To consider Tommy Hilfiger as only a premium American designer model is a particularly limiting train. The model, which employs greater than 16,000 folks globally and generates billions in gross sales income yearly, is aware of that its voice extends far past trend and reaches deep into conversations about sustainability, the round financial system and inclusion.
“The theme of sustainability… is central to who we’re as a model and a accountability that falls on to me throughout the enterprise,” says Martijn Hagman, CEO of Tommy Hilfiger International and PVH Europe, in an unique interview with Gulf Enterprise.
“We launched Make it Potential in 2020, which is our daring sustainability program that reinforces Tommy Hilfiger’s dedication to creating trend that wastes nothing and welcomes all. We emphasised the preliminary objectives centered on circularity and inclusion, as seen in our current merchandise that use extra natural and recycled supplies, in addition to in our elevated transparency round our merchandise, provide chain and model affect.”
The style business must drastically change course to develop into extra sustainable. In keeping with one estimate, the style business consumes 98 million tons of non-renewable sources yearly, whereas the quantity of garments bought is anticipated to triple by 2050.
By way of steps in direction of a sustainable future, Tommy Hilfiger has began working. By 2030, it goals to have all its merchandise designed, manufactured and distributed to return to organic or technical end-of-life loops. Two years in the past, it launched its first 100% recycled cotton denim denims, which used cotton scraps from manufacturing facility flooring and reducing tables, along with thread from recycled plastic bottles. This made Tommy Hilfiger the primary model to supply 100% recycled cotton materials on an industrial scale for one in every of its hottest traces, its denim denims.
His Luv the World Spring 2021 capsule assortment launched final 12 months took that thought a step additional. The entire items in it had been designed utilizing 100% recyclable supplies, in addition to 100% recyclable supplies, which additional used chemical-free printing graphics.
As a substitute of throwing the items away on the finish of their life, Tommy used the tags on them to explain learn how to tie white t-shirts, learn how to flip a t-shirt right into a tote bag or a face masks, and even learn how to reuse a hoodie in a tremendous canine jacket.
The beforehand launched Tommy for Life program can also be primarily based on the concept of extending the end-of-life phrases of its merchandise. Tommy for Life takes pre-owned or broken Tommy Hilfiger and Tommy Denims clothes and both repairs or “remixes” them into new, limited-edition types which can be then resold.
“Our Spring 2022 assortment contains 76% extra sustainable types. Our 2021 collections had been made utilizing 51% extra sustainable supplies reminiscent of natural and recycled cotton, extra sustainable wool and recycled polyester, an 82% improve from 2020,” provides Hagman.
Within the 37 years because the founding of the model, Tommy Hilfiger has develop into an exemplary enterprise success. It’s at the moment owned by PVH, which incorporates manufacturers reminiscent of Calvin Klein, Van Heusen and Arrow in its portfolio. Total, PVH has greater than 40,000 associates working in additional than 40 international locations and reported annual revenues of $9.9 billion as of 2019. In the meantime, Tommy Hilfiger has greater than 16,000 workers globally and retail gross sales in 2020 of $6.9 billion.
In Q3 2021, Tommy Hilfiger posted revenues of $1.2 billion, up 12% from the corresponding interval in 2020. It at the moment has greater than 2,000 shops globally, with an growing concentrate on GCC international locations . Actually, in 2020, it opened six shops within the area, together with 4 in Saudi Arabia and one every in Dubai and Kuwait.
The Tommy Hilfiger Dubai retailer opened in Dubai Mall final Could, marking the model’s first devoted footwear and equipment idea within the GCC. Its new Kuwait outpost opened in Assima Mall in Kuwait Metropolis in September. “We at the moment have over 50 Tommy Hilfiger shops within the GCC area, working with a franchise mannequin and dealing intently with our native companions to ship on our strategic ambitions. In 2021, we opened an workplace in Dubai. The Center East and Africa (MEA+) areas supply us many alternatives for development. Though it’s nonetheless comparatively small, representing about 2% of our enterprise in Europe Center East (EMEA), we see nice potential for development,” says Hagman. Its companions within the area are UAE-based Attire Group, led by Sima Ved and Nilesh Ved. Attire Group operates Tommy Hilfiger shops within the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, in addition to the corporate’s e-commerce operations within the area.
