VIVA Dubai

STYLEEXCLUSIVE

Time out with

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wooping down in to New England’s Nantucket island in a private jet courtesy of its famous resident Tommy Hilfiger - all the eye can see for miles around are blue skies, rich green grasslands, and rugged coastlines, peppered with sailboats and old pictureperfect lighthouses. Inland, it’s easy to make out the island’s distinctive grey-painted clapboard homes, many of which are bordered by bright white picket fences. On first and last impressions this 14-mile-long island, with just 10,000 residents, is simply idyllic.

It’s hard to believe that such a huge global name in fashion, once favoured by rap stars and singers alike from P Diddy to Britney, has for the last 21 years called this slow-paced place home. But then it is also home to the original American dream,

Y M M TO Tommy Hilfiger drew on his love of New England to help design his collections and new anniversary fragrance, Tommy Girl 10. Alexandra Shakespeare spends a weekend with Tommy in Nantucket and discovers his unique icons, inspirations and heritage

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the birthplace of preppy and all things authentically nautical.

New England is Tommy Hilfiger to a tee, and VIVA has been invited to experience the designer’s island life first-hand… n American flag is flying at full mast in the front driveway of Tommy Hilfiger’s beautiful Georgian home, while he’s sat content on his veranda overlooking the bay. Breathing in the fresh sea air, Tommy vividly recalls his first memories of Nantucket, then an 18-year-old student still wondering what to do with his life.

“When I first came to Nantucket it seemed so noncommercial and unspoilt with amazing architecture, cobbled streets and small shops - it struck me with its preppy charm - it was so unlike other American ports.”

Even now, there’s something contagiously appealing about the island. Within five minutes of ambling around the timeless cobbled streets and tidy marina, you can’t help but wish you too had spent your student summers here discovering yourself and the beach life. It’s the stuff picture postcards are made of.

You get the same optimistic feeling when talking to Tommy.

Decked out in white boat shoes,

Far left and above: Tommy in front of his home; with Tommy 10 PR Kate Martin and VIVA ed, Alexandra.

Below: Tommy’s boat Miss Ally. Above right: seaviews and Tommy’s back garden Far right: s/s06 collection

Tommy Hilfiger at a glance...

MOST MEMORABLE CELEBRITY ENCOUNTER: “I thought it was very interesting having a relationship and friendship with John F Kennedy Junior before he died. The Kennedy family’s American heritage and history is fascinating.”

MOTIVATION: “I love people, music, arts, entertainment, sports, travel, and the great outdoors. As a designer, you really have to love all aspects of life and bring it all together somehow. It’s a journey, it’s exploratory, it’s fun. If you think about pioneering, exploring, or a journey, you never know what you’re going to find – be it a person, a shop, a restaurant, or a cove for a picnic - that’s very exciting.”

BEST BUSINESS MOVE: “When I started designing on my own, family and friends were convinced it would not be successful and I wanted to prove them wrong. I knew how inexperienced I was at the technical side, so I hired people who could do the pattern cutting and sewing.”

BEST MUSIC MEMORY: “Jimmy Hendrix Live at Philmore East, 31 December 1969. He lit his guitar on fire, it was wild and crazy!”

casual pale pink chinos (rolled up, in case the need for a quick paddle strikes him?) and a Rolling Stones Tshirt, the world-famous designer talks me through his day, which started with an 8am outing on his classic Hacket boat (christened Miss Ally after his eldest daughter Alexandria).

You can just imagine Tommy, Ally, and his three other children enjoying picnics and boat rides summer after summer. The yellow galoshes, raincoats and hats, lined up from small to big, in his hallway, only add to the ➜ 129

STYLEEXCLUSIVE Clockwise from left: Tommy with three of his children, including daughter Ally and (right) with her as a baby; hitchiking as an 18-year-old

image of real New England life in the Hilfiger house. And it’s easy to see how it’s influenced his brand.

