Thomas Jacob "Tommy" Hilfiger (born March 24, 1951) is an American fashion designer best known for founding the lifestyle brand Tommy Hilfiger Corporation in 1985. After starting his career by co-founding a chain of record stores in upstate New York in the 1970s, he began designing preppy for his own eponymous menswear line in the 1980s. The company later expanded into women\'s clothing and various luxury items such as perfumes, and went public in 1992. In 1997, Hilfiger published his first book, titled All American: A Style Book, and he has written several since, including Tommy Hilfiger through Assouline in 2010. Hilfiger\'s memoir, American Dreamer: My Life in Fashion & Business, co-written with Peter Knobler, was published November 1, 2016. Hilfiger\'s collections are often influenced by the fashion of music subcultures and marketed in connection with the music industry, with celebrities such as American R&B artist Aaliyah in the 1990s. In 2005, contestants in the CBS reality show The Cut competed for a design job with Hilfiger in a similar fashion to The Apprentice. In 2006, Hilfiger sold his company for $1.6 billion to Apax Partners, and it was sold again in 2010 to Phillips-Van Heusen for $3 billion. He remains the company’s principal designer, leading the design teams and overseeing the entire creative process. In 2012 Hilfiger was awarded the Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America.\n', '

Thomas Jacob "Tommy" Hilfiger was born March 24, 1951 in Elmira, New York, the second of nine children. Both of his parents were practicing Catholics. His father Richard was a watchmaker of Dutch-German descent and his mother Virginia (née Gerrity) was a nurse of Irish descent. Hilfiger also claims direct descent from the Scottish poet Robert Burns. Hilfiger has described his upbringing as very happy. He credits his parents with instilling a good work ethic and compassion for others. Hilfiger had an early interest in sports, fashion, and the music industry, a trend that ran in his family. One of his brothers, Andy Hilfiger, went on to work as a musician and designer, while Hilfiger\'s other brother Billy Hilfiger would join King Flux as a guitarist. Hilfiger graduated from the Elmira Free Academy high school in 1970. His parents wanted him to get a college education and pursue a traditional career, and for a time he attended GST BOCES Bush Campus in Elmira.\n', '

Hilfiger spent the summer of 1969 working in a clothing store on Cape Cod, and afterwards he decided to use his life savings of $150 to open a clothing store with two friends. Opened in 1971 as People’s Place, the first store was located in downtown Elmira in what is now the site of First Arena, and had a hair salon, a record shop, and rock concerts in the basement. To stock the store, Hilfiger and his friends would drive to New York City to buy clothing such as bell-bottoms, peasant blouses, and leather jackets. Slightly unsatisfied with the clothing he bought from other suppliers, Hilfiger began sketching his own designs, and would later write that "designing made me happier than anything I’d ever done. I knew from that early work that designing would be my life."\n', '

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