Tom Ford Fall/Winter 2018 — Photography courtesy of BFA/Tom Ford

Tom Ford Really Knows How to Do a Front Row

And for a vegan, he shows a lot of animal print.

Date February 9, 2018

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New York Fashion Week swung into full and fantastic gear with the arrival of a starry and decadent Tom Ford runway show at New York’s Park Avenue Armory.

Ford is a master image maker, who has moved (with apparent ease...) between fashion, film, beauty and back again. And despite the black suit, dark sunglasses and five o’clock shadow, Ford continuously reinvents himself. In recent years he’s become a father and embraced a vegan lifestyle. Despite this, dare we say it, mellowing, anything Tom Ford remains an “Event,” known as much for the attendees as the message. And yet Ford, recently told WWD daily he’s not a fan of a elaborate shows.

“I have never liked the concept of a gigantic set, a complicated set. I think it just masks weakness in the clothes,” said Ford in an interview with WWD just days before his New York shows (Ford showed men’s on Tuesday and women’s Thursday).

“I like showing on a simple runway, always have, under a spotlight, one thing at a time, very traditional.”

The relative simplicity in runway presentation plays perfectly into Ford’s FROW. While there was a sea of animal prints, bejewelled Peter Pan collars (on Kaia Gerber no less) and menswear-inspired suiting on the runway. Even a “Pussy Power” handbag that seemed a Fordian nod to the #metoo movement, that is (finally) expanding into fashion. It’s that front row that stuns with every celebrity seated (think Julianne Moore, Carine Roitfeld and Doutzen Kroes) looking on dressed in either his skinny stilettos, shimmery dresses or suit jackets. The audience seems to reflect the runway in an Old Hollywood kind of way. Tom Ford doesn’t reinvent the wheel but he seems to spin it better than most.

See the Tom Ford front row from New York Fashion Week.