Last week, a woman brought her three children into my resale clothing store to shop for spring clothes. Her middle school-aged son picked out a stack of short-sleeved shirts with tropical patterns.
She went through the pile and approved of everything except for one name brand item. "No way are you getting that." she almost spat.
My shop owner antenna was immediately on alert. "Trouble in the shop! Trouble in the shop!" it buzzed.
"Is there a problem?" I asked.
"There most certainly is." she replied. "I refuse to buy anything made by Tommy Hilfiger. He's a racist. He said so on TV."
OK, the customer is always right. Except when she isn't.
I carefully asked, "Are you talking about the story of him appearing on ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show' and saying he didn't design his clothes for minorities?"
She nodded adamantly.
I guess I could have let it go but it's just not in my makeup. I plunged in. "You know, urban legends are sort of a hobby of mine and that story's not true. Tommy Hilfiger never made those statements. It's all just an urban myth."
She gave me a look that resembled pity. "I know for a fact it's true. My mother and I heard him say it on TV. He said he never would have become a designer if he'd known who was going to end up wearing his clothes. Oprah threw him off her show."
This goes beyond misinformed. This reaches out and joins hands with delusional.
I have read about the whole Hilfiger-Oprah myth. It started circulating in 1996, a revamped version of the same untrue accusations that had been leveled at Liz Claiborne in 1991.
At one point, Oprah even had him appear on her show (his first appearance ever) to debunk the myth. Yet people still believe it and pass it on. They have told it so many times, it becomes even more real. They genuinely think they viewed the interview in which he made such preposterous statements.
Poor Tommy Hilfiger. The guy opened a clothing store when he was fresh out of high school, selling bell-bottoms to the kids of Elmira, N.Y. He did great until a mall opened nearby and put his place out of business. He was bankrupt at 25.
That's when things really started to happen. He moved to New York City in 1979 and started his menswear line in 1984. By 2004 the company had 5,400 employees and revenues in excess of $1.8 billion.
The company's philanthropies range from the Millennium Foundation which battles extreme poverty worldwide to a $2.5 million grant to fund Camp Tommy, offering summer camping experiences to kids from New York City. Not to mention the $5 million donation to the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation. Then there are the millions of dollars raised for research funds to find a cure for multiple sclerosis.
Despite all that, he has to go on TV and allow space on his Web site to insist "I am not a racist." That's just wrong.
Just because a person is richer than Midas doesn't mean he doesn't have feelings. This had to have been a horrible experience. To think after all of his best efforts, millions spent on public relations and investigators and denials and even bringing Oprah into the mix, there are still people who steadfastly believe those allegations.
A good rule of thumb is to never take these sorts of stories at face value and never pass them on until they've been verified by a reliable source (not "my neighbor said she heard somebody say ...")
Every time I get an e-mail about "In God We Trust" being removed from the new $1 coin or the promise of an Olive Garden $500 gift card for signing up on their Facebook fan page, I first check snopes.com to see if it's true. This site is a great way to both verify and disprove information that fills up my inbox. Then I either pass it on (if true) and hit the delete key otherwise.
In 2006, Tommy Hilfiger sold his company for $1.6 billion. Boycotting his products won't hurt his pocketbook but I suspect it still hurts his heart.
Teressa Glazer is a Gainesville businesswoman. Her column appears regularly on alternate Fridays and on gainesvilletimes.com.