Month: October 2020

Chatting with Tommy Hilfiger about a vision for a better fashion industry

Kim Sheehan on

Day 2 of Fast Company’s Festival of Innovation–Innovation for Good had me (and thousands of my close friends) hearing from Tommy Hilfiger, the fashion designer.

Tommy Hilfiger is on the left, an editor for Fast Company is on the right.

Tommy Hilfiger defines American style. The brand has worked on becoming more sustainable and innovative. The pandemic and BLM led them to think about how they operate, and they realized they needed to change their strategy.

Covid at first made them change to short term thinking, focusing on associate health and well being and cash flow. The brand then changed to midterm recovery: how do they get out of crisis and build back the business? Sustainability became even more important. The brand did not slow down investment in sustainability—now they are launching a new sustainability strategy.

In September, they announced their ‘make it possible’ strategy for the next ten years. Co-creation process with 100 of associates. Circularity and inclusivity: the brand wants to be a brand that wastes nothing and welcomes all. These two pillars will drive everything they do.

• They have many new styles using organic cotton, sustainable cotton, and low impact finishing techniques.
• Tommy For Life—resale market for used Tommy Hilfiger clothes
• Washing denim pollutes ocean and lakes and streams with poison as indigo dye goes into system and hangs around. They figured out a way to wash denim without water. The denim is broken down (softened and colored) with laser treatments!
• Use fewer chemicals, water and energy in manufacturing.
• On-demand manufacturing—the goal is to have no inventory.
• Using all solar power in their plant in the Netherlands.
• 3D digital design—designs are all done on computer, not wasting time, money, logistics, emissions, materials

Tommy believes that if his company takes the lead on this, other companies will follow.

They are also focused on creating an inclusive workspace and looking after workers’ rights. Workers will have stronger voices in the company. They are also reintroducing “People’s Place”, a platform that the brand will use to bring in BIPOC to mentor them and tap into the Hilfiger network and collaborate with them.

My take–this company says the right things. It has a history of being on the cutting edge, particularly in the digital space. They have made some strides to be more sustainable, and if they can keep up the momentum and show a profit they will be a market leader in sustainability. Cotton is always a problematic fabric, so we’ll see how the continued use of that fabric affects their sustainability.

I’m not as familiar with issues of diversity and inclusion in the fashion industry—my take was that this is one of the more diverse industries but I may be wrong. I’ll do a bit more digging on this aspect and watch to see how they build a better company in this area.

Fast Company Festival of Innovation: Robert Downey Jr. and Susan Downey

Kim Sheehan on

The Fast Company Innovation Festival kicked off Monday morning with an interview with Robert Downey Junior and his wife Susan Downey. Together, they run “Team Downey”, a production company and the “Footprint Coalition” , a non profit designed to help use technology at scale to save our planet. The conversation focused on both what makes a successful story, and what makes a successful company. While they didn’t talk about brands directly, in this post I will interpret some of what they said in the context of brands today.

In terms of storytelling, the questions that the Downeys ask are as relevant to brands as they are to movie blockbusters. First, you must ask -why should the audience care? What in the story is relevant to the audience today? Clearly, many brands talk about social issues because people care about them today, and want brands to care about them too. Of course, you can’t just stop there.

The story needs to be authentic, and the Downeys talked about how audiences want to feel like they are in the place and the time period when the story is told as an example of authenticity. They referred to their HBO series, Perry Mason, as an example of having an authentic time and place. For brands, this suggests that production choices can help contribute to authenticity.

Stories also need to have creative risk taking, and storytellers need to understand how the risk they take can lead to a great story. For brands, I think this means not relying on traditional tricks that advertisers use, and finding interesting new ways to talk about themselves. It means moving beyond what consumers might traditionally expect for a brand message.

Finally, stories need to give audiences heroes and other characters they can empathize with. The Downeys suggested that these people will create long term connection between audiences and stories.

All these points taken together made me think of Nike’s Colin Kaepernick ad. The ad was authentic as it showed us people who we recognized who had overcome obstacles to reach their dreams. It took a risk by using a controversial spokesperson . And it used both of these tactics to show a range of dreamers that could inspire viewers to be the best they could be, echoing back to Nike’s value proposition—that we are all athletes.

In talking about how they built and now run successful companies, a few key points stood out which can apply to all kinds of brands today:

1. Leaders need to be hands on and intimately familiar with how all the processes are working together to achieve the goal..
2. Treat every company like it is a small, family business, as there is a level of investment there that is can lead to success.
3. Encourage each employee to be proactive in the area where they have responsibility to create a sense of commitment and buy-in to the company. Employees should find ways to be invaluable to the company.
4. Every day, practice communication, trust and respect.