Tommy Hilfiger, who got his start in the fashion industry as a teenager selling bell bottoms and peasant blouses in his hometown of Elmira, New York, and parlayed that store into a worldwide brand recently valued at $3 billion, will appear in a conversation and book signing at the Hyatt Regency Princeton on Wednesday, November 2, at 7 p.m.
The event, sponsored by the Princeton Regional Chamber of Commerce, coincides with the November 1 release of Hilfiger’s memoir, “American Dreamer.” Copies of the book are included in the $45 registration fee. To register visit www.princetonchamber.org. U.S. 1 editor Richard K. Rein will moderate the conversation and then lead a question-and-answer session with the audience before the book signing.
Hilfiger is well known for embracing fashions that complement the major musical influences on our culture — in the 1970s he sold clothes to Bruce Springsteen and his band and later Hilfiger designed the clothing for the Rolling Stones, Sheryl Crow, Britney Spears, and others. But his family has played an equally strong role in his life, from his eight siblings growing up in Elmira to his five children — plus one grandchild — today.
As Quincy Jones writes in the foreword to Hilfiger’s memoir: “We were pioneers with a shared philosophy that music and fashion were not only connected, but vital to each other . . . What solidified our friendship was the need to give back. He never forgot where he came from, and philanthropy was and still is a huge part of his life.”
