The self-made duke of design

SOMETIMES there is such a thing as being too popular, says Tommy Hilfiger, explaining that, after his fashion label’s crazy romp in the 1990s, he had to reinvent the brand. Decked out in red trousers and a white shirt with blue stripes, and white sneakers – a poster boy for his brand’s staple tones – the 65-year-old designer chatted about the evolution of his label and his memoir “American Dreamer” at the Miami Book Fair International on Sunday.
“When I was a teenager I didn’t really know what to do with my life,” he said. “I liked rock music, I liked the clothes they were wearing and I opened a small shop with money I earned from working at a gas station.
“I started with 20 pairs of jeans, and then I started expanding on college campuses with very cool clothes. I opened it in 1969, when the fashion-music revolution was taking place. It was the summer of Woodstock, Jimi Hendrix and the Who – all of these incredible musicians wearing the most amazing clothes. It was really a movement with the young people, and I wanted to be part of that movement.
“I evolved away from this hippie style in the early ’80s because I wanted to make clothes that everyone could wear. And I knew that if I made the American classics new again, it would be a great business and at the same time it would be a lot of fun to do.
“So I took this preppy look I grew up with – button-down shirts and chino pants, sort of sporty, casual. I redesigned everything. I wanted to make everything new, unique, fresh and fun.
“I didn’t really have any money for advertising, but I met this guy George Louis, a genius. He said, ‘If you advertise the way other people in fashion advertise, it’s going to take you 20 years to build a brand. You have to do something really different and disruptive, out of the box.’ 
“Then he showed me his idea. His idea was to compare me, Tommy Hilfiger, an unknown, to the biggest designers – Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and Perry Ellis.
“And when the ad went up in Times Square in New York City, it said, ‘The four great American designers’ and I was the fourth of them. At that time those were the biggest American designers and my name was with theirs. So everybody said, ‘Who is this guy, who does he think he is and, by the way, what do his clothes look like?’ 
“You have to be disruptive. You have to do something different. You can’t do the same as everybody else. That’s how you’re going to succeed. 
“In the early ’90s I started doing this athletic type of clothing, with big numbers, big logos. And the street kids started wearing it, and then the hip-hop kids started wearing it. And then Snoop Dogg, Puff Daddy and Jay Z, all them started wearing my clothes and it spread like crazy. The business became very big in the ’90s – too big.
“When everybody is wearing the same thing, the first adopters usually say, ‘I don't want to wear it anymore because I’ve seen it everywhere.’ It becomes too big. 
“This is what happened with Abercrombie recently. Then the business goes through a difficult period, because a lot of people just stop wearing it. This happened to the Gap, even. So we had to reinvent and the business took off again.”
Hilfiger battled a persistent online rumour in the late 1990s and early 2000s that claimed he had told Oprah Winfrey his clothes were not made for minorities. Despite the denial from both parties, the bogus story refused to die and the chat-show host finally invited Hilfiger on set in 2007 to clear up the mess.
“It’s a lie. It’s false. It was made to hurt my business and me. The business continued to be strong, and we didn’t see the numbers affected, but it was hurtful. 
“I never would have made my clothes affordable and accessible for everybody had I not wanted everybody to wear the clothes!”