The clothes themselves were the least important. They were a tour of Mr. Ford’s favorite Tom Fordisms: the white, jersey goddess dress; the leopard print sequined lounge suit; the lace and velvet LBD; smoking; the crystal patties. There was bangs and snakeskin and the occasional breastplate—the potent mix of sex and power and self-aware shtick that grew out of Halston and Saint Laurent’s antecedents and defined his aesthetic.
That’s okay, given that the clothes themselves (at least women’s clothes) often seemed the least important when it came to Tom Ford-the-brand. They were more of an epilogue to his Gucci-YSL years, cycling through some of the biggest hits, slamming them with a dose of botox to smooth out the wrinkles, then squeezing them out with glitter and athleisure — and glitzy athleisure — to make them relevant to a social media, pandemic world. TF-the-brand was driven more by beauty and fragrance than fashion (which is why Lauder bought it, unlike, say, Kering) and the strength of Mr. Ford’s ability to sell the vague promise it held.
Back in the day, when Mr. Ford started Act II of his post-Gucci fashion, he held his debut TF show at his first store on Madison Avenue and banned smartphones and all photographers except Terry Richardson. (It was 2010; Mr. Richardson hadn’t yet been canceled.) Only 100 people were invited, and they were squeezed into little gold ballroom chairs.
The models – all women who Mr. Ford, like Rita Wilson, Beyoncé and Gigi Hadid – stood so close together that their clothes almost touched everyone’s knees. The point was, Mr. Ford said at the time, to make it personal. “I don’t understand why everyone has to see everything online the day after a show,” he told Vogue. He had come back to offer something else.
From today’s point of view, it looks like Mr. Ford is Don Quixote, tilting towards those windmills. That, at least, is the message the final videos seem to convey: a cri de coeur about the changing world of fashion and the status of women, with the designer at a distance, watching a scene set in a cage of his own made, no longer interested in the fight. The women behind the glass don’t look happy; they look pent up and confused and upset.
Karen Elson sings an aria; Amber Valletta is in tears. The requiem seems not to Mr. Ford but to the end of the world as he knew it. Or dreamed it. He does not make it fade into the sunset, but into darkness.
