayed sophisticated design techniques in deep purple, dark green and sea blue. From any point of view, he will continue to be successful, and speaking of the next ten years, he still can not restrain himself from excitement: "no matter in music circles, sports circles or fashion circles, no one knows what will happen in the next ten years."

In 2008, Hilfiger married his second wife, Dee.

In 2010, Dee gave birth to their first child, Sebastian.

Everything is hard to predict, but there is one thing that has not changed since he was an adult and will not change in the future.

The designer is wearing a grid suit, wearing a pair of gel rimmed glasses, and gray hair in a consistent style. It looks more like a university professor than one of the most famous fashion designers in the United States. Apparently, he always keeps himself consistent with the style of the brand.

"Preparatory student style is not a trend.

It's tradition.

I only change on the basis of tradition.

Clothing is actually a process of "re creation", which is full of fun and vitality.

He said, "my father used to dress like this."

What about his baby? "Sure," he said. "Like my prep father."

Inspiration comes from outdoor sports.

like

The men gave me a lot of inspiration.

Another part of the inspiration comes from military uniform.

I embodied the courage and aggression in the design of the soldiers.

This series adds many new tonal: Treasure blue, purple red, deep sea army blue, forest green etc.

Black trousers also appear in this season's show. For evening wear, black is very important.

This design emphasizes the practicality of clothing.

We have imagined some outdoor scenes: if you want to hunt, shoot or hike, you need warmer clothing. At the same time, these designs do not lack fashionable details.

Men who like military uniform may not know that uniforms can become so modern.

Men who like sports jackets will find different fresh designs this season.

People who like the style of a college can also wear a sense of fashion different from others.

Whether shooting, hunting or hiking, you have the means to make yourself look very stylish.

American style and British elements

The best material for making gowns is from England. As a designer, I love to choose the best things in the world, like Irish linen, Italy cashmere and leather, American cars, English tweed and hunting tools.

There are many of the most beautiful coarse tweed produced in the United Kingdom.

Originally, this is a very retro material, but this season we added many new changes to it, such as leather collage to foil it, make it cool and fashionable.

Leather is a luxurious fabric that can match many different shapes.

If you sew it in different ways or add different colors to it, it will make it very casual or exquisite.

Back to the original style.

I think fashion is always changing.

If you look at those successful designers, you will find that their final design route is often different from the beginning.

Over the past 20 years, our design has returned to the original feeling, adding new fashion elements on that basis.

In my design, you often see "red, white and blue" elements, because I like these three colors very much.

But pure red, white and blue are more suitable for spring and summer, so in the new autumn and winter series, I use a deeper color, such as crimson and dark blue.

Clothing is a process of recreation.

I will travel around the world to find different fabrics and new technologies.

Clothing is actually a process of "re creation".

Early on, people created "clothes". Now we are just "redesigning" these clothes.

The process of redesign is full of fun and vitality. It requires designers to have positive thinking, and also to reflect a way of life, such as hiking, hiking and riding in the countryside.

Looking for fun and enjoying life - this is my life philosophy.

The designer who had just passed his 60 birthday was obviously satisfied with his past and present.

"If you return to a few years ago, the night before the conference is usually a mess, everyone is in a hurry, and there are still a lot of things left undone.

If I want to say that I am 60 years old, what is the difference between me and the past? I think the biggest difference is that I no longer like to mess up. I like to be calm and methodical.

He looked like a young man who thought he had experienced everything at the age of 20. He said, "when I am old, I am ready to be an old man."

Hilfiger, 60, has gone through everything from the great Gatsby style personal struggle to the rise and fall of "American preparatory style". If someone wants to make a movie about the American fashion industry, Hilfiger is the protagonist: a bold child who decides to create his own brand when he knows nothing about the fashion industry.

He started selling jeans and established fame by celebrity endorsements.

He tirelessly promoted himself and made himself into a great celebrity.

Hilfiger introduced the most typical American style of dress to the world. His success story is the perfect portrayal of the American fashion industry in the past 1/4 century.

Now he has achieved fame and fortune.

In those days, he put on cowboy bell bottoms on the record of Mick Jagger, and set up shop with 20 bell bottoms from Manhattan wholesale.

Now Mick Jagger is his neighbor.

