Diesel and Tommy Hilfiger are two big brands with products flooding the clothing market and shutting off other brands that cannot contend with them.
Both brands share their strongholds with different products and are renowned for different things.
This article would be an expository text which will walk you through the story of both brands and how they managed to grab the golden ball of popularity and the status of luxury.
At the end of this article, you will be able to tell which of these brands holds a better place in your closet and which of them is worth spending your dollars on.
Major Difference between Diesel and Tommy Hilfiger
There is a major disparity that exists between the Diesel and Tommy Hilfiger brand. it bothers mostly on the intent of the brand’s foundation.
While brands like Tommy Hilfiger wants to compete and win grounds and people’s interest; a quality-intended brand like Diesel does what they do best which is to make sure their products stand the test of time.
This factor stands as the major difference between the Diesel and Tommy Hilfiger brand, as the former strives for quality while the former places more value on new designs and styles.
Furthermore, Diesel is renowned for their main line of clothing which is their denim line, while Tommy Hilfiger is known to be a brand that offers many lines with their main line being outwear clothing.
The Hilfiger brand also has a jeans line, but it is not as popular as the Diesel jeans due to the premium craftiness infused in their production.
Still, on differences, Diesel is an Italian-based clothing brand while Tommy Hilfiger on the other is an American-based brand.
Also, the Tommy Hilfiger brand is owned by another company known as the Philip-Van Heusen (PVH Corp.), which makes it a subsidiary company.
Conversely, the Diesel brand is a private enterprise that doubles as a retail company with the name of Diesel S.p.A and under the OTB Group which is its parent company.
Brief History of Diesel
The founder of the Diesel brand also known corporately as Diesel S.p.A is called Renzo Rosso, an Italian designer.
Rosso conceived the idea of a clothing company in his childhood as he was said to be sewing pieces of denim with his mom’s sewing machine, to make jeans.
I can imagine a 15 years old kid exploring his young imaginative mind at such a young age. To further his knowledge of fabrics, Rosso enrolled and graduated from a textile manufacturing school in Padua.
The Diesel brand was birthed in the year 1978 with its former moniker Moltex, a manufacturing clothing company owned by the famous Adriano Goldschmied.
In 1985 Rosso bought out the Goldschmied’s shares in the company for $500,000, he assumed full ownership and changed its name to Diesel.
The birth of the new Diesel brand was a big opportunity for Rosso to show the world his creativity and he started it with the production of denim, which is the flagship product of the Diesel brand.
The Diesel did not escape the inevitable managerial and marketing evolution which so many established brands passed through.
It went from being marketed by the Russ Tog company in 1990, which the organization distributed in the US, Mexico, and Japan in Asia.
However, their deal did not last for long and the Diesel brand moved forward to open its first e-commerce retail store in 1995.
Their jeans were first made available in countries like Sweden and Finland while others followed shortly.
Following the brand’s introduction of Diesel Stylelabs in 1998, it furthered the sales of its denim products by opening lots of flagship stores around the world in 1999.
The brand has three lines, Diesel (mostly denim and other accessories like watches, eyewear, and fragrance), Diesel Gold, and Diesel Kids.
The Diesel brand which is currently headed by Massimo Piobini is a high-end brand and has remained such to date, with the advantage that you are getting the value of the money spent.
Brief History of Tommy Hilfiger
The American-based company Tommy Hilfiger, was founded by Thomas Jacob Hilfiger in 1985 after he switched sides from many fashion designing jobs.
He finally decided it was time he served the fashion scene some new designs and vibe, that’s how Tommy Hilfiger came to its inception. The brand is a continuum of his first establishment People’s Place.
With the help of Mohan Murjani an Indian investor and clothing guru, he was able o launch his first line of men’s clothing.
However, the brand continued to survive and eventually went public in 1992, as they began distributing women’s clothes in 1996. Their first store was also birthed a year after in Beverly Hills.
In the wake of 2000, the brand was purchased by Apax Partners precisely in 2006 and was again sold to Philip-Van Heusen (PVH Corp.) in the year 2010, which is also the owner of brands like Calvin Klein, Olga & Co., and Warner’s.
This managerial change brought a lot of goodwill to the brand, as they were managed by a company that had a record of managing big brands.
Their marketing strategy graduated from being an all-inclusive activity to appearing in concerts as either organizers or sponsors.
This move of theirs helped put them in the spotlight as most of these performing acts wore their products on the stage.
The Tommy Hilfiger brand has a chain of collections like their Hilfiger Denim and Tommy Hilfiger (which is their main line).
Other product lines include the Hilfiger collection for women and the Tommy Hilfiger Tailored, which cater to classic American menswear.
The Tommy Hilfiger brand owns massive flagship stores in about 7 locations in the United States, Germany, and the UK.
They also operate a lot of anchor stores that are over 20, with some of them in places like Moscow, Berlin, Tokyo, Miami, and a host of others.
Head-to-Head Comparison of Diesel and Tommy Hilfiger
The brands whose history I have given, are both strong names to reckon with in the clothing industry. Their influence cuts across the boundaries of their country of origin and spreads to the whole world.