“My first collection was nautical, even my logo is a nautical semaphore flag symbol. I’ve always had that attachment with sailing, boating, and the sea.”

The reoccurring all-American theme sneaks into the autumn/ winter 06 collection too, with a fresh collegiate vibe evident in tailored black and red stripe blazers and long scarves, as well as cute checked trenchcoats.

But it never veers too far from Tommy’s own typically wearable, ‘don’t try too hard’ New England style, which makes for a look that blends in whatever the setting, be it West Side or seaside.

With a permanent home in New York too, it seems this blending of urban and county life has been integral to the success of the Tommy Hilfiger empire.

“My Nantucket home really grounded me,” explains Tommy.

“Living in New York full-time and going to Studio 54 every night like we did in the early days would have buried me. So it was good to go get some of that NYC scene and then come back here and get that balance going - I’ve always looked for that - if you’re too far one way or the other you have a tendency to fall off the tightrope.”

In his teenage days, Tommy’s father, a strict and hard-working traditionalist, had a difficult time keeping him on the straight and

narrow (“I can be a bad boy,” smiles Tommy). Disapproving of his lifestyle, it was a certainly a shock for his father to learn that the second of his nine children had secretly dropped out of school.

“I had a lot of trouble trying to convince my parents that growing my hair long and wearing bellbottoms to school was okay,” he laughs. “I also tried to convince my father that shaking the house down with Jimi Hendrix and The Who was okay too. I failed!”

It was only a year after quitting college and opening a boutique called People’s Place, in upstate New York with a friend, that he came clean to his parents.

“It was 1969, the year of Woodstock,” remembers Tommy.

“It was sort of a revolutionary period in music and hippy-dom.

The shop didn’t seem like work, it was just fun with cool music playing - I was into the rock scene in New York… Jefferson Airplane, Joplin, Hendrix - there was a movement taking place.”

And not just on the music scene.

“It was a real breakthrough time in my life - I went from being a schoolboy to a man and it was a little scary fending on my own - but it was a great experience and business was bubbling up too. I was going to New York City ➜

Tommy Hilfiger’s New England favourites…

THINKING SPACE: “My thinking place is in Nantucket on my veranda looking out over the water and not worrying about anything else in the world, other than seeing the boats go in and out of the harbour. I love to go fishing on the cornice too.”

THE SEASONS: “I love the changing of the seasons in New England and all the opportunities it presents, such as walking through Provincetown when the leaves start turning and antiquing in Newport come the spring. You need to experience it all. If you can throw in a Red Sox game or watch Yale and Harvard compete, all the better.”

TRADITION: Good taste prevails in New England. Just look at the architecture: a Cape Cod shingle, a New England colonial, even the modest log cabin. Or the graphic lines of quilts and nautical flags. Then there’s the all-American palette that’s always in style: Nantucket red, puritan white, and true blue.

SPIRIT: “New England’s clean, preppy, athletic style has always been the cornerstone of my designs. It’s a look that unites the young and the old, the aristocrat and the working man. It’s a style that invites everyone to the party, to come join the team.

That’s why I love it - my joy, my muse, my home.”

New England Icons and Inspirations by Tommy Hilfiger, available from www.RizzoliUSA.com, approx. Dhs275.

Tommy’s favourite Nantucket shops.

Clockwise: Leah’s Fudge; Pratts Antiques; Cogdon’s; Murray’s Toggery

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STYLEEXCLUSIVE

Above: Nautical trinkets displayed in Tommy’s Nantucket home. Below: His low-key family room

regularly to buy merchandise, and I was really learning the ropes.”

It was this first foray into retail that prompted Tommy to set up under his own name in 1982.

“I started producing menswear classics like Oxford shirts and chinos, but I did it in a different way by beating them up, and making them cool and fun.”

At that time he looked up to the other big designers producing their own wearable designs: “I always saw American designers Bill Blass, Oscar de la Renta and Halston on top. And then I saw a second tier, Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan, and I thought that’s where I wanna be.”

