Tommy Hilfiger Perfume

Thomas Jacob Hilfiger was born in Elmira, New York in 1951 into an Irish Catholic family, the second of nine children. From an early age he was interested in fashion and at the age of 18, Hilfiger decided to enter retail. He would travel to New York City in order to buy bell-bottomed trousers and jeans, which he customised and resold in Brown’s, the Elmira store at which he worked.

He opened his own store “The People’s Place” in upstate New York, and building on this store’s success, opened another 10. Unfortunately “The People’s Place” went bankrupt when he was 25, and he decided to concentrate on the design aspect of clothing designing for his other stores. He was offered jobs with Calvin Klein and Perry Ellis, but despite being broke he turned these down with larger plans in mind. He admits that after his bankruptcy, fear of failure became his impetus to succeed rather than financial gain.

Within five years Hilfiger was working under contract with Asian textile mogul Mohan Murjani, the man behind the trendy Gloria Vanderbilt jeans. In 1986, Murjani and Hilfiger placed a billboard on Times Square that announced Hilfiger would soon dominate men's clothing, although at the time he was hardly known. Under Murjani's management, the Tommy Hilfiger menswear collection grossed $5 million in the first year and $10 million in the second.

In 1988, Hilfiger bought out Murjani and joined Silas Chou, a Hong Kong clothing manufacturer. By that time, the company was bringing in around $25 million a year. They began their new endeavor cautiously, hiring experienced executives from well-known companies like Ralph Lauren and Liz Claiborne. Three years later they took the company public. By 1999 the company was grossing more than half a billion dollars and was the highest-valued clothing stock on the exchange. Hilfiger won the award for Menswear Designer of the Year in 1995, from the Council of Fashion Designers of America. That same year, he received VH1’s “From the Catwalk to the Sidewalk” award at their annual Fashion and Music Awards. He has also won several FiFi Awards, the fragrance industry’s most illustrious honor. In November of 2002, he was selected as GQ magazine’s International Designer of the Year award recipient in Germany. That same month, the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) organization presented Hilfiger with the Future of America Award, D.A.R.E.’s highest honor, for his philanthropic efforts for America’s youth.

Hilfiger launched the Tommy Hilfiger Corporate Foundation in 1995, to enrich the physical and intellectual well being of youth with a major emphasis on education and cultural programs that impact a diverse population. Hilfiger is actively involved in a number of charities and causes, including the Washington D.C. Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation and the Anti-Defamation League. He has also served on the board of directors for The Fresh Air Fund, a New York based group that has been sending underprivileged children to summer camp since 1877, and the Race to Erase MS (Multiple Sclerosis) since 1994. One of his sisters is herself a sufferer.

Tommy Hilfiger Perfume

Tommy Hilfiger perfume