Tom Ford Exits His Namesake Brand With a Final Collection Celebrating His Best Work
After 13 years, the 61-year-old designer departs from his eponymous helm with a three-part video campaign, shot by Steven Klein.
After 13 years in his eponymous fashion throne, Tom Ford is officially bidding farewell to his namesake label with his final women’s ready-to-wear collection, for Fall 2023. The line, which just dropped on the designer’s website, arrives alongside his last campaign, which sees Ford cinematically canter through his archives in three high-caliber videos, shot by Steven Klein.
The sartorial send-off stars several Ford muses, namely Amber Valletta, Joan Smalls, Karlie Kloss, Karen Elson and Caroline Trentini. Wearing the concluding collection, which houses reproductions of the American visionary’s favorite archival pieces, each glittering cast member’s look calls back to a significant point in Ford’s brand history.
Among them, Kloss wears the creative director’s broken mirror sheath, from Spring 2014, and Valletta appears in Ford’s color-blocked bodycon from Spring 2016. The designer’s white cape gown that Gwyneth Paltrow famously wore to the 2012 Oscars reappears for the modern day, as well as the 2014 sequin jersey minidress that Beyoncé sported during her Mrs. Carter World Tour. Ford’s fuchsia breastplate, made viral by Zendaya at the 2020 Critics Choice Awards, also emerges once more, alongside a signature velvet suit, nodding to the designer’s time at Gucci.
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A celebration of his unwavering hold on fashion (and that of pop culture), Ford’s Fall 2023 collection marks his final outing for his eponymous label, after selling the brand to Estée Lauder in a deal valued at $2.8 billion USD in November of last year. Rumors of Ford’s departure reached new heights following the sale’s closure — and after the tragic passing of his partner, Richard Buckley, in 2021, many felt that it could offer the designer a moment for himself.
The Tom Ford label has not announced its founder’s successor, though whispers allege that Peter Hawkings, the brand’s menswear design director, will take over women’s, as well. The headline marks the latest in fashion’s top-tier moves, after Jeremy Scott left Moschino and Pharrell signed on as Louis Vuitton’s menswear design director.
Between his eponymous label’s old Hollywood sensibility and his industry-shifting tenure as Gucci’s creative director, Tom Ford is a pioneering innovator in the world of luxury fashion. His exit from Tom Ford, the brand, appears to come with less of a fuss, but it’s a testament to the level at which his creative overseeing resides. Pictured above, he waves one hand to his legion of powerhouse models — and one of fashion’s most renowned photographers — from outside a pane of glass, peering from under a signature pair of Bronson sunglasses at the multi-billion-dollar brand he’s sold under his own name.
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