The Tommy Hilfiger SS27 runway opened the first official day of New York Fashion Week at the Plaza Hotel, and from the moment the streets outside were cordoned off, it was clear this was going to be one of those afternoons the industry talks about for a while. Crowds gathered wherever they could find purchase, the noise carrying down the block before a single look had been sent out.
Inside, the hotel’s carpeted lobby had been transformed into a runway space, with guests watching from cushioned green armchairs arranged throughout, according to StyleRave. A live band played in the middle of the room. Champagne was poured. The front row, which included Karl Anthony Towns, Jordyn Woods, Kate Moss (in a shirt and jeans, because of course), Camila Cabello, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Lisa Rinna, Alton Mason, and Quen Blackwell, suggested that Hilfiger had called in every favour simultaneously. The arrival of Jisoo of Blackpink, the women of Girls Generation, and Thai stars Phuwin, Fourth, and Gemini prompted what the room could only charitably describe as measured enthusiasm.
Prep Remixed: What the Tommy Hilfiger SS27 Runway Actually Showed
As orchestral music filled the space, Gigi Hadid opened the show in a slouchy beige blazer with red trousers and a navy bucket hat. It was the collection’s thesis in a single exit: American prep pulled apart and reassembled with a looser hand. The silhouette was relaxed, the styling unexpected, the proportions slightly off in the way that makes something feel current rather than merely competent.
Sixty-nine looks followed, working almost exclusively in red, white, and blue, with occasional breaks into yellow and green. Colour-blocked rugby dresses, shirting in Ithaca stripes, plaid blazers, the vocabulary was entirely Hilfiger, the grammar revised. Polos and khakis, those perennial prep staples, were cut super short and cropped or flipped to the opposite extreme with an oversized ease. The brand’s flag logo and crest appeared throughout, most dramatically on giant totes that trailed the length of the body as models crossed the room.
“For 40 years, I’ve been inspired by the style of New Yorkers, how the people of the city take the classics and make them their own,” Hilfiger said in the show notes. “This season, The Plaza is our playground, where Tommy icons feel remixed and refined for today.” It is a line that could read as marketing, but the collection mostly earned it.
Footwear, Finales and a Very Live Performance
At ground level, the shoes were doing considered work. Daily Front Row noted that footwear included rounded ’90s-inspired two-tone skate sneakers, boat shoes, penny loafers, and a pool slide reworked in leather, a range that held the collection’s dual instincts together neatly. The sportswear ease of the skate shoe sat beside the patrician correctness of the penny loafer, and neither looked out of place.
Romeo Beckham closed the show, at which point Hilfiger produced one final gesture. What had sounded like a particularly good cover of Slayyyter’s Unknown Loverz turned out to be Slayyyter herself, working through the hotel’s rooms in a red shirt, necktie, and little shorts. She moved from space to space with the microphone unmistakably on, before segueing into her track Dance, which had the room up and the designer taking his bow with a dog alongside him.
FashionNetwork UK confirmed the show marked Hilfiger’s return to the New York Fashion Week official schedule, a fact that gave the Plaza takeover a dimension beyond spectacle. There is a difference between staging an event and staging a collection, and on this occasion, the Tommy Hilfiger SS27 runway managed both: the crowd outside got the show they came for, and the industry inside got something to think about when the armchairs were packed away and the champagne glasses cleared.
