Tommy Hilfiger

Tommy Hilfiger is one of the most remarkable success stories in the history of American fashion. Growing up in Elmira, New York in the 1960s, he worked in clothing stores, learning the retail business from the ground up. At age 18, rather than going to college, he started his own business. Driving to New York City, he would buy the fashionable jeans and bell bottom pants available in the city, then customize and re-sell them in the stores of Elmira. With no previous training in fashion design, he began designing and manufacturing his own clothes. Soon he had his own store, the People's Place, which was a hit with the teenagers of Elmira. The opening of a shopping mall in a town nearby hit the Elmira business district hard, and Hilfiger's store declined with the rest of the neighborhood. At 25, his business was bankrupt. Undeterred, he took his wife and young children to New York, where he turned down design jobs with established manufacturers Calvin Klein and Perry Ellis to start his own clothing line. In 1984, he founded the Tommy Hilfiger Corporation, introducing his signature menswear collection. His bright, colorful approach to active, youth-oriented clothing was a hit with shoppers in their teens and twenties, especially in urban areas, and the red white and blue Hilfiger logo became as well known as any clothing label in America. Hilfiger soon added women's and children's lines. The company would eventually include fragrances, bedding and bath products. He took the company public in 1992 and sold it for over a billion dollars in 2006. In 1995, he established the Tommy Hilfiger Corporate Foundation to help empower America's youth. The foundation's philanthropy and education initiatives focus on programs and partnerships that promote educational opportunities for diverse populations in the United States. The following year, Tommy Hilfiger appeared at the Academy of Achievement Summit in Sun Valley, Idaho, where this podcast was recorded. In his talk with the students, he tells how he found his own path to success without formal training. He also discusses the principles that inform his business philosophy.