The history of Phillips-Van Heusen goes back in part to Dramin Jones, a Prussian immigrant who founded the shirt manufacturing company D. Jones & Sons, c. 1857. Separately, in 1881, Moses Phillips and his wife Endel began sewing shirts by hand and selling them from pushcarts to local anthracite coal-miners in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. This grew into a shirt business in New York City that placed one of the first ever shirt advertisements in the Saturday Evening Post. D. Jones & Sons merged with M. Phillips & Sons in 1907 under the name Phillips-Jones after Dramin Jones's death in 1903. Later Isaac Phillips met John Van Heusen, resulting both in their most popular line of shirts, and in the subsequent acquisition of Van Heusen by Phillips-Jones and its renaming to Phillips-Van Heusen in 1957. In 2011, Phillips-Van Heusen is renamed to PVH.
Acquisitions
The Phillips-Jones Corporation received a patent for a self-folding collar in 1919; the corporation released the product to the public in 1921 and it became successful. The first collar-attached shirt was introduced in 1929. The Bass Weejun was introduced in 1936. Geoffrey Beene shirts were launched in 1982. In 1987, Phillips-Van Heusen acquired G.H. Bass. In 1995, the corporation acquired the Izod brand, followed by the Arrow brand in 2000, and the Calvin Klein company in 2002. In 2004, PVH began manufacturing clothing for the Donald J. Trump Signature Collection as part of a licensing agreement with Donald Trump. After acquiring Superba, Inc., in January 2007, PVH now owns necktie licenses for brands such as Arrow, DKNY, Tommy Hilfiger, Nautica, Perry Ellis, Ted Baker, Michael Kors, JOE Joseph Abboud, Original Penguin and Jones New York. The corporation began making men's clothing under the Timberland name in 2008, with women's clothing following in 2009, under a licensing agreement. On March 15, 2010, Phillips-Van Heusen acquired Tommy Hilfiger for $3 billion. In the third quarter of 2010 losses made on the "Van Heusen" brand led to the decision to pull it out of all European trading markets. the company sells no products under that name in Europe. All European staff became redundant as a result. In February 2013, PVH acquired Warnaco Group, which manufactured the Calvin Klein underwear, jeans and sportswear lines under license, thus consolidating control of the Calvin Klein brand. The Warnaco acquisition also added the Warner's and Olga intimate apparel brands, as well the Speedo swimwear brand. In November 2013 PVH sold the G.H. Bass brand and all of its assets, images and licenses to G-III Apparel Group. PVH ended its licensing agreement with Trump in July 2015, after Macy's discontinued sales of his Trump Signature Collection due to controversial comments that he made regarding illegal immigrants. In 2017 Forbes ranked PVH, 25 out of 890 companies on the "Just company" list. In March 2017, PVH acquired lingerie brand True & Co. In June 2018, PVH acquired the Geoffrey Beene clothing brand, which PVH previously produced under license. On August 28, 2018, PVH announced that it would expand the Izod brand to portions of Europe beginning with the Fall/Winter 2018 collection. In January 2020, PVH sold back the rights for the Speedo swimwear brand, previously marketed under "Speedo USA" and "Speedo North America", back to Speedo's international parent, the British Pentland Group. The deal was in exchange for $170 million in cash.
Distribution
PVH provides products to many popular department stores, such as JC Penney, Macy's, MYER, David Jones, Kohl's, Belk, and Dillard's as well as online retailerAmazon both through its own labels and private label agreements. PVH also sells its products directly to customers through about 700 outlet stores under the brand names Van Heusen, Tommy Hilfiger, and Calvin Klein. The Calvin Klein stores sell the full range of products at full price, differing from existing outlet stores. These stores are range from to. Phillips-Van Heusen closed its Geoffrey Beene outlet retail division in 2008. Approximately 25 percent of the Geoffrey Beene outlet stores became Calvin Klein stores, while the remaining 75 percent of stores closed entirely. The company continued to license the Geoffrey Beene brand name for Geoffrey Beene brand dress shirts and men's sportswear until 2018 when it acquired the brand outright. In 2015, PVH closed its Izod retail division due to an increasing competitive environment driven by more premium brands in the outlet retail channel; this did not affect Izod's wholesale business to department stores and online retailers. Select Izod products are now available at some Van Heusen stores; initially this only included the golf line, but now includes products from Izod's other lines. In July 2018, PVH launched a direct online sales platform on the Izod and Van Heusen websites where both brands are featured and can be cross-shopped on each other's site. On July 14, 2020, PVH announced that it would close its remaining Heritage Brands retail outlets operating mainly under the Van Heusen/Izod Golf names. The Izod and Van Heusen brands are not being discontinued; the wholesale business, which sells their product to department stores, warehouse clubs, and online retailers, is not affected. The fate of the Izod and Van Heusen online direct sales platform is currently unknown.
Marketing
In October 2007, PVH took over naming rights to the Meadowlands Sports Complex arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The arena's name was changed to the Izod Center, and the change became effective on October 31, 2007. PVH paid about $1.4 million a year for two years, then paid $750,000 a year and included the arena employees IZOD uniforms. In 2015 IZOD center was permanently closed.
Controversy
Environmental practices
In July 2011, PVH—along with other major fashion and sportswear brands including Nike, Adidas and Abercrombie & Fitch—was the subject of a report by the environmental group Greenpeace entitled "Dirty Laundry". PVH is accused of working with suppliers in China who, according to the findings of the report, contribute to the pollution of the Yangtze and Pearl Rivers. Samples taken from one facility belonging to the Youngor Group located on the Yangtze River Delta and another belonging to the Well Dyeing Factory Ltd. located on a tributary of the Pearl River Delta revealed the presence of hazardous and persistent hormone disruptor chemicals, including alkylphenols, perfluorinated compounds, and perfluorooctane sulfonate.
Animal testing
Concerns have also arisen about PVH's practices with regards to animal testing.
