Tom Tailor

Tom Tailor is a German casual-fashion house based in Hamburg, founded in 1962 by Uwe Schröder and Hans-Heinrich Pünjer [1]. It began not as a clothing label but as a textile trading company called Henke & Co [1][2], and grew over several decades into a mainstream lifestyle brand spanning menswear, womenswear and childrenswear. In beauty retail the name appears only through its fragrances, which the fashion house does not make itself but licenses to outside manufacturers.

The company traces its start to 1962, when the Hamburg-based partners Uwe Schröder and Hans-Heinrich Pünjer founded Henke & Co, a textile trader. According to the company, the first Tom Tailor products were towels made from terry fabric, an idea rooted in bringing hard-wearing everyday materials to a wide audience. The business then moved into menswear, and its first bestseller was a pair of corduroy trousers named "Tom." Schröder later added "Tailor" to the established "Tom," forming the brand name in use today. In 1972 the first Tom Tailor shirts were sold under the line "We dress people."

The founders' names appear in slightly different forms across sources. The brand's own account gives "Uwe Schröder" and "Hans-Heinrich Pünjer" [1], while the English Wikipedia entry renders them as "Uwe Schroeder" and "Hans-Henrich Pünner" [2]; this article follows the company's spelling.

Tom Tailor's timeline reflects a steady widening of its clothing range. A first sportswear collection appeared in 1979 [2], and in 1989 the company took its present name, Tom Tailor [2] — the formal corporate rename that followed the earlier, product-led origin of the name. The brand introduced its first jeans and first international store in 1996, founded a women's label in 1999, and launched the Tom Tailor Denim collections in 2007 [2]. In 2010 the company went public as TOM TAILOR Holding AG, listing on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange on 26 March [2].

The first documented Tom Tailor fragrance, Tom Tailor Man, followed in 2011, and in 2015 the brand added the Urban Life Man and Urban Life Woman duo, described at launch as inspired by modern life in large cities.

The fashion business sits under Tom Tailor Holding AG. The fragrances carry the Tom Tailor name under a separate licensing arrangement: the perfumes are produced by an outside manufacturer rather than by the fashion house. Since 1 January 2025 that licensee has been Mäurer & Wirtz, a German fragrance maker that took over the Tom Tailor fragrance licence from the previous holder, Luxess GmbH [3]. The move was reported by the trade outlet CosmeticBusiness, which noted that it strengthened Mäurer & Wirtz's position in Germany and Eastern Europe [4].

In beauty retail, Tom Tailor is present through fragrance only. Its perfumes have been on the market for well over a decade, beginning with Tom Tailor Man in 2011 and the Urban Life pair in 2015. Other releases include Essence of Power, a men's Eau de Toilette that Fragrantica describes as fougère-aquatic in character.

Under the Mäurer & Wirtz licence, the first new fragrances were the women's Eau de Parfum DREAM TO BE and a companion men's scent, STRONG MIND, launched in 2025 [5]. Mäurer & Wirtz describes DREAM TO BE as a floriental scent built on notes of pear and pink pepper over praline, orange blossom and jasmine, with a base of moss, musk and vanilla.

Mäurer & Wirtz characterises Tom Tailor as a mainstream lifestyle brand offering, in its words, "good quality at competitive prices" for a broad audience [3]. The wider fashion business reaches its customers through a large multi-channel network, described by the licensee as more than 400 own retail stores, 170 franchise stores, 2,300 shop-in-shops and over 10,100 further points of sale, alongside major online platforms [3].

Tom Tailor is active. The most recent visible activity is the 2025 launch of the DREAM TO BE and STRONG MIND fragrance lines under the new Mäurer & Wirtz licence, with further lines planned for the year [5]. The fashion house continues to operate across Europe, and the fragrance line — the beauty side of the name — has fresh 2025 product activity.