Peter Hawkings - Designer

[Norden]

All of this transparency, drama, switchups and zegna stuff is diluting the brands halo and ambiance. I can’t believe how indiscrete this brand is, while toms collections where tacky at times, he perfectly controlled the brands image and aspirational value, which is key to the whole thing. They need to get a CD in there who understands the very specific luxury that TF caters to, which is not quiet, not overtly fashion and not that sleazy either. It’s really not that hard, just look at tom for a template. And his first women’s collection kind of had all the DNA.
Peter in the end is a good craftsmen, probably a great counterweight to toms ideas, on his own too dry.

 

[Creative]

This is ridiculous. Peter was ok for Tom Ford, he did much better than Tom himself (which is not saying much though).

I