## The Fitting Room, Then and Now

The Fitting Room, Then and Now

Tom Ford once said — in a 2004 interview with Vogue — that he didn't design for women who wanted to disappear. The remark was made in a fitting room at the Gucci atelier in Florence, with a model in a bias-cut jersey dress that clung in ways the previous decade had largely forbidden. Ford was adjusting the neckline himself, pulling it lower, and the journalist noted that he seemed more interested in the body than the fabric. That was the point, of course. Ford built his career on the premise that fashion could be about desire again, that a dress could be an invitation rather than a statement of taste. Whether one finds that liberating or reductive depends, in large part, on how one feels about being looked at.

The house that bears his name launched in 2005, after Ford left Gucci Group and a non-compete clause expired. By then he was already famous — arguably more famous than any designer since the height of Saint Laurent — and the launch was less a debut than a continuation. The first collection was menswear, shown in a private appointment system that felt closer to Savile Row than Milan. No runway, no press pack, no finale walk. Clients came to a townhouse in Manhattan or Los Angeles, were offered a drink, and shown a line of suits and shirts that Ford had spent two years developing. The jackets were cut with a narrow shoulder and a suppressed waist, the trousers sat low on the hip, and the whole silhouette telegraphed a particular kind of confidence: earned, expensive, and aware of its effect.

The Gucci Years, Briefly

Ford's training was conventional enough — Parsons, then a stint at Cathy Hardwick, then Perry Ellis under Marc Jacobs. He joined Gucci in 1990 as the company's womenswear designer, a role that barely existed at the time; Gucci was a leather-goods house in steep decline, trading on a logo that had lost its currency. Ford was promoted to creative director in 1994, and what followed is well-documented: the velvet hipsters, the satin shirts unbuttoned to the navel, the ad campaigns shot by Mario Testino that made sex look less like transgression and more like a luxury product. Revenue grew from $230 million to over $3 billion in a decade. Domenico De Sole ran the business; Ford ran the image. It worked.

The work at Gucci, and later at Yves Saint Laurent after the 1999 acquisition, established Ford's signature: a kind of calculated sensuality that borrowed from 1970s Studio 54, 1990s minimalism, and Old Hollywood in equal measure. The references were obvious, sometimes to the point of pastiche, but the execution was precise. A Ford dress didn't drape; it engineered. The jersey was Italian, often from a single mill in Como. The cut was tested on fit models until the hem hit exactly mid-thigh, until the sleeve opened at the point where the clavicle met the shoulder. This was not spontaneity. This was control presented as abandon.

Independence, and What It Costs

When Ford left Gucci Group in 2004 — after a protracted and public dispute with François Pinault, who had acquired the company — the question was whether his vision could translate outside the infrastructure of a European conglomerate. Gucci had ateliers, supply chains, a distribution network across forty countries. Ford had a name and a non-compete agreement that prevented him from designing for anyone else until 2005. He spent the interval working on a film script and, according to those who knew him then, sketching obsessively.

The Tom Ford house launched with backing from Domenico De Sole, who became chairman and co-owner. The business model was narrow by design: menswear first, womenswear by private appointment, and a focus on the American market where Ford's celebrity was most convertible. The first flagship opened on Madison Avenue in 2007. The aesthetic was dark wood, brass fixtures, and a layout that felt more like a club than a retail space. You couldn't walk in off the street and browse. You made an appointment, or you were a client already, or you knew someone. It was exclusivity as strategy, and it worked because Ford understood that luxury, at a certain altitude, is about access rather than product.

Womenswear came later, in 2010, and it retained the appointment-only model for several years. The pieces were expensive even by contemporary luxury standards — a jersey dress might start at $3,000, a tailored jacket closer to $6,000 — but the price was part of the message. Ford was not interested in accessibility. He was interested in a very specific customer: someone who had exhausted the offerings at Céline and The Row, who wanted craft but also wanted to be seen.

Signature, Refined

The Tom Ford silhouette has remained remarkably consistent. For women: the plunging neckline, the defined waist, the hemline that hovers between decorum and provocation. For men: the narrow shoulder, the low-rise trouser, the shirt collar that sits close to the neck. The tailoring is Milanese in technique but American in proportion — less structure than one finds at Brioni, more shape than one expects from a New York maker. The house works with a small roster of suppliers, most of them in Italy: Tessitura Monti for shirting, a mill in Biella for suiting wool, a tannery outside Florence for leather. Ford has said, in various interviews, that he prefers to work with the same hands season after season. It ensures consistency, but it also limits innovation. The house is very good at what it does. What it does has not changed much in two decades.

The Exit, and the Echo

Ford stepped back from the house in 2023, selling his remaining stake to Estée Lauder Companies, which had acquired the beauty division years earlier and had been gradually increasing its ownership. He remains involved, according to the company's statements, but no longer designs the collections. The creative direction has been handled internally, with a team Ford assembled but no single successor named. The autumn 2024 collection, the first without Ford's direct oversight, was shown in New York in February. The silhouette was narrower, the palette slightly more muted, but the vocabulary was intact: bias-cut gowns, tuxedo jackets with satin lapels, leather trousers that looked engineered rather than draped.

Whether the house can sustain itself without Ford is the question every critic is asking, and the answer won't arrive for several seasons. The brand has equity — a devoted client base, a recognisable aesthetic, a beauty business that generates significant revenue — but it lacks the institutional weight of a Chanel or a Hermès. It is, in the end, a designer house that has outlived its designer's direct involvement but not yet proven it can outlive his vision. The clothes still look like Tom Ford. One suspects that is both the asset and the problem.