When I was in school, a girl brought this really wonderful looking bag to class one day. I remembered seeing the same on TV some night soon after that and was suitably impressed. It was a Tommy Hilfiger bag, blue and black. I went home and begged my mom for weeks to get me the same. Thus started my fascination with the Tommy Hilfiger brand.

The man who started it all, Thomas Jacob Hilfiger, was born on March 24, 1951, and raised in Elmira, New York, and grew up in an Irish Catholic family. Hilfiger knew from a young age that he wanted to pursue a career in fashion. Rather than furthering his education, an 18-year-old Hilfiger decided to work in retail - apparently he had an innate business sense, even early on.

Hilfiger’s casual approach to fashion (remark that his label is called ‘Tommy’, not the more pretentious ‘Thomas’) has helped place his label in a league of its own, in what he describes as “traditional, with a twist”. His clean-cut, simple and recognisable designs, have led to an empire that is considered one of the highest-ranked publicly traded clothing companies. He dressed rappers and pinup boys and, in so doing, was considered the coolest of the cool. Remember our SRK sporting Tommy Hilfiger clothes in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai? Ever since then, the trail of red, white and blue fashion has fascinated urban teens, female sophisticates and preppy suburban kids in India too.

Through extensive licensing deals (almost 40 product lines), Tommy also offers products such as fragrances, belts, bedding, home furnishings and cosmetics. The company’s clean-cut clothing is sold in major department and specialty stores as well as in innumerable Tommy Hilfiger shops and outlets.