Hilfiger: the billion dollar king of fashion

As he receives a landmark award, the all-American designer talks dressing down, his A-list fans and his final conversation with Virgil Abloh.

- Chloe Street

TOMMY HILFIGER was so important growing up in Chicago, I used to go to the local mall and steal his clothes,” admitted celebrity stylist Law Roach, going off script at the British Fashion Awards on Monday night as he took to the stage alongside Kris Jenner to present Hilfiger with this year’s Outstanding Achievement Award, in celebration of his four-decades-long contribution to fashion. “I was willing to risk it all for a pair of Tommy overalls!”

Roach wasn’t the only teen obsessed. As he took the mic to accept the award, Hilfiger, oozing all-American polish in a royal blue velvet suit, said that in the last conversation he’d had with the late fashion designer Virgil Abloh, who passed away on Sunday following a cancer battle, the Off-White label founder told him that he didn’t do a day at high school in Chicago without wearing Hilfiger’s clothes.

“We were first to do streetwear,” says the 70-year-old, when we meet in his Knightsbridge offices just hours before he hits the British Fashion Awards red carpet with shoe designer Dee Ocleppo, his wife of 13 years. Hilfiger looks quintessentially preppy and polished in a blue suit, white shirt, navy jumper and brown loafers. “We did streetwear in the Eighties before other brands…. when I started doing big logos, nobody had big logos,” he says. “Even Ralph Lauren just had the little horse. The big Polo came later.”

An upstate New Yorker with no formal design training, Hilfiger lunched his first fashion business, a shop called People’s Place, when he was just 18 with $150 as an initial investment. The store, which sold “hippie bellbottoms and cool rock’n’roll type clothing,” was initially a smash hit but seven years on, in 1977, filed for bankruptcy.