When Tom Ford launched his women’s ready-to-wear collection in September 2010, I was not among the 100 people to get an invitation, and the FOMO was excruciating. I distinctly remember being at the show that preceded it and watching as a few of those lucky 100 made a scramble for the exit before the finale. No one wanted to miss Ford’s debut.
What made the FOMO particularly bad: He announced beforehand that there would be no photography (or virtually none; Terry Richardson, pre-scandal, was the house lensman). This was before Instagram put an end to clapping—you need two hands to do it, and there’s always a camera phone in one now—but even then Ford’s no-photo ban was unprecedented.
Fashion shows had been a significant line item in brands’ annual marketing plans since his Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent days, of course. His decision to forego visual assets was audacious and unforgettable, all the more so because Beyoncé, Julianne Moore, fresh off of A Single Man, Lauren Hutton, and many other celebrity friends were all there—and not in the front row, but walking the runway. The glamour!
The no-photo policy didn’t last, but over the 13 years since there have been other gambits. In 2016, Ford became one of the first American designers to experiment with a see-now, buy-now schedule, in an effort to close the gap between his runway show and store deliveries. It proved too radical a rethink for the slow-to-move industry, but Ford valiantly led the charge. He also pioneered the Oscar-time L.A. show back in 2015 that we saw Donatella Versace adopt this March, closing the gap between the runway and the red carpet, if nothing else.
We won’t get another Tom Ford by Tom Ford show; he sold the company to Estée Lauder in a deal valued at $2.8 billion late last year. His successor, when that person is named, may carpet the runway in white rose petals and fragrance the air with Fucking Fabulous, but Ford opted out of a ceremonious, showy goodbye, choosing for his sign-off an Archive collection of his greatest hits instead.
Clicking through them triggers many a red carpet memory. There is Gwyneth Paltrow’s sensational white column gown and attached cape from the 2012 Oscars, and there is Zendaya’s hot pink molded breastplate and fluid skirt circa first-season Euphoria, that cemented her fashion icon status more than everything else. The stretch sequin and mesh dress Rihanna wore on a 2016 issue of Vogue is also included.
For his spring 2022 return to the runway post-pandemic, Ford considered the impact of social media on fashion. “Photogenic clothes today by their very nature mean that they are not at all timid,” he riffed at the time. That was never not true chez Tom Ford. As the worlds of fashion and Hollywood grow ever more intertwined, it seems too bad that the American designer who navigated both worlds with such control and assurance is stepping away. Where will we get our glamour fix now? But if an era is ending, at least there’s the prospect of watching Ford’s cinematic vision unfold on the big screen sometime in the future.
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