Dedicated Avatar of Fashion

He got involved in the fashion business in the 1960s when music was exploding. But then Tommy Hilfiger has always seen the two as inseparable.

Jason O'Toole, 11 Dec 2008

It was impossible to miss the buzz around town last week when the new Tommy Hilfiger flagship store opened in Grafton Street. At a time when there is major concern about a decline in retail sales, on the countdown to Christmas it is exactly the kind of fillip that the city centre needs.

The new store, which cost €4 million to renovate, is based on the site of the old Grafton Arcade, opposite Brown Thomas. An impressive 446 square metres in size, it will carry a wide range of men’s, women’s and children’s fashions, as well as accessories like bags, belts, footwear and watches.

It might be the twelfth Hilfiger store to open in Ireland, but it’s actually the first opening that Tommy has personally attended. In fact, a large contingent arrived in Ireland from both the US and Hilfiger’s European headquarters in Amsterdam. Clearly, it’s a big deal for the man and his global fashion empire...

“We’d been looking for a location for quite a while,” the 57-year-old New York resident reveals. “We thought that – in good times and bad – having a great location will do nothing but good for the brand. You need great locations. I’ve been in business long enough to know that if you don’t have a great location, you don’t do the amount of business you really want to do. Simple as that.

“We’re also looking at the global recession from a different point of view than other designers,” he adds, “because a lot of designers have very high priced clothes. Ours are great quality, great design, but at affordable prices. That’s a big difference. I think that during a time like this, our positioning is advantageous.”

When it comes to fashion, Hilfiger believes that Europe and America have more in common than people might realise.

“I don’t see a big difference in taste,” he says. “Some of the European desires are different, sure, because they’ll pay a little bit more and they want maybe a slightly different quality, but it’s not a tremendous difference.”

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