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It was the soundtrack and not the disco-elegant collection, but Tom Ford’s runway on Wednesday night closed New York Fashion Week with a musically melancholy message.
“Time waits for nobody,” crooned Freddie Mercury as a finely tailored series of sequined tuxedos floated by. “Take me on; I’ll be gone,” from the 80s-era band A-ha, was juxtaposed against brightly embellished — and tiny — boxing shorts. Ford, who is also a screenwriter and film director, is a master of creating a scene, and Wednesday night was thick with 80s nightclub energy.
His front row was a glamorous cast of old friends and new celebrities, some fashion regulars and others returning to runways after an absence, perched on deluxe banks of white couches and in orchestra boxes above the runway. The 72-year-old model Pat Cleveland, ensconced in gold, chatted happily with her model daughter Anna. Chris Rock was deep in conversation with Katie Holmes. Hal Rubenstein, a founding editor of InStyle Magazine, arrived jauntily with a cane in hand. Carine Roitfeld, the former editor of Vogue Paris and Ford’s longtime collaborator, lounged and laughed (it’s said an issue guest edited by Ford, featuring children posed in adult makeup and fashions, may have contributed to Roitfeld’s departure from the magazine).
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In the backdrop was the question of the future of Ford’s label, reported to be in talks to be sold over the summer, as well as the loss of the love of Ford’s life, Richard Buckley, last year. So, while his shiny, embellished collection shown on a mirrored floor screamed flash and bang, it felt like an emotional goodbye to Ford’s formative years in 1980s New York, at Studio 54, before life took him to Paris, Milan and London. Ford, who once invited press for intimate backstage conversations, declined to take interviews after his show, appearing briefly to greet friends.
A native of Texas who currently resides in Los Angeles with his young son, the 61-year-old Ford is not as wedded to the fashion world as many designers. He has hopped back and forth between fashion and filmmaking for years. He wrote and directed A Single Man in 2009 and Nocturnal Animals in 2016 to critical acclaim. Both films were nominated for Oscars.
Lately, Ford has been open about his interests outside of fashion and his grief at losing his husband, Buckley, who he met in New York when he was 25, to health problems related to cancer last autumn. He has mentioned the challenges of raising their son as a single parent, and he has stepped back from some responsibilities. Though he remains on the board of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, Ford left his seat as chairman in June. Since then, chief executive Steven Kolb has been serving as acting chairman. Kolb said this week that a new chair has been chosen and will be announced soon after Paris Fashion Week. Ford did not attend his own launch party in Los Angeles for his Ombré fragrance last December, roughly three months after Buckley’s death.
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His reticence in his new life might hint at the reasons behind reports from Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal reported this summer that Tom Ford International was being shopped around by Goldman Sachs with an estimated price tag of $3 billion — with the Estée Lauder Companies as a leading contender. It is a lofty price compared with recent acquisitions of brands such as Versace and Supreme, and one that reflects the halo around the Tom Ford name not just for its high-margin eyewear and fragrances, but for its sought-after men’s tailoring. In Hollywood, wearing Tom Ford today is akin to wearing Armani in the 1990s, carrying bragging rights and an aura of powerful suiting.
Estée Lauder executives noted pointedly in a June investor meeting that its Tom Ford Beauty business was close to becoming a billion-dollar brand. Still, since the flurry of headlines in July and August, there’s been no word of a deal. Reached on Wednesday, an Estée Lauder spokeswoman declined to comment on behalf of the company. Ford and his company’s spokespeople have declined to comment on a potential sale.
Estée Lauder, which is publicly traded but controlled by the Lauder family, owns brands such as Mac, Clinique and Le Mer. Although it doesn’t operate ready-to-wear brands, it has owned the licence for Tom Ford Beauty since 2005. Ford controls his fashion company, with Domenico De Sole as its chairman.
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The two fashion and cosmetic companies have a long and close relationship. Estée Lauder company wooed Ford to help revive its namesake brand after he left his job at Gucci in 2004, according to the Wall Street Journal at the time. Laura De Sole, Domenico De Sole’s daughter, works as an Estée Lauder marketing executive.
Ford is a giant of the fashion world. After joining Gucci as a designer in 1990 when the company was near bankruptcy, he was promoted to creative director four years later. Under his design, the brand became a sexy juggernaut — with the help of De Sole, who then served as Gucci’s president and chief executive. Ford later took over the creative direction of Yves Saint Laurent. Ford’s own image became so intertwined with Gucci’s that many consumers continued to believe he was designing the label for years after he and De Sole left in a dispute over control in 2004. Together, they launched Ford’s eponymous label in 2005, leading with sunglasses and fragrances several years before adding apparel. And there, so many years later, Ford made it clear that he retains the spunk that led him to carve Gucci’s GG logo into a model’s pubic hair back in the day.
There were no pubic carvings on Wednesday evening, but there was a model, male, in little more than a meticulously tailored jacket and a black g-string, adorned with black lace.
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