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For his second season as creative director at Tom Ford, Peter Hawkings gave people what they want. A sexy, after-dark soiree that delivered looks as electric on the models as they were on the A-listers front row. The Tom Ford brand has been a benchmark for hedonistic coolness since its eponymous founder started the label in 2005 and Hawkings is here to continue the legacy.
Having worked closely with Ford for more than 25 years, Hawkings was approached to take the top job by the man himself last year. This personal connection surely helped the transition from a longtime founder/owner company into a corporately acquired business (the Estée Lauder group purchased it from Ford in 2023 for US$2.8billion). A transition further proved by the smooth collections of Spring 2024 and now Fall/Winter 2024 that begin right where Ford left off.
Tom Ford is a Midas touch label. As significantly popular with men as woman and successful in almost every genre of fashion and beauty it lends itself to (fragrance, cosmetics, leatherwear, ready-to-wear, eyewear, suiting). It’s a brand that has become so dashingly associated with its black-suit-and-aviators namesake it’s almost impossible to imagine one without the other. So, for Hawkings, the continuation of his predecessor’s style would be of constant consideration.
However, Hawkings is an established designer on his own. His inspiration for this collection was “power and seduction” and he leaned into muses like 1960’s French songstress François Hardy and Helmut Newton’s renowned photographic study Pola Woman (1992). He also referenced screen queen Sharon Stone, who happened to be sitting front row. While the discourses of power and seduction have the ability to offer a more conspicuous version of sexiness, Hawkings delivered a sensual coquettishness, and a not-too-quiet-not-too-loud form of luxury.
It was a collection that included as many structured pea coats and military jackets as it did glamorous thigh-high splits and navel-deep necklines – his “power and seduction” more a study of complementary opposites than matching of brazen teammates. For example, a fur blouson zipped to the neck and worn with a pair of utility-pocketed leather micro-shorts appeared as sexy and Ford-core as the little black dress with a sweetheart neckline and thick chain choker that followed. His use of gold hard-wear against a palette of navy, ecru, silver, metallic mauve and, of course, black for suits and outerwear spoke to the classic sophistication of the Ford aesthetic, while the use of raunchy mesh and halter nude-dresses played in simpatico with the label’s playful, risqué pastime. Both styles creating a harmonious modernism for the future of the brand.
When Ford left Gucci in 2004, its popularity (and sales) declined in the immediate years following. It wasn’t until Alessandro Michele took over some ten years later that it found itself back in favour with a renegade revisioning of the brand. Let’s hope that here, the Midas touch remains and Hawkings continues to deliver this inspired vision. With Ford in his corner (and Sharon Stone on the front row), surely he will.