This is the moment where I put these brands up against the other, to ascertain their strengths and weakness and to know which is worth spending your money on. The factors which will determine my comparison will be based on the following:
Design and Style
The design of the Diesel brand resonates with an unending style. The products from the brand especially their jeans which is their major merchant is a fusion of vintage and timeless vibe.
This makes the jeans to be able to stand the test of time as it is not affected by a change in the style in vogue or a sudden fashion sway.
The brand has a spice of its Italian roots in their products design and style.
Conversely, Tommy Hilfiger’s style and design are often described as “preppy with a twist” because they infuse the fashion style of the 60s and 70s to create a type of style which matches up with the current trend.
They literally give you a mix of nostalgia and trend. Their polo shirts speak volume of this factor because it combines the style of the types worn back in the years and it now formatted with the current design and logo.
To this end, their style of clothing has been described as fast fashion, because they are always not far from the trend of the moment.
Price
Diesel is a high-end clothing brand which means it is priced high, at least that is one of the features of most high-end products there are.
Their price is understandable because their products are worth the price.
Imagine wearing jeans for over 6 months without experiencing any wear and tear. That’s what Diesel can afford you if you can pay the price.
Most of their jeans styles like The Thanaz and Liv are costly compared to other brands which offer regular jeans.
For Tommy Hilfiger, the price of their product is quite priced but not as expensive as those offered by the Diesel brand.
In fact, their denim jeans are affordable compared to the price tags of the least denim from the stables of Diesel which goes for a starting price of around $100.
Product Items
The Diesel brand has a major product item which the company is often recognized with. But they actually have a line of clothing items, namely;
Diesel
This is the main line of the Diesel brand, which encompasses the denim line, and other high premium apparel for both men and women with alluring collections.
Diesel Black Gold
This line of clothing of the Diesel brand is a combination of creativity and radical fashion at its peak. The line was unveiled first in 2008 in New York City.
Accessories
This is the line that handles orders relating to major clothing accessories like watches, eyewear, and even fragrance.
The Tommy Hilfiger brand product items are also grouped, as they offer a wide variety of products. The lines are divided into 4, with each of them catering to a particular age bracket, gender, and piece of clothing. They are as follows:
Tommy Hilfiger
This is the main line of the brand, which serves both men’s and women’s clothing while covering customers within the range of 25-40. This line embodies the main creativity of the brand.
Hilfiger Denim
This line specializes in jeans, footwear, bags, and other items. It equally caters to an age range of 18-30yrs.
Hilfiger collection
This is the line that has women’s wear and accessories as its specialty. This is a seasonal line that comes to the market during fashion openings like the New York Fashion Week.
It targets young and gorgeous women between the ages of 25-40.
Tommy Hilfiger Tailored
The last line produces men’s American styled-apparels. The type of menswear encompassed by this line includes buttoned-down shirts, suits, and even casual wear.
This line is known for producing top luxury clothing with standard materials.
Quality
The debate of quality between the Diesel and Tommy Hilfiger brand can almost pass up as laughable because who doesn’t know the value of quality placed n a majority of Italian products.
They all reflect their value for quality and Diesel is not left out. It has a lot of quality to offer, unlike the Tommy Hilfiger brand which is concerned with making the most sales with its numerous designs and styles without paying much attention to quality.
To make this more clear, a pair of Hilfiger jeans easily wears out than the Diesel jeans. This is because most of their products are outsourced to industries in either China or Vietnam where the cost of production is low; while those of Diesel is made in Italy.
Brand Popularity
When it comes to popularity and fame, these two brands are not newcomers. They have been around long enough to garner a mass of supporters and overly outreach.
To this end, Tommy Hilfiger beats the Diesel brand in terms of popularity. Judging by the stats I took from the popular social media platform Instagram, the Diesel brand has only about 2.4m followers while Hilfiger has a whooping 13.9m followers.
These stats have a lot to say about their popularity and fame.
Management
Diesel is run as a private company their parent company is known as the OTB Group of Companies. This places the brand on the leverage of making some corporate decisions without having to include its parent company.
In contrast, Hilfiger is run as a subsidiary brand of a serial brand owner the Philip-Van Heusen Corp. And which means that it relies on the provisions of the parent company to execute crucial functions.
Work Environment and Culture
The work environment at both Diesel and Hilfiger is good, with most of the workers showing opinions on how their experience was.
I observed that although Hilfiger pays well, their management is not that rosy. Diesel has a similar problem but has a record of paying more than Tommy Hilfiger.
Final Verdict
If you know me then you know I roll with quality and I know most of y’all also share the same view on clothing.
With that said, my verdict favors the Diesel brand which is more poised to see the value of quality than a fast fashion-intended Tommy Hilfiger.
However, this does not in any way discredit the Tommy Hilfiger brand, rather it makes clear the line of disparity existing between it and Diesel.
Conclusion
Considering all the facts which I presented and explained, I believe this article has done its bid to give you an edge on how to go about your purchase power in choosing between the Diesel and Tommy Hilfiger brand.
Albeit the high price of most products from Diesel, my verdict still stands valid because I know they equate the price with their quality and timeless design.
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