<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"  Tommy Hilfiger doesn&amp;#039;t smoke cigarettes, but he does a pretty spot-on pantomime. The 59-year-old designer is in the midst of recounting one of his favorite memories: when Andy Warhol introduced him to a then-unknown Stephen Sprouse over lunch at Le Cirque. Hilfiger pulls two fingers to his lips and sucks in his cheeks for a good long while, mimicking Sprouse&amp;#039;s penchant for taking long, silent drags off an endless chain of cigarettes. &amp;quot;I didn&amp;#039;t know what to make of him,&amp;quot; says Tommy over a lunch of organic fish in his and wife Dee&amp;#039;s &amp;#039;40s-inspired dining room. &amp;quot;He was really quiet and just sat there and smoked. They asked me to back his line, and we told them we weren&amp;#039;t interested. It then went on to become the biggest thing in &amp;#039;80s fashion!&amp;quot; Tommy&amp;#039;s ability to laugh off the missed opportunity years later is just his unpretentious style, though you could also put it down to the fact that his own path in fashion, particularly as of late, has put him on top of the world.      Perhaps it&amp;#039;s only fitting that the Hilfigers&amp;#039; new home is perched on one of the highest floors of one of New York&amp;#039;s most iconic landmarks, the Plaza Hotel. &amp;quot;We tried to incorporate as much of the history of the building as we could,&amp;quot; says Dee of the luxurious two-floor condo they bought in 2008 and the hotel&amp;#039;s roster of storied guests. &amp;quot;From Marilyn Monroe to the Beatles to Jackie O., it makes you think, if these walls could talk,&amp;quot; she muses about the hotel and residence at the corner of Central Park South and Fifth Avenue. Playing to his forte of re-creating the past, Tommy elaborates on his apartment&amp;#039;s decor: &amp;quot;We had a vision to create an old-world atmosphere complementing the old-world Plaza.&amp;quot; And they did just that, with a wink, of course. Take the photographs in the dining room shot by Harry Benson that capture Truman Capote&amp;#039;s Black and White Ball, a glittering fete that took place in the same exact building more than 40 years ago. On that legendary eve in November 1966, Gloria Guinness boogied down, Babe Paley sang with the band, and Mia Farrow famously snuck onto the scene with a masked Frank Sinatra. And Tommy has the pictures to prove it. They are just one piece in an impressive collection of his memorabilia (including an original New York Times sign that hangs in his study, as well as several pieces of furniture that once belonged to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor). And who could forget the most adored character to emerge from the Plaza&amp;#039;s past? Eloise. In a tribute to the children&amp;#039;s book character, the Hilfigers commissioned the beloved books&amp;#039; illustrator, Hilary Knight, to create a one-of-a-kind mural in the apartment. &amp;quot;This is really our first home together,&amp;quot; says the former model turned mommy, 43-year-old Dee. The slender beauty from Rhode Island had been living in Monaco for more than a decade when she met Tommy in Saint-Tropez in 2005. They tied the knot in 2008 after a public split. But today, they are the very picture of wedded bliss. Close friend Leonard Lauder agrees: &amp;quot;When Tommy first introduced me to Dee, I immediately saw a marriage made in heaven. They&amp;#039;re so much in harmony with each other that it is almost hard to tell one from the other. The two of them will make history.&amp;quot; In August of last year, they welcomed son Sebastian into their modern-day Brady Brunch brood of children. From his marriage to ex-wife Susie, Tommy has four: Ally, 25, a downtown New York City girl-about-town; Rich, 20, an L.A.-based musician; Elizabeth, 17, who is at Parsons in Paris for the summer; and Kathleen, 15, a boarding-school student. Dee&amp;#039;s two teenage boys, Julian and Alex, from her first marriage, to Italian tennis professional Gianni Ocleppo, both attend boarding school in Europe. &amp;quot;We were living in an enormous house in Connecticut,&amp;quot; Tommy recalls of his spacious mansion in Greenwich, which he recently sold for $20 million. (The jet-set couple also have a home in Mustique, where their next-door neighbor is longtime friend Mick Jagger, and a new place in the suburbs of Connecticut where they spend weekends when they are actually on the East Coast.) &amp;quot;It was way too big. Our children are out and about in the world, and we have only a baby at home now. It&amp;#039;s cozier.