He owns a two storey Luxury Apartments in Plaza Hotel, New York, and has a mansion in Greenwich Village, Connecticut and Mustique in the Caribbean.

One of his first four children in marriage was Ally, who appeared in a reality TV show called Rich Girls.

I can talk about six full pages, in a word, he is a millionaire.

However, his appearance has not changed much.

Yes, as he knows it clearly, "you see, I wear glasses and my hair is grey."

But he smiled and grinned and compared with his first trip to Europe in Rome in 1971.

"The most famous designer in the United States"

Speaking of Tommy Hilfiger, it will remind people of the preparatory style - the knitted vest, jacket and shirt on campus.

Foreigners mostly come to this kind of style in such films as the death Poets Society (brass buttons, shirts with embroidered school badges on the chest), or love stories (the heroine's stranded vest and cashmere long scarf).

Hilfiger has been enthusiastic about this for a long time. In his view, it is "classic, traditional and practical, which is the foundation of all American fashions".

At the same time, it can also reflect the solid foundation of the wearer.

From Tommy Hilfiger to Ralph Lauren, from Tory Burch to J Crew, American designers are particularly fond of preparatory style, partly because of the unusually long history of the US's love for wealth.

Hilfiger believes that the global economic recession has made this style popular again.

In his words, this is a way to make yourself look "not too poor".

However, although Hilfiger said he was familiar with this "rich man style" from his childhood, his growth story has some of the heroic meanings of the heroine in the great Gatsby.

He was born and brought up in a working-class family in Eyre Myra, New York. There were nine children in his family. His father was a jeweler and his mother was a nurse.

Unlike the confident and beautiful young people in the Tommy Hilfiger advertising photos, he was not happy in his early years.

"I have no confidence in school.

I'm not a good student. I really feel stupid. "

"Algebra is difficult for me," Shakespeare recalls. "I can't read a word of it."

I just can't learn. "

Even worse, he wanted to enter the rugby team. However, as a teenager weighing 48 kilograms and 176 centimeters tall, he could not stand out from those who weigh 100 kilograms and 2 meters tall.

So he turned to music, girls and cars.

One day, when he looked through his bedroom collection of records, he came up with an idea.

"I looked at the Jim Morrison, David Bowie and Mick Jagger on the album envelope, and thought," ah, I want to look like them! "He said.

Unlike most designers, teenager Hilfiger has no interest in clothes, nor has he received any training.

His driving force has nothing to do with hobbies, but because of a sense of urgency to reinvent himself - eccentric boys want to turn into idol for their peers.

He and his friends imitate their adored singing stars, wear long hair and wear 9 pairs of trousers.

There is another reason for him to make up his mind to start his own business. He thinks he can't get into a good university, even though his father always expects his son to go to Ivy League.

"I think, if I do business, I will be able to control my own destiny."

He made a partnership with several friends, each paid 150 yuan, went to Manhattan to get 20 jeans and opened a clothing store called The People 's Place - the name sounds full of 1960s breath.

"There's incense in the shop, with rock and roll posters.

We also sell records and cigarette paper.

Our atmosphere is cool, so we can hang around and kill time. "

Hilfi ger said.

His business was successful, and soon he opened a branch.

Buying goods in New York became commonplace. He also found Andy Warhol's Factory and Studio 54.

"I had a great time."

He said.

Maybe it was because it was too intense. By the time he was 25 years old, The People 'sPlace was bankrupt.

He seems to have been thrown cold water.

"We opened almost ten stores at that time, which was very good.

Then one day, we found that we were broke, and we had to declare bankruptcy.

He said, "my partner and I mix in Studio 54 and Max" s Kansas City all day long, and they don't care much about business.

This is a great lesson. "

Since then, he has decided to move to New York and devote himself to fashion design.

He might have gone to work at Calvin Klein, but a banker helped him to create his own brand.

"I know what I want to do - I want to create a preparatory, stylish lifestyle brand."

He said.

His inferiority complex has been thrown into the pile of paper with bell bottoms.

In 1986, two years after he formally established a personal brand, he made a billboard in Times Square. The name of Tommy Hilfiger was on the top with the three most famous American designers such as Calvin Klein, RalphLauren and Perry Ellis.