Another Critic Pans Tom Ford's Latest Collection
Le Figaro's Virginie Mouzat was initially told that only fashion editors would be permitted to attend Tom Ford's show in London, not journalists or critics. However, she got an invitation anyway. "Thus begins what will slowly turn into a nightmare," she writes in her subsequent report. Translated from French:
From the first model on the runway, we are struck by what resembles an out-of-style Gucci collection from ten years ago. The fussy complications of the cuts (drawstrings, shirring, high-waisted skirts, leg-of-lamb sleeves), the disheveled hairstyle of a girl barely back from happy hour, and the overdone makeup... Overload is the key word of the show... The laced shoe? An ersatz model of an Alaia. The jogging shorts in black leather? Already seen last year in Celine's cruise collection, as were the sandals with bracelet straps (here, encrusted with rhinestones).The coat bristling with raffia? A pale version of those in Yves Saint Laurent's spring 1967 collection.
If all this wasn't bad enough, Mouzat then describes Ford's terribly embarrassing post-finale bow, which failed to incite a standing ovation from the crowd.
At the end of this inventory suited to Kim Kardashian, Tom Ford appears. He advances. And he remains there, in the central area, asking people to stand up. Perhaps [people would do so] out of distress, or sympathy, or because all of this is supposed to be festive after all. But everybody just looks at their feet. The music does not stop. Ford tries to speak above the noise, louder. We can't hear a thing. We just see this baby-faced man trying desperately to clear the air. He throw himself upon his companion, Richard Buckley, and hugs him (Ralph Lauren often hugs his companion Ricky at the end of his shows, but then he returns backstage). But here everyone stays put. So Tom Ford retreats toward Anna Wintour and now it's she whom he decides to embrace.Troubling.
Of course, as Mouzat points out, we won't see any photographs of the clothes for some time, so we'll have to take her word for it.