Metro NYFW Exclusive: Tommy Hilfiger Shares His Vision For Spring 2027 and the New American Prep

There are few New York addresses as instantly recognizable as The Plaza. For Tommy Hilfiger, however, the landmark hotel carries a more personal significance. He once called it home, making its grand interiors the setting for his Spring 2027 presentation during New York Fashion Week.

The collection, titled “Plaza Prep,” brought the designer’s familiar American codes into a new context. Archival classics were remixed through shifts in proportion, color, and fabrication, with oversized and shrunken rugby shirts, high-waisted pleated trousers, sailing jackets, and vivid shades of yellow and green appearing alongside the brand’s signature red, white, and blue. For Hilfiger, the choice of venue was deeply connected to the collection itself.

“It’s my former home,” he tells Metro. “So, it feels like I’m bringing people into my former home for a 2027 fashion celebration.”

Speaking with Metro New York Fashion Week Correspondent Liam Labrooy right in New York City, days before the actual Spring show, Hilfiger reflected on the eclecticism of the collection and the diverse community that surrounds the Tommy Hilfiger brand.

“The clothes are very eclectic,” Hilfiger says. “And they start with our classics from the archive being remixed.”

That idea of remixing became central to Spring 2027. Rather than abandoning the codes that established the Tommy Hilfiger aesthetic, the designer focused on shifting their proportions and styling them in new ways. The collection moves between preppy classics, sportier pieces, and dressier interpretations, creating room for different kinds of Tommy wearers.

“We’re modernizing everything we do from the preppy classics to the sportier version of it, or even the dressier version of it,” he explains.

For Hilfiger, that flexibility reflects New York itself. Different neighborhoods carry their own visual languages, from Brooklyn to the Upper East Side and Upper West Side, and those contrasting sensibilities become part of the larger picture.

“It’s really, really a melting pot of different people and different ideas and different sensibilities,” he says. That same approach can be seen in the collection’s treatment of prep. Some pieces remain firmly rooted in the Tommy Hilfiger vocabulary, while others feel noticeably different through their scale and silhouette. “Rugby shirts and polo shirts are here to stay,” Hilfiger says. “But we changed some of the dimensions and some of the proportions.”

The designer points to the collection’s trousers as another area where the brand is pushing forward, particularly through high-waisted, pleated, wide-leg silhouettes. The result is a wardrobe that retains its familiar references while changing how those pieces sit and move on the body.

“Those couple of items don’t need much change,” he says of the rugby and polo shirts. “But I think bottoms, pants, really need a big change.”

Among the standout pieces is the sailing jacket, a reference with its own place in Tommy Hilfiger history. Hilfiger recalls how the brand introduced its take on sailing jackets in the 1990s, when they moved from their original sporting context into youth culture.

“The sailing jacket is something we developed or we came up with in the ’90s,” he says. “And up until that moment, people used sailing jackets for sailing. And then when we came up with them, all the rappers and all of the young people started wearing them.”

For Spring 2027, the sailing jacket returns in updated forms, including an embossed leather version that plays with the silhouette while keeping it lightweight. Rugby shirts receive a similar treatment, appearing in dramatically oversized and shrunken proportions. “It’s just taking the classics and twisting them to make them a little bit more modern,” Hilfiger says.

The collection’s connection to American fashion history is also reflected in its casting and wider Tommy Hilfiger community. The Spring 2027 presentation brought together personalities from fashion, music, entertainment, and sport, with Gigi Hadid opening the show and Romeo Beckham walking the final look.

For Hilfiger, the common thread is authenticity. “It’s important that we embrace people who really love the brand,” he says. He points to Travis Kelce and Gigi Hadid, who have longstanding relationships with Tommy Hilfiger, alongside JISOO, Peggy Gou, Frances Tiafoe, and Carmelo Anthony.

“We’re always connected to the culture,” Hilfiger says. “And it’s crazy because they’re all so different but they all make sense at the same time.” That ability to bring together different personalities is also what makes the collection feel distinctly New York. The clothes move between uptown polish, collegiate references, sportswear, ’90s nostalgia, and the relaxed attitude of the city’s younger generation.

For Hilfiger, one piece in particular captures where the brand is today: the sailing jacket. Alongside it, the rugby shirt remains another defining Tommy Hilfiger staple, now reinterpreted through scale and styling. “The rugby shirt obviously is a big one,” he says. “And we do it in many different ways.”

As the conversation comes back to New York, Labrooy asks Hilfiger about the most quintessentially New York thing he does. His answer is decidedly low-key. “The most New York thing I do is I go to a diner on Madison Avenue called Viand,” he says. He describes a small space with around a dozen seats and tiny banquettes where breakfast, lunch, or dinner can be ordered at any time of day. 

For Spring 2027, Hilfiger brings familiar American classics back into focus, giving the Tommy Hilfiger wardrobe new proportions and a contemporary attitude while keeping its most recognizable codes intact.