Tommy and Dee Hilfiger fete Dee Ocleppo collection in L.A.
Tommy Hilfiger and his wife, Dee, are in L.A. for the weekend for Tommy to pick up the Medal of Hope at the 22nd annual Race to Erase MS Gala. And they took the opportunity to turn the lobby of the Chateau Marmont into their living room Thursday night, hosting friends and family for cocktails to celebrate the Dee Ocleppo handbag collection, which was launched by Tommy’s better half in 2012.
The collection, which is made in Italy, includes the St. Tropez top handle tote with interchangeable covers in colorful rattan or exotic leathers, which allow one bag to have two different looks; the fringed Hong Kong iPhone case with a window cutout of the back to access a phone screen; and the Soho clutch with lizard flap.
“I’m very proud,” Tommy Hilfiger said of his wife, while demonstrating how easily the covers can be removed from the St. Tropez tote.
“I was so sick of everyone having the same bags … the same Hermes and Celine,” said Dee Hilfiger. “So I made these. They’ve sold well at Harrods and Saks and the buyers are asking me for more.”
The Hilfigers are world travelers, hence the names of the bag styles.
In the past few weeks, they’ve been in Paris, where they opened a new Tommy Hilfiger boutique; in Miami, where they won approval to renovate the historic Raleigh Hotel they purchased in 2014; and now L.A., where daughter Ally lives (one of the couple’s combined seven children, whose mother is Tommy’s ex-wife Susie Hilfiger). There has even been some house-hunting happening in SoCal.
“My husband is a spender,” says Dee Hilfiger. “If it were up to him, he’d buy a house in every city we visit. We went to Miami last year for Art Basel, and we left with a hotel,” she deadpanned.
Dee Ocleppo, $375 to $2,995, at Saks Fifth Avenue and DeeOcleppo.com.
