From the beginning of his career, Tommy Hilfiger understood the power of marketing to enhance his clothing brand. The clothes are anchored by a preppy attitude with a dash of Americana and are remixed with elements of punk like in yesterday night’s show or whatever else comes to his mind. Yes, there were bondage elements in the show as well. To package the entire show with a catchy theme, Hilfiger channeled the Warhol factory no less. This about sums up his uncanny ability to tap into the Zeitgeist. The current Warhol documentary on Netflix is widely acclaimed and makes the legendary artist very much in fashion at the moment. So the guests arrived straight into the backstage area where hair and makeup was done to experience the making of.

Like Warhol’s Factory, the walls were covered in silver foil. Hilfiger is not too bothered that Gucci applied a similar concept in Milan in the last live show before the pandemic in February 2020 as it’s been three years since he debuted a collection on a runway. Greeting his guests backstage visibly to the arriving audience of nearly one thousand and giving handpicked interviews made for a cool pre show scene. Of course, Hilfiger added many more elements to make this a branding tour de force only a New York designer of his caliber could pull off. Warhol Factory aside, from our point of view, this was a master class in fashion marketing.

The Brits in New York?

Hilfiger enlisted British illustrator, graphic artist and designer Fergus Purcell to redraw his monogram. Purcell has done the same for cool brands like Palace and Marc Jacobs in the past. A sleek, royal blue jacquard monogram women’s suit was stand out. Adding to the London cool, he unveiled a gender-inclusive capsule with Richard Quinn. Yes, the Richard Quinn who famously had the queen in the audience of his fashion show in 2018 making worldwide headlines. Quinn’s love for bold patterns and daisy prints meet Hilfiger’s tailoring in 40 pieces, which were available in see now buy now format. Adding Kate Moss and her daughter Lila to the front row guests and casting them in his current ad campaign, which was all over Manhattan bus shelters, completed the marketing blitz.

Do you want to play Roblox?

But that’s not all. The show was launched into the metaverse, debuting as the first fashion show to livestream on the Roblox global platform. Hilfiger scales the next level with a dedicated game called Tommy Play based upon Tommy Hilfiger in New York City and the digital skins were shown physically on the runway. The live stream mixed the show with the virtual world featuring Superplastic star avatars.