By Roy H. Campbell / Special to The Detroit News
While Donna Karan is struggling with the floundering DKNY men's and women's collection, the most spectacular failure in designer fashion is the once high-flying Tommy Hilfiger brand.
After bursting on the scene in the late 1980s with preppy clothes awash in the colors of the U.S. flag, Tommy Hilfiger's company exploded in the '90s through its association with the hip-hop generation and rock and movie stars. His casual and moderately priced lines multiplied and accessories and perfumes followed, and then he entered the high-fashion arena with fashion shows stocked with celebrities on the runway and in the audience.
He even opened dozens of his own stores.
But a stubborn false rumor about Hilfiger's appreciation of a segment of his target audience and changing consumer tastes led to the collection losing its luster around 1999. About two years ago, Hilfiger closed many of his freestanding stores, and some department stores dropped his men's collections and other reduced sales floor space.
Last year, Hilfiger launched his upscale H Collection with an ad campaign starring supermodel Iman and her husband, David Bowie. But huge department store fashion shows around the country failed to draw an audience, and the collection bombed and was pulled from department stores a few months ago. The company, whose income fell to$1.88 billion last year, has seen a 5 percent drop in profits since 2000, and its men's sales are nearly half of what they were last decade. The struggling company plans to auction itself off in August.
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