How Tommy Hilfiger chose consumers over fashionistas

Sam Peña-Taylor

US fashion brand Tommy Hilfiger moved away from the 18-month runway to shop floor model to create an instantly shoppable experience, finding on the way an organisational need to repurpose.

All brands worry about losing relevance, but for fashion brands that fear is particularly acute. Not only are new competitors more agile in taking an idea to the customer, they are more at home in the language and image of younger and future consumers. For Tommy Hilfiger, a $6bn company, the need to respond more quickly was tempered by its size and heritage; but an innovative strategy tied together a fashion staple with new retail technologies to move at the pace of instant gratification.

The US fashion brand, whose eponymous founder debuted in 1985 with a preppy menswear line, built...

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