Excellent profile of fashion designer/hood hero Tommy Hilfiger.
Still Tommy After All These Years
THE HILFIGER BRAND IS NOW IN EUROPEAN HANDS, WHILE ITS FOUNDER REMAINS
A KID IN A CANDY STORE. BY CATHY HORYN
Portrait by Gareth McConnell
Along round hill road in Greenwich, Conn., the newer mansions were built for comfort and show. They are equipped with systems — security systems, illumination and irrigation systems, vacuuming systems and entertainment systems. There is a smoothness to life onRound Hill Road that is apparent even to a stranger. There might be trouble in some of the houses, for there is always trouble somewhere — trouble from debt, trouble from an unhappy marriage — but it seems a feature of new wealth, if not a requirement, that its participants be not too heavily invested in the sort of colossal dreams that built Newport and Houston, places that were built from money made in dangerous work like mining and oil. For whatever else an imitation of a French manor may suggest, it does not suggest, at least on Round Hill Road, danger or a great deal of imagination.
It was a strange thought to be left alone with during the minutes or seconds that it took for the gates at Tommy Hilfiger’s house to swing open. Hilfiger, who had made a killing in the bull market of the ’90s by being the first designer of that era to list his company on the New York Stock Exchange, was there with his fiancée, Dee Ocleppo, and a publicist from his New York office. Three men were in the kitchen preparing a dinner of Dover sole and grilled steak. After 20 years of marriage and four children, Hilfiger had divorced his first wife, Susie — this was already some time ago — and she lives down the road in a house, on 25 acres, decorated with furniture that once belonged to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, items the couple had bought at auction. Hilfiger also has a villa on the island of Mustique, next to Mick Jagger’s, which he named Palm Beach. A number of things happened
http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2008/12/07/style/t/index.html#pageName=07tommy
