PVH history

His business grew, and by 1887 it was known as M. Phillips & Son.

Origins as Phillips-Jones: 1907-57

Phillips-Jones's sales came to $7.2 million in 1919 and net income was reported at $1.1 million.

Although Chain Shirt Shops was dissolved in 1926, the company's retail client base continued to increase, and by the end of the decade Phillips-Jones was producing 335,000 dozen shirts a year and quantities of pajamas, underwear, nightshirts, collars, silk cloth, and piece goods.

The first collar-attached shirt was introduced in 1929.

Sales took a dip of almost $2 million in 1930, the first full year of the Great Depression.

Operations then became profitable again, with the exception of the recession year of 1938, when the company's sales dropped by about one-third and led to a loss of $l.7 million.

Isaac Phillips's son Seymour became president of Phillips-Jones in 1939.

By 1940 the company had closed its Albany plant and opened one in Geneva, Alabama.

Phillips-Jones lost money in this year, as well as in the next two years, and discontinued paying dividends, a practice not resumed until 1947.

Sales and profits increased rapidly after World War II. In 1949 the company introduced its Century collar-attached shirt; with heavy promotion, some 12.5 million of these shirts were sold in the next five years.

In 1950, PVH marketed its Van Heusen shirts with the faces of celebrities like Mickey Rooney, Ronald Reagan, and Charlton Heston.

Phillips-Jones was operating 12 plants in 1954 and serving some 6,000 department stores and haberdashers.

About two-thirds of all men's dress shirts were wash-and-wear by 1965, when PVH introduced its Vanopress permanent-press model, available in Dacron and cotton and offered for the company's sports shirts and pajamas as well.

In 1966, for example, it entered the tailored-clothing field by purchasing Joseph & Feiss Co. of Cleveland, and then outerwear with the purchase of Wind Breaker Inc. of Danville, Illinois.

Seymour Phillips moved up to board chairman in 1967 and was succeeded as president by his son Lawrence in 1967.

With the February 1968 acquisition of Hamburger's & Sons, PVH was operating 39 stores, in Baltimore as well as in Florida and New England.

PVH liquidated Kennedy's Florida stores and the Lady Van Heusen line in 1969 but added three more retail businesses with six stores.

With the purchase of Harris & Frank's 32 West Coast stores in 1971 from Botany Industries, the number of retail stores reached 109, accounting for 41 percent of the company's revenues.

Efficiency of operation enabled the company to achieve record net income of $8.9 million in the fiscal year ended February 3, 1979, on net sales and revenue of nearly $327 million.

Van Heusen introduced a Halston collection in 1981.

In 1987 PVH sold Joseph & Feiss and its 45 remaining specialty clothing stores to managers of these divisions for a total of $41.4 million.

Essential to the corporate strategy was creating new markets for Van Heusen shirts, Bass shoes, and private-label shirts (made by Van Heusen) and sweaters (made by Somerset). Accordingly, at the end of 1989 the parent company purchased Windsor Shirt Co., a 39-store men's-furnishings group.

By late 1990 PVH had passed Arrow Shirt Co. to become the nation's largest shirt manufacturer, having gained market share with stylish features such as spread collars, bright stripes, chambrays, and denims.

By mid-1993 PVH's outlet stores, which reached a peak of about 1,000, were accounting for half the company's revenues and even more of its earnings, according to analysts.

In 1994 Van Heusen introduced a line of wrinkle-free shirts, which it publicized as "The shirt that irons itself."

In fiscal 1996 PVH earned $18.5 million on net sales of $1.36 billion.

Gant planned to open an additional 10 stores in the United States by the year 2000.

PVH brought into market Geoffrey Beene shirts in 1982 and till date, it is the favorite brand of Americans among dress shirts. It was in 2003, the company brought Calvin Klein.

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.

On March 15, 2010, Phillips-Van Heusen acquired Tommy Hilfiger for $3 billion.

As of March 2011 the company sells no products under that name in Europe.

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.

In 2014, both Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger were ranked #8 and #9 on the fashion segment of Digital IQ Index.

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 March 2017, PVH acquired lingerie brand True & Co.

In June 2018, PVH acquired the Geoffrey Beene clothing brand, which PVH previously produced under license.

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.