&amp;quot; Following a gut renovation, the grandiose, European-influenced apartment really does have a cozy feel. &amp;quot;We have bought almost all of the furniture together,&amp;quot; says Dee. &amp;quot;We like to go shopping on the weekends. It&amp;#039;s been a real collaboration.&amp;quot; Littered with megawatt pieces like the noir Maison Jansen dining-room table, the antique lacquered desk in the living room, and the crystal sailing-ship chandelier in the baby&amp;#039;s room, the grand interior surprisingly does have a welcoming feel. Andy Warhol&amp;#039;s portraits of Grace Kelly and Elizabeth Taylor hold court in the living room, while a jovial Mickey Mouse hangs in the guest bedroom and Marilyn Monroe graces the second-floor hallway. They have more than 20 pieces of his work in total, as well as a Jean-Michel Basquiat in the entry. But Tommy isn&amp;#039;t done yet. Fittingly, he has had his eye on a Jasper Johns American-\uFB02ag painting. And if history does have a way of repeating itself, then chances are that the self-made mogul will get what he wants. &amp;quot;Tommy started with nothing,&amp;quot; explains Macy&amp;#039;s chief executive officer Terry J. Lundgren, who has known the designer for 16 years and has carried the Hilfiger sportswear line exclusively in the U.S. since 2008. &amp;quot;He did this all on his own. He&amp;#039;s a hustler. He&amp;#039;s scrappy.&amp;quot; The second child in a rowdy family of nine, Tommy grew up in a crowded Catholic household in Elmira, New York. His father was a watchmaker, his mother a nurse, and Tommy a teenage entrepreneur. In short, his well-publicized past goes as follows: He started selling jeans in high school out of a basement before officially launching his own label in 1985, at age 33, with the financial backing of Mohan Murjani, an Indian businessman. Then came the infamous Times Square billboard on which he publicized his arrival as the next great American menswear designer, alongside those recognizable solely by their initials: C.K., R.L., and P.E. (a.k.a. Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, and Perry Ellis), stirring up quite a controversy. Yet after a series of ups, downs, gains, losses, and a few business partners along the way (Lawrence Stroll and Apax Partners among them), he has ended up triumphant. In May, in the label&amp;#039;s 25th year, it was announced that clothing conglomerate Phillips-Van Heusen purchased his company for a whopping $3 billion. &amp;quot;We like to believe our fashion is growing,&amp;quot; says Tommy, who prefers a uniform of navy, khaki, and gray \u2014 much more subtle than his glamorous wife&amp;#039;s love for labels like Balenciaga, Lanvin, and Azzedine Ala\u00EFa. &amp;quot;We came back on the runway with a very strong blend. More sophisticated, yet still wearable and accessible.&amp;quot; In a season rooted in classics, Tommy&amp;#039;s traditional designs (along with the fresh eye of consultant Peter Som) fit into fall&amp;#039;s repertoire with perfection. Think standouts like modern-day interpretations of the trench, pleated \uFB02annel pants, and the aptly nicknamed Dee boot, a lace-up high-heeled version of the duck boot (a nod to the old-school preppy favorite and his wife, obviously). &amp;quot;Tommy has an all-American design sensibility. He isn&amp;#039;t afraid of sporty, simple, and clean,&amp;quot; points out his 25-year comrade Vera Wang. &amp;quot;Our relationship has been one of encouragement and support. He interviewed me a long time ago for Tommy Hilfiger women&amp;#039;s fashion and didn&amp;#039;t hire me, and we&amp;#039;ve been good friends ever since.&amp;quot; Another amusing brush with fame? Perhaps. But clearly for Hilfiger, celebrity, and good luck, is on his side. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/interiors-entertaining/advice/a546/tommy-hilfiger-fashionable-life-0810/>