Tommy Hilfiger

Thomas Jacob "Tommy" Hilfiger born March 24, 1951 is an American fashion designer and founder of the brand Tommy Hilfiger.

Hilfiger was born and raised in Elmira, New York. The second of nine children, he grew up in an Irish-American family he claims direct descent from Scottish poet Robert Burns. 1 His parents originally intended for him to be an engineer. He attended Elmira Free Academy for high school. Rather than furthering his education, he started to work in retail at the age of 18. Hilfiger would go to New York City to buy jeans and bell-bottom pants, which he customized and resold at a local downtown Elmira store, Brown's.

He later opened his own store, named The People's Place, around the block in downtown Elmira. Although the store was a hot spot for teens with frequent contests and live DJ appearances, there were often more people hanging out than shopping. Over the years, a number of stores closed in downtown Elmira as shopping traffic shifted to the new Arnot Mall in Horseheads, New York. It wasn't long before The People's Place became another casualty. After seven years, The People's Place went bankrupt, when Hilfiger was 25. The site of the original store has since been demolished to make room for First Arena, home of the Elmira Jackals Hockey team.

After turning to the design of clothing by designing for the rest of his stores in upstate New York, Hilfiger moved to New York City with his now estranged wife, Susie. Although he was offered design assistant positions with designers Calvin Klein and Perry Ellis, and was broke, he turned them both down with greater plans in mind.

In 1984, he founded the Tommy Hilfiger Corporation, NYSE TOM , with support from The Murjani Group, which went public in 1992, introducing his signature menswear collection. By 2004 the company had 5,400 employees and revenues in excess of 1.8 billion. Hilfiger was named Menswear Designer of the Year by the Council of Fashion Designers of America in 1997.

In 1998, Hilfiger gave singer Aaliyah her endorsement deal, in which he honored her in his Summer 1998 fashion show in Jamaica.