“It’s tough to know when and how fast to turn the faucet off on this,” says Michael Sondag, VP of design and licensing. “Because I know your customers and the buyers are going to want more of the heavier logos.”
“Even if we take a hit,” says Hilfiger, “I’d rather be at the beginning of this trend and maybe lose some immediate sales to come out really clean and get way ahead. I don’t want to get caught in a rut, and I don’t want to get caught in a downward spiral of a trend backing up on us.” Tiny logo in hand, he goes up to the presentation board and peels a big logo off one of the shirts, only to find another big logo underneath it. Everyone laughs. “Is there going to be a surprise under here?” he says as he moves on to the next shirt. He peels off the logo and sticks the tiny rubber logo on the blank shirt. “Look at this!” he says with a big, toothy grin. “This looks so great, doesn’t it? It looks very clean. The guy who wants tons of big logos has it already. He bought it from us. Or he’ll buy it from somebody else.”
Before the meeting is over, Tommy Hilfiger definitively orders companywide downsizing of all logos.
Such are the decisions of the man who has become the king of mass-market sportswear as street fashion, a throne long occupied by Ralph Lauren. Seemingly overnight. Tommy Hilfiger’s graphic logos and multi-culti, red, white, and blue aesthetic have saturated the cities and suburbs of America, and received the stamp of approval from that most desirable of customers: trendy, MTV-age kids. There are many other, more conservative consumers who have helped turn this into a $500 million company, but it is the kids and their love of the big logo and the status they believe it confers who have become Hilfiger’s most cost-effective billboards and bus shelters. And while Donna Karan, Calvin Klein, and Dolce & Gabbana have inched their way into favor with the hip-hop audience with their cheaper DKNY, CK, and D&G lines, the Hilfiger logo still reigns supreme on the street.
To fully comprehend the riskiness of Hilfiger’s decision to shrink the logos, one must understand the ways of street fashion. When a rapper like Snoop Doggy Dogg decides that Tommy Hilfiger—with its blaring logos—is the bomb, and wears a piece of it on Saturday Night Live, as he did in the spring of 1994, millions of fans decide it’s the bomb as well. Right from the beginning in the late seventies, hip-hop has been obsessed with logos, mixing athletic gear (Puma, Adidas, Nike) with luxury status symbols (Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and MCM). “We always bought into logos,” says Russell Simmons, founder of Def Jam records and one of the architects of hip-hop, who now has his own fashion label, Phat Fashions. “The reason for it is that it represents all the shit we don’t have. We’re not ripped-dungarees-rock ’n’ roll-alternative-culture people. We want to buy into the shit we see on television, but we want to put our own twist on it. Part of the fantasy of fashion is about being successful. It’s aspirational. I put this on, I’m gettin’ laid. Not because I’m cool and raggedy but because I’m cool and clean. Because I want to buy into this culture.”