2000s: Hip-Hop Moves On From Tommy Hilfiger

The alleged racist remarks didn’t hurt Tommy Hilfiger’s business. Tommy told Fern Mallis during her 92Y Fashion Icons series in 2012 that the company “went from $1 billion to $2 billion in that time.” Still, the rumors ultimately tainted its reputation within the hip-hop community. By the 2000s, hip-hop artists moved on to brands founded by rappers and inspired by Tommy Hilfiger, like Sean John, Phat Farm, and Rocawear. There would be a short revival in the late 2000s, especially with the return of '90s fashion, but Tommy Hilfiger wouldn’t regain the same popularity in the genre of music.

Simmons: Kids always wear alternatives if something gets big.

Andy: Once the stuff was everywhere, it wasn’t as special.

Oh: Tommy catered too much to hip-hop, 100 million percent. The minute that any brand overly embraces hip-hop, it runs the risk of being rejected by hip-hop. I think that’s part of the power of the genre, because it’s made to be something that you have to work for and that you have to stay up on. I think that Tommy got too loud. It wasn’t fly to me anymore.

Andy: For a while, it was about the ‘90s. I met these guys that now are huge—A$AP Rocky and A$AP Ferg. They were like, “Do you have anything from the ‘90s?” I was like, “Yeah, but why?” They were like, “We love it.” But Hilfiger wasn’t as popular with kids anymore. But it wasn’t like anything happened.

Oh: People don’t dress like they used to. A lot of the huge mega brands that ruled in the ‘80s and ‘90s—not just in hip-hop, but in America, whether it’s Calvin Klein, Nautica, Polo—are really just trying to figure it out.

Simmons: Hip-hop built Tommy. They were proud of Tommy when he was a billion dollar company, and that they had built it. They took ownership, and I think that’s what hip-hop does. They choose. Tommy was one of the brands that they loved and built. What was great about Tommy is that Tommy gave back to the community that built him. Without him, I wouldn’t have had Phat Farm. I think he made a contribution to almost everybody who started brands, whether it was just advice or inspiration. He would sit down and talk to you. He actually introduced me to some of my licenses. He was very helpful.

Paul: Tommy embraced the fact that he didn’t know any and everyone, but he saw positivity. It wasn't like, “I’m going to make millions off black people.” It was more like, “I love hip-hop, and I’m going to take it seriously.” He looked at it like an art form, and it just so happened that he built a brand from it. People like Lloyd and myself helped him figure out a way to embrace the community. I couldn't have predicted the percentages. We just knew that there was a movement, and it was real and we embraced it. By doing that, he showed that corporate America could live in the same space with hip-hop.

Boston: Hilfiger opened a door that was not opened to us by any other brand. Tommy was one of a few—if not the first—to say to hip-hop artists: “This is open to you, because we know style begins with you.”

Andy: We didn’t sit there and say, “Let’s cater to hip-hop.” We dressed snowboarders; I was dressing rock stars. It wasn’t just one group of people. We were just doing a cool line. Maybe people thought [we catered to hip-hop], but people say and think a lot of things. What we were doing is what we wanted to do—make great clothing.

Additional reporting by Zandile Blay, Kadia Blagrove, and Rae Ogbu.