Themed around Formula One racing, the Milan pit stop felt the least connected to Hadid and her lifestyle. But as she walks away, Hilfiger has a new deal to tout. Earlier this month, he cemented a relationship with the four-time Formula One champs Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport. Hadid has 38 million Instagram fans. The Formula One audience is nearly half a billion.
The collection modeled by Hadid and company looked like a preview of what the Mercedes-AMG crew will wear on the racing circuit, with its bold palette of red, white, blue, and black, its piped leather pants, patch-covered jackets, and checkered flag prints. What provided its millennial zip were the half-shirts, cropped sweatshirts, and bikinis. A fortysomething editor leaned over mid-show and whispered, “If I were a teenager, I’d want this,” but it might have just been the abs talking. Beyond the racy stuff, there was bad-girl-gone-good collegiate gear like khakis, family crest T-shirts, and color-blocked versions of the rugbies that first got Hilfiger noticed all those years ago.
Amidst the logo-ing, one T-shirt in particular stood out. A reproduction of Hilfiger’s breakout ad campaign of 1985, which read “The four great American designers for men are:” above fill-in-the-blank spaces for Ralph Lauren, Perry Ellis, Calvin Klein, and Tommy Hilfiger, and in a tiny font next to his trademark red, white, and blue flag, it said, “This is the logo of the least well-known of the four.” And in even tinier font: “Tommy’s clothes are easygoing without being too casual, classic without being predictable. He calls them classics with a twist. The other three designers call them competition.” Thirty-three years later, Hilfiger is still in the race, and thanks to Hadid, optics-wise at least, he’s assumed the lead. Can race cars compete?
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