Why You Should Care That Tom Ford Is Showing During London Fashion Week
You may have seen designer Tom Ford‘s name popping up in various headlines today regarding his choice to take part in London Fashion Week this February. While this might not seem particularly newsworthy—he is a well-known designer, after all—it’s actually pretty big news.
Why it’s news: What’s interesting here is that Ford—despite being one of the most respected designers in the industry—has become something of recluse since returning to womenswear in 2010, often choosing to forego splashy runway spectacles in favor of showing his collections to selected press and prohibiting photography as a way to circumvent the “immediacy” of fashion (i.e., luxury e-commerce, collaborations, fast fashion, etc).
So, it’s understandable that the fashion crowd is all over Ford’s announcement, via WWD, that he’s planning to stage a typical runway show this year. However, let’s not clear a front-row seat for Bryan Boy just yet, as it seems unlikely Ford would go from private to over-the-top, but this does mark a major shift for the designer who publicly spoke out about the instant gratification phenomenon on which the fashion industry now thrives.
“This fashion immediacy thing — yes, if you can order the clothes immediately, if you can see them and press a button and they can be shipped to your house, I get fashion immediacy … I don’t get the need for this immediacy. In fact, I think it’s bad,” Ford told WWD in 2010, adding:
“The way the system works now, you see the clothes, within an hour or so they’re online, the world sees them … and though sites such as Moda Operandi and Net-A-Porter are doing their part to offer collections fresh off the runway, they’re overexposed, you’re tired of them, they’ve lost their freshness, you see somebody wearing it and you say, “Oh, that’s that jacket that was in blah, blah, blah … In addition, all of the fast-fashion companies that do a great job, by the way, knock everything off. So it’s everywhere all over the streets in three months and by the time you get it to the store, what’s the point?”
What this news means for you: Essentially (and ironically) what it means is that—to paraphrase Mr. Ford’s previous sentiments—the clothes will be shown in London, and with an hour or so, they’ll be online and the world (i.e., us) will see them.
