"1. Grand Opening _In 1969, with just $150 saved up, Hilfiger opened his first store, People's Place, in his hometown of Elmira, NY. _ ""I really started out just having fun. I wasn't serious about business at all. I wanted to look like a rock star, I wanted to dress my friends like rock stars, and I wanted to play the loudest coolest music in the store, burn incense, and live sort of a hippie-type existence. I learned the hard way that if you're gonna be in business, you really have to pay attention to the business. After I had a bankruptcy at a very young age, I decided to really focus on building a business and being serious about it. So when I started Tommy Hilfiger it was all about really developing a brand for America, for men in America. I never thought at that time that it was gonna be a global lifestyle brand. But as time went on, all of the pieces started sort of falling into place. And a few years later, I decided I wanted to expand it worldwide and build it into a global lifestyle brand, so I took my preppy influence and started planting it in different parts of the world, and it worked. _[Laughs] _Somehow it worked."""
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