I think it is really important to have a sense of business. As a designer you can get so wrapped up in the design and fashion side that you forget the business side.

Hilfiger stresses that fashion is not only an artistic practice but also an enterprise that must be managed. The quote contrasts the immersive, aesthetic focus of designing—where attention naturally gravitates toward trends, craft, and creative identity—with the practical demands of running a brand: costs, pricing, production, distribution, marketing, and long-term strategy. Implicitly, he argues that creative success is fragile without commercial literacy, because a designer’s work reaches people through business structures. The remark also reflects a broader lesson for creative industries: sustaining a vision often requires understanding the market mechanisms that fund and scale it.