Tommy Hilfiger: The Story of the Man Who Captured the American Landscape in Scent

“The brand we are building speaks very honestly and faithfully about who I am, and I find no difficulty at all in creating it.”
— Tommy Hilfiger

Basic Information
The Founder and the Brand’s Origins
The Birth of the Fragrance Business
1. A Historic Partnership with Estée Lauder
The Brand’s Commitments
1. A Philosophy of Reflecting the American Landscape in Scent
2. Bottle Design: Iconic Red, White, and Blue
The Fragrance Lineup
A Change in Licensing: From Estée Lauder to Give Back Beauty
By the Way…

Basic Information

Year founded: 1985 (as a fashion brand) / Fragrance business launched: 1995
Founder: Thomas Jacob Hilfiger
Official website: tommy.com
Current parent company: PVH Corp. (since 2010)
Fragrance licensee: Give Back Beauty (since 2022)

The Founder and the Brand’s Origins

A Small-Town Boy and a $150 Beginning

Tommy Hilfiger was born on March 24, 1951, in the small town of Elmira, New York, the second of nine children. What he would later call a “typical American childhood” was by no means affluent. But in the late 1960s, as a storm of rock music began sweeping across America, the teenage Tommy was powerfully stirred by its waves.

“A revolution was taking place in fashion and music. I desperately wanted to be part of it. Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who: the wonderful clothes they wore made me think, ‘I want to be involved in this world.’”
— Tommy Hilfiger (from a Business of Fashion interview)

In the summer of 1969, while still in high school, Tommy took $150 and drove to New York City. His aim was to buy 20 pairs of bell-bottom jeans that were unavailable back home. He returned to Elmira and sold them all out of the trunk of a Volkswagen. That experience was the starting point of everything.

“They sold immediately. And I soon opened my first store, selling the ‘cool styles’ you could not buy in local shops.”
— Tommy Hilfiger (from his official biography)

Encouraged by this success, Tommy opened his first store, People’s Place, in downtown Elmira in 1969 with his close friend Larry Stemerman. Bell-bottoms, incense, records, and even clothes sewn from his own designs made it a small cultural gateway, bringing a breath of the city to a provincial town.

“Designing made me happier than anything I had done before. Those early experiences convinced me that design was my life.”
— Tommy Hilfiger

Bankruptcy and a Gamble on New York

The smooth sailing did not last long. A weakening local economy, excessive store expansion, and intensifying competition combined to force People’s Place into bankruptcy in 1977. Tommy was 25.

“Because I had not gone to design school, finding work was very difficult. All I could do was knock on doors and go around asking people to hire me.”
— Tommy Hilfiger (from a Business of Fashion interview)

Seeking a way forward in New York, Tommy worked as a freelance designer for several denim companies, including Jordache Jeans. Through trial and error and self-directed study, he steadily honed his skills.

A “Fateful Encounter” with Mohan Murjani

The turning point came in 1984. Indian textile entrepreneur Mohan Murjani, building on his success with Gloria Vanderbilt Jeans, was seeking to establish a menswear brand. Hilfiger’s entrepreneurial spirit caught his attention.

“When I met Mohan, I felt as if we had known each other for years. It was truly a meeting of like minds. I was certain we could work well together. There was no reason to turn down this opportunity. In 1985, we started the business.”
— Tommy Hilfiger (from a Business of Fashion interview)

With Murjani’s financial backing, Hilfiger presented his first collection in 1985, reinterpreting American classics such as button-down shirts and chinos in a modern way. At that point, however, the name Tommy Hilfiger was still unknown.

The Times Square “Hangman Ad” That Changed History Overnight

What introduced this unknown newcomer to the world was a single billboard devised by legendary advertising figure George Lois. The giant Times Square billboard displayed the initials of three famous designers, “PE” for Perry Ellis, “RL” for Ralph Lauren, and “CK” for Calvin Klein, alongside the bold declaration that the next great menswear designer was “TH.” TH, of course, meant Tommy Hilfiger.

Hilfiger had initially imagined a fresh, breezy advertisement with models in the Hamptons. But Lois would not agree. “It will take 20 years to build a brand that way,” he insisted. Laying out competitors’ advertisements side by side, he demonstrated logically that images alone would not make people remember a brand’s name.

