NEW YORK
The Champagne was cold and the front row star studded Sunday night as Tom Ford closed New York Fashion Week at Lincoln Center with a spring-summer collection of hopeful, glitzy glam.
His 120 guests — mandatory masks on — were seated on long, soft white couches at the David H. Koch Theater as Ford’s models walked in capris and jacket sets of electric blue and pink, purple sequined party looks and embellished gold crop jackets — some all at the same time as his soundtrack pushed the party along.
Ford, in his show notes, called the splashy show of sporty evening color the “90s take of the 70s” that evokes the glossy casual vibe of Los Angeles, where he lives.
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“It’s an almost airbrushed kind of beauty that starts to permeate the mind,” he said. He described the collection as “simple in cut but not in impact.”
Ford, the chairman of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, significantly pared down his crowd to conclude New York’s first full in-person fashion week since the pandemic began. Dozens of designers spread out over Manhattan and Brooklyn to welcome generally smaller crowds with varying degrees of attention paid to COVID precautions.
The six days of shows ended the night before the mini-Met Gala, a huge evening for fashion that was canceled last year due to the pandemic. Ford wound things up at the same time as the 2021 MTV Video Music Awards were underway in Brooklyn.
Jennifer Hudson, seated between Dan Levy and Julianne Moore, bounced to Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” as she took video of Ford’s show on her phone. Hudson plays Franklin in a new biopic of the same name as the mega hit.
Gigi Hadid was among Ford’s models, dressed in slinky — and shiny — evening joggers of bright blue, a crop electric green tank and a bronze jacket. He carried the green into trousers and jackets in an animal print. There were all-black looks for men and women, including a couple of corset tops, parachute pants and trench coats.
Of his bold mix of color, Ford said he likes tones of one hue worn together or “hard clashes that shock a bit. A little bad taste is always good taste in my book.”
One model carried a bouquet of white flowers in loose gold pants paired with a silver bra top and shirt coat that reached the ground. Ford didn’t explain his bride.
He called the collection of mostly evening clothes heavily influenced by sportswear after struggling with his 8-year-old son’s desire to wear basketball silks to school.
“I decided to embrace the trend but turn the sports look into evening wear for women,” Ford said. “Of course, I still won’t let him wear basketball silks to school but I suppose if he really, really begged me to wear a sequined pair from this collection I might make them for him.”
