‘The rules are abolished’: Tommy Hilfiger unveils new collection with Lewis Hamilton at London Fashion Week
Supermodel Naomi Campbell is back and on the catwalk in London for Tommy Hilfiger alongside an Aussie model.
Naomi Campbell led a star-studded runway for designer Tommy Hilfiger’s London Fashion Week show, where he unveiled a gender-free collaboration with racing driver Lewis Hamilton.
British supermodel Campbell turned heads on the smoke machine-filled catwalk at Tate Modern, wearing a neon yellow and camel outfit from the brand’s TOMMYNOW line.
Fittingly, the show opened with Take Me Back to London, marking Hilfiger’s return to the city after seven seasons.
The runway spanned models including Winnie Harlow, Halima Aden, Luka Sabbat and Jourdan Dunn, to British ‘it’ girls Lottie Moss, Georgia May Jagger and Pixie Geldof, and Australian Jordan Barrett.
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More than 90 models sported the “see now, buy now” spring ’20 range, which was timed with its release into Hilfiger’s stores worldwide and streamed online, effectively bringing the front row to social media.
For his return to LFW, Hilfiger took inspo from the British weather (the hazy London smog, for one, with a runway filled with smoke machines) and had a decidedly British feel.
London is, of course, Hamilton’s home town, and the latest stop for Hilfiger whose runway shows have become a must-see spectacle during fashion season, previously staged in Los Angeles, Milan and Paris.
Models strutted the concrete runway inside two underground enclosures (dubbed “The Tanks”) at the Tate, as Arctic Monkeys, David Bowie, Blur and Rolling Stones songs blasted from the speakers.
Sparking a near-frenzy on Instagram, Hilfiger and Hamilton also co-designed pieces with rising music star H.E.R (“she’s on her trajectory now,” Hilfiger said).
One long-sleeved top, for instance, featured a lyric from H.E.R’s song Hard Place: “My heart or you I’m gonna lose”.
There was no shortage of on-brand Hilfiger touches outside the show at Tate Modern, held on a rainy Sunday night in London.
The pathway outside was lit up in Hilfiger’s signature red, white and blue, and guests included British singers Charli XCX and Meghan Trainor, along with Yolanda Hadid, the mother of supermodels Gigi and Bella Hadid.
Wearing double denim, signature Tommy Hilfiger-branded cotton tees, and the British winter staple – oversized hooded anoraks – the crowd at TOMMYNOW was very British, and very cool.
TOMMYXLEWISXHER
Tommy Hilfiger – the designer – is sitting on a leather couch inside his brand’s London headquarters, wearing a preppy blazer and black-rimmed glasses.
The billion-dollar American-born brand “created streetwear back in the 90s” and for this season, Hamilton “brought an urban chic idea to me,” Hilfiger tells News Corp.
“It was his version of streetwear, and we made it modern and relevant for today,” Hilfiger added.
“And we took it to another level with unisex, genderless, added neons, oversized,” he continued.
“We’re living in a world were all the rules … are abolished.
“We’re writing a new chapter in life – it’s about sustainability, it’s about living in a genderless society where age, size, background doesn’t really matter.”
Hilfiger’s style inspo is what’s happening now — right this minute. He wants to know what’s cool (and who is cool) before it happens. “Pop culture makes the world go ‘round,” Hilfiger told News Corp Australia.
Hilfiger, who recently visited Sydney and Melbourne, said Australia was one of the brand’s strongest markets, where shoppers were drawn to jeans, T-shirts, and sneakers in sales trends similar to California.
“They’re so casual, they love fun, they love colour, they’re very cotton-oriented, which is very American, very LA,” Hilfiger said
“They like anything sporty and they like nautical, everyone’s on the water all the time.”
This also marked Hilfiger and Hamilton’s most sustainable collection to date (Mercedes driver Hamilton famously went vegan in 2017).
Hilfiger said the impact of celebrity collaborations on sales had been “beyond belief, beyond our expectations” and “selling out to the piece”.
“Customers want immediate gratification — they see it on the runway and they want to buy it, and wear it the next day,” Hilfiger said.
This latest collection – designed with Hamilton and H. E. R – features pieces made of organic cotton, recycled materials and low-impact denim washes.
As part of its sustainability push, the brand offset carbon emissions from its London Fashon Week Show to fund water purifiers in Cambodia.
TOMMYXLEWISXHER is available globally in stores and online now. Watch the show here.
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