“The advertisement was an extremely bold declaration that I had to live up to. There was a risk. But business is about taking risks.”
— Tommy Hilfiger (from his official biography)

Launched on a budget of just $200,000, the campaign made Tommy Hilfiger’s name known throughout the industry overnight. By 1987, two years after the brand’s debut, its sales had reached $70 million.

An IPO and the Rise of a Global Brand

The company went public in 1992 and achieved explosive popularity through its fusion with American hip-hop and pop culture in the 1990s. Sponsoring tours by Britney Spears, the Rolling Stones, and Lenny Kravitz, it grew into a lifestyle brand emblematic of America in that era. It was sold to Apax Partners for $1.6 billion in 2006. In 2010, PVH Corp. acquired it for $3 billion, and Tommy Hilfiger himself continues to work as principal designer.

The Birth of the Fragrance Business

A Historic Partnership with Estée Lauder

After establishing a firm position in fashion, Hilfiger’s entry into fragrance was set in motion by a 1993 licensing agreement with The Estée Lauder Companies. This was Estée Lauder’s first fragrance licensing agreement with an outside designer and is recorded as a landmark event in the industry. The actual manufacture and sale of the perfumes would be handled by Estée Lauder’s Aramis & Designer Fragrances division.

The Brand’s Commitments

A Philosophy of Reflecting the American Landscape in Scent

The defining feature shared by Tommy Hilfiger fragrances is an approach that seeks to express America’s geography, nature, and culture directly through fragrance materials. The concept for Tommy, the first fragrance released in 1995, was named “The Real American Fragrance.” Scents recalling natural features across America were chosen as motifs, including Florida grapefruit, Cape Cod cranberries, Kentucky bluegrass, Arizona cactus flowers, and Carolina driftwood.

An interview survives in which Hilfiger himself discussed the 1995 launch (Tampa Bay Times, 1995).

“I am not an alchemist. That is why I teamed up with the experts at Aramis.”
— Tommy Hilfiger (Tampa Bay Times, 1995)

Hilfiger has espoused “F.A.M.E.” as a fashion philosophy: the initials of Fashion, Art, Music, and Entertainment. In fragrance, too, staying connected with the pop culture of the moment forms part of the brand’s DNA.

Bottle Design: Iconic Red, White, and Blue

The fragrance bottles and packaging also strongly reflect the brand’s love of America. The original Tommy paired a simple glass bottle recalling an apothecary jar with packaging in the brand’s symbolic red, white, and blue. The cap is said to have been modeled on a button from a Hilfiger shirt.

Tommy Hilfiger’s red, white, and blue logo itself was inspired by the American flag and the international maritime signal flag “H” (Hotel). The H, of course, stands for Hilfiger. These three colors have continued to be used consistently throughout the brand’s fragrance lineup, and the Tommy Forever collection released in 2024 also places the signature Tommy Hilfiger flag on its bottles.

The Fragrance Lineup

Tommy: A Landmark 1995 Fragrance That Bottled America

Released in 1995, the men’s fragrance Tommy was created jointly by Alberto Morillas and Annie Buzantian. This citrus-fougère scent places mint, bergamot, grapefruit, and lavender in the top notes; Granny Smith apple, cranberry, and rose in the middle; and cotton flower, cactus, and amber in the base. It consistently follows a concept of evoking an American road trip, and remains a catalogue staple at least 30 years after its launch.

It won Fragrance of the Year in the Men’s Prestige category at the 1996 FiFi Awards, known as one of the fragrance industry’s most prestigious honors.

Tommy Girl: The Revolution Born of Tea in 1996

Released the following year, in 1996, Tommy Girl is a women’s fragrance created by French perfumer Calice Becker. Becker grew up in a family of Russian heritage and remembered her mother constantly brewing tea in a samovar, a Russian tea urn. Drawing on that memory, Givaudan chemist Roman Kaiser reportedly collected the actual air inside the renowned Paris tea shop Mariage Frères and analyzed its scent. Using this tea base, the fragrance is said to have reached completion after 1,100 formulations, or trial scent blends.

