Tommy Hilfiger's Secret Weapon

The all-American brand has its mojo back, thanks to Avery Baker’s gospel of instant gratification

- Antonina Jedrzejczak

Tommy Hilfiger had the final night of February’s Milan Fashion Week all to himself. Inside the city’s Congressi fairgrounds, the designer’s latest big-budget extravaganza sent models down a racetrack-themed runway in color blocked leather pants and crop tops. Nearby, equally eye- catching “mechanics” in helmets and uniforms worked on Formula One cars in makeshift pit crews.

It was the fourth and final collection co- designed by model-of-the-moment Gigi Hadid in a lucrative partnership that started in the fall of 2016. Like the previous three collections, all of the clothes shown in Milan were instantly available as part of Tommy Now, the company’s “see now, buy now” initiative, which erases the standard sixmonth wait between the runway and retail and allows for something rare: instant gratification.

As soon as the show began, savvy shoppers could order $130 sweatshirts or a $460 pair of sheer overalls through the label’s website, its social media accounts, the event livestream, and TommyNow Snap, an image-recognition app. Elsewhere, artificial-intelligence-powered chatbots used Facebook Messenger to act as virtual stylists for thousands of customers. There was a buzz of interest on every platform, a far cry from the year 2000, when the brand’s stock plunged 75 percent in a single quarter.