By Vivian Lassiter
ELMIRA — In the photographs that trace his career, Tommy Hilfiger dresses like the best advertisement for his own label: silver hair swept back, a crisp white shirt open at the collar, a navy blazer and, when the weather turns, a red tartan scarf knotted just so. Now 75, and 41 years after he put his name on a brand, the Southern Tier’s most famous export still looks like he walked out of one of his own campaigns.
This fall he brought that look home. In mid-October Hilfiger spent two days in Elmira, leading a Q&A with Elmira College students who run the store at the Tommy Hilfiger Fashion Business School, dropping in on the Elmira High boys soccer team and accepting a numbered jersey from the college’s student-athletes, according to Elmira College and The Leader.
A jeans shop on $150
Hilfiger grew up in a small two-unit house on Laurel Street, the son of a jeweler and a nurse, and graduated from Elmira Free Academy in 1969, according to Townsquare’s CNY News, which drew on WETM’s reporting. That December he and two friends opened People’s Place downtown with $150, a 5,000-square-foot storefront rented for $50 a month and 20 pairs of bell-bottom jeans bought in New York City.
He never went to college. When the Elmira High players asked where he studied, he told them dyslexia had been a barrier and that he opened People’s Place instead, the Star-Gazette reported. “So I started my business when I was 18 and I’m still doing it,” Hilfiger said.
He also had a pitch for the seniors, pointing them to the fashion program that carries his name across town. “That’s a good option because a lot of sports guys are into fashion, as you know,” he said, according to the paper. One player, a Brazilian exchange student who had arrived in Elmira dressed head to toe in Tommy, was celebrating his 18th birthday that day.
Preppy, but relaxed
The look he built has always been about fixing what bored him. Describing his early collections to PBS NewsHour’s Jeffrey Brown, he recalled the preppy clothes of his boyhood. “I didn’t like the fit. I didn’t like the feel of the fabric. I didn’t like that it was too mediocre, so to speak,” Hilfiger said, in the 2017 interview. “So, I thought, I’m going to make everything, like, relaxed, colorful, detailed.”
Four decades on, he is still that particular. In a September interview with GQ España, he described spending an 8:30 a.m. meeting on shirt collars because he wanted them a little longer, with a wider roll, the magazine reported. The same piece noted that he showed his spring/summer 2027 collection at The Plaza Hotel, where his family once lived in the penthouse for a decade.
The anniversary has him looking back, too. “Sometimes it feels like we’ve been doing this for five or 10 years, other times it feels like forever,” he told Vogue last year, as the label marked 40 years. “I look at photos from some of the collections, and I can remember right down to the soles of the shoes.”
Homes, hippos and the Glen
That eye extends to the houses he and his wife, Dee Hilfiger, restore, which they gathered in the 2025 book “Hilfiger Homes.” “We’ve never bought a house — ever — and just said, ‘Right, let’s move in,’” he told Vogue. “It’s always a redo. But that’s also the fun of it.” A large hippo on his office shelf has a family story behind it. “My dad’s nickname was hippo, so we all became hippos,” he said.
His other passion was born a short drive from home. In July, the International Motor Racing Research Center in Watkins Glen named him the recipient of its Cameron R. Argetsinger Award, to be presented at its gala at the Corning Museum of Glass on Oct. 15, WETM reported. “Watkins Glen, once home to the U.S. Grand Prix, was where I first experienced the excitement and energy of motorsports,” Hilfiger said in a statement to the center. “Those races left a lasting impression on me and sparked a passion that has stayed with me throughout my life.”
Going back home
At Elmira College, the athletes now wear red, white and blue jerseys inspired by his signature colors, WETM reported. Hilfiger, who served nearly a decade as a college trustee, said the town shaped him. “I think Elmira gave me quite a bit when I was growing up, and I came to really love the community and the families and the college, all that it has to offer,” he said.
The fashion business school, launched in 2021 with his sister Betsy Hilfiger and brother Andy Hilfiger, lets students study marketing and merchandising and opens a path to a master’s program at the Fashion Institute of Technology, CNY News reported. Its student-run shop is named People’s Place, after his first store.
He wants it to grow. “I would like it to be meaningful. I would like to continue to grow the program and expand it,” Hilfiger said at the college ceremony, according to The Leader. “I would like to do whatever I can do to support the college and the community. A few times a year we come and visit. I have family here and every time I come it’s like going back home.”
He even noticed the jersey number the students chose: 85, the year he launched his label. Viewers can hear more from him on WETM’s “Talk of the Tiers”, where he talked about a new book, People’s Place and the link between music and fashion.
For a kid who left Laurel Street with 20 pairs of bell-bottoms, it is a long way to The Plaza. He still dresses for the trip.
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