Becker herself later said the following about the fragrance.

“I am proud of what J’Adore achieved in the market. But I think Tommy Girl was the more innovative fragrance.”
— Calice Becker (from her Fragrance Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award acceptance speech)

Awarded the highest rating of five stars in Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez’s Perfumes: The Guide, Tommy Girl was described as “so vivid that it sets the white for all future fragrances.”

In 2024, Tommy Girl Forever, a new fragrance carrying forward the original’s world, was also released.

True Star: A Historic Collaboration with Beyoncé in 2004

In the 2000s, Tommy Hilfiger actively brought pop-culture collaborations into its fragrance business as well. Released in 2004, True Star featured R&B star Beyoncé Knowles as its face. A television commercial using her a cappella rendition of “Wishing on a Star” attracted considerable attention. The commercial won Best National Advertising Campaign: TV at the 2005 FiFi Awards. True Star Men, featuring Enrique Iglesias, followed in 2005.

Hilfiger: A Fragrance Embodying the Designer Himself in 2008

In 2008, a fragrance named Hilfiger, after Tommy Hilfiger himself, appeared. Its bottle bore the inscription “Est. 1985.” In press releases and elsewhere, Hilfiger described the fragrance in these terms.

“American icons have always inspired me. Icons lead through their individuality. They have passion, a fiery determination, and a desire to succeed. This fragrance is a tribute to that spirit, for every man who makes his own destiny.”
— Tommy Hilfiger

The Girl: A Scent of Independence Worn by Gigi Hadid in 2016

The Girl launched in autumn 2016 with supermodel Gigi Hadid as its global ambassador. Moving from top notes of green pear, violet leaf, and green fig leaf to a heart of jasmine and lily of the valley and a base of cedarwood and cashmeran, this clean-feeling fragrance was designed to embody being yourself.

“‘The Girl’ is a woman who is true to herself and knows how to have fun.”
— Gigi Hadid

Impact: A New Men’s Fragrance in 2020

Introduced in 2020, Impact is a woody-aromatic men’s fragrance that forms a mainstay of the current catalogue. Its distinctive composition combines top notes of bitter orange, red apple, and pink pepper; middle notes of elemi, cypress, and clary sage; and a base layering three types of cedarwood, Atlas, Virginia, and Texas, with sandalwood and Givaudan’s Akigalawood.

A Change in Licensing: From Estée Lauder to Give Back Beauty

The partnership with Estée Lauder, which had supported the fragrance business for many years, came to an end in 2022. Behind this was Estée Lauder’s strategic decision to scale down and dismantle its Aramis & Designer Fragrances division itself.

The new partner was Give Back Beauty, which places sustainability at the core of its business. In the announcement, Martijn Hagman, then Tommy Hilfiger’s global chief executive officer, said the following.

“The partnership with Give Back Beauty marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter for Tommy Hilfiger’s beauty and wellness business.”
— Martijn Hagman (then CEO of Tommy Hilfiger Global and PVH Europe)

Tommy Forever and Tommy Girl Forever, developed and manufactured under the new arrangement, were released in 2024. Their perfumers include Philippe Paparella, Aliénor Massenet, Emilie Coppermann, and Christophe Raynaud.

By the Way…

The Birth of Tommy Girl Was Sparked by Bvlgari’s Green Tea

Calice Becker began researching tea scents for Givaudan in the early 1990s, but initially struggled to find an opportunity for them to be used. The tide turned after the major success of Bvlgari’s Eau Parfumée au Thé Vert, created by Jean-Claude Ellena and introduced in 1992. That success is said to have finally brought Becker’s tea base into the spotlight, leading to its presentation to Tommy Hilfiger.

Hilfiger’s Bankruptcy Was, in Fact, a Turning Point

Hilfiger reflected on the bankruptcy of People’s Place in an interview with Forbes. Published under a title stating that going bankrupt at 25 changed his life, the article tells how failure laid the foundation for his success.

Bluebell Japan Began Handling the Fragrances in Japan in August 2025

In Japan, Bluebell Japan Ltd. began handling Tommy Hilfiger fragrances in August 2025.

References