It wasn’t long before his name was being recognised.

“I took all my ideas and went knocking on doors - Saks, Macy’s, Bloomingdales. When I sold my clothes to all these stores, I had to figure out how to get them made, this was the big challenge - I had a lot of starts and stops. But I immersed myself in the industry and learnt from my mistakes.”

In 1985 he rented out a billboard in New York’s Times Square with the message, “The great American designers for men are: Ralph Lauren, Perry Ellis, Calvin Klein and... Tommy Hilfiger”. It made everyone sit up and take notice of a then unknown. Next, when the chart-topping Snoop Doggy Dogg wore a red-white-

From left: Tommy’s beautiful beach dinner setting for 30 guests; Lost actress Maggie Grace with Tommy and Bai Ling at his garden party

an inspiration. When my daughter Al was a baby, I decided this is where I wanted us to be, at the very least during the summers, so I came back and rented a house.

“Then when I had some success, I ended up buying my father’s house here. I decorated it with nautical antiques and authentic Nantucket New England pieces,” says Tommy. “All along the feeling of being here was very much what I wanted to recreate in my clothes - you know, this whole authentic, red, white and blue preppy spirit.

“I really do have to credit Nantucket for giving me that deep-rooted inspiration.”

The same tribute could be bestowed upon Tommy Hilfiger’s anniversary fragrance, Tommy 10.

An update of the original Tommy and Tommy Girl launched 10 years ago, both are light, fresh, and aquatic, infused with essential New England ingredients like

and-blue Hilfiger rugby shirt on the infamous Saturday Night Live, Tommy’s name became synonymous with the cool black music scene and on a mass scale.

Never for a moment though did Tommy forget his roots.

“Nantucket remained a part of my life - it had always been a love, 132

Nantucket cranberry, Long Island driftwood and Seattle rain. Just like Tommy’s clothes they seem to evoke a similar “optimism, openness and willpower” says Veronique Gabai-Pinsky, senior vice president of Aramis and Designer Fragrances. “These are values of realness that the brand

Ever since Tommy and Tommy Girl were launched in 1996 by the Estée Lauder group’s Aramis and Designer Fragrances division, it’s been a bestseller. Trudi Loren, vice president of fragrance development for Aramis and Designer Fragrances explains that for the anniversary scent Tommy T 10, all ingredients are indigenous to the US. ● Nantucket cranberry and pixie ixie tangerine for tangy vibrancy ● California honeysuckle and Mississippi magnolia for a floral air ● Vermont cream and butterscoths for a home comfort feel ● Birch note to add sensuality Tommy Girl 10 and Tommy 10, both approx. Dhs145 for 50ml,on on sale in the UAE from November.

encapsulates; this is what Tommy Hilfiger is all about.”

Yes, they represent the heritage of Tommy’s brand, and that brand began as his own personal journey did, at the age of 17, hitchhiking around New England with a group of friends.

“We’d literally stand on the road, put out our thumb, wait for someone to stop and take us to Provincetown and we’d just hang out,” says Tommy. “We didn’t know where we were staying or where we were sleeping, but it didn’t matter, it was just so much fun. My teenage children would never do that now - it was just such a different era.”

Today, Tommy is embarking on yet another significant journey,

having just sold off his global brand for US$1.6billion. At the age of 54, while remaining chairman of design, he’s free again to follow his other (all-American) dreams.

“The challenge now is to use my creativity in a different way.

Over the next two years I’d like to develop my home range,” he reveals. “After all, what’s more important to us all than our homes?” How could we possibly disagree with Tommy on that? 

SCENIC PHOTOGRAPHY ALEXANDRA SHAKESPEARE

I REALLY DO HAVE TO CREDIT NANTUCKET FOR GIVING ME THIS DEEP-ROOTED INSPIRATION

New England in a bottle