Of the six new shops opened within the area final 12 months, notably, 4 had been in Saudi Arabia. They included one every in Rashid Mall in Medina, Jeddah Park Mall in Jeddah, Nakheel Mall in Riyadh and a 300 sq. meter presence in Granada Mall in Riyadh. “Saudi Arabia’s retail sector is among the many quickest rising on this planet,” notes Hagman, including, “We have now thrilling plans to open extra shops within the GCC in addition to proceed to develop our e-commerce operations.” .
E-commerce has performed a major function in Tommy’s enterprise mannequin, additional accelerated by the pandemic. It is one which Hagman, as CEO, has been maintaining an in depth eye on, whilst his plans for actual enlargement stay a piece in progress. “We have now elevated our concentrate on our digital shopper and B2B channels. Earlier than the pandemic, our digital showrooms around the globe revolutionized wholesale by totally digital experiences. Because the pandemic escalated, we rapidly modified to accommodate distant appointments and launched two new gross sales choices: Digital Showrooms and a B2B Webshop platform for purchasers to put seasonal orders remotely.
“Our brick-and-mortar retail areas will proceed to play an necessary function, and as we additional combine these areas, they are going to develop into extra related to our personal e-commerce channels or third-party on-line platforms,” says Hagman.
As a part of the general digital transformation technique and a transfer that’s re-entering the sustainability agenda, is PVH’s 3D design expertise. Final 12 months, PVH determined to make its Sew 3D platform out there to everybody, together with its rivals—for a worth—to get extra friends to develop their 3D design capabilities. “3D design expertise has main benefits for enterprise and has the potential to create a extra round and sustainable system. By means of Sew, our 3D design hub, we have developed a technology-driven ecosystem that facilitates a totally digital workflow for product creation. To additional digitize the style business, creating digital merchandise is important and on the similar time permits the business to develop into extra sustainable general,” says Hagman.
“As an organization, we nonetheless have not finished sufficient, however we’re decided to do higher,” Hagman admits of Tommy Hilfiger’s actions on variety and inclusion. It is a uncommon accolade for enterprise leaders within the trend business, although Hagman — just like the model’s 70-year-old namesake founder, New York-born Tommy Hilfiger himself — takes the bull by the horns on the topic. “It’s my private precedence and dedication to extend the illustration of individuals of coloration, Indigenous folks, folks of coloration (BIPOC), girls and different underrepresented teams in all international management positions at PVH Europe and Tommy Hilfiger. Final 12 months, we launched the Individuals’s Place Program to advertise BIPOC illustration within the trend and artistic industries; and two of the 4 pillars of our formidable Make it Potential program are devoted to attaining our inclusion objectives,” says Hagman.
Final month, the 2 winners of the third version of the Tommy Hilfiger Vogue Frontier Problem had been introduced, providing BIPOC entrepreneurs the prospect to win €100,000 in funding and the chance to scale their concepts with PVH consultants. This 12 months’s winners are Rwandan eco-friendly footwear model Uzuri Okay&Y, which makes use of recycled automobile tires from sub-Saharan Africa, in addition to Lalaland, a platform from the Netherlands that makes use of synthetic intelligence to generate artificial fashions of various ages, ethnicities and sizes . in additional than 35 poses.
Expertise will play a vital function in Tommy Hilfiger’s future, and Hagman should decide that course and tempo. Hagman presents a take a look at how this expertise will play a job within the model’s future. “We envision a world the place the digital and bodily worlds will merge over time. Everybody’s speaking concerning the Metaverse, and whereas it is nonetheless largely undefined, it is actual. It focuses on making digital twins of merchandise or digital-only distinctive items. For us, this will imply digital copies of our shops and showrooms, or internet hosting digital experiences in shops and bodily experiences in digital worlds. Shops will tackle a brand new function of interconnection, permitting us to increase the model expertise.”
In the end, Hagman is conscious that expertise can solely go thus far and as quick because the model’s clients dictate. “Whereas there are a lot of alternatives for motion, one factor is obvious: we should advance in innovation if we’re to fulfill our shoppers precisely the place they’re,” says Hagman. Figuring out the place these clients are is probably going excessive on the CEO’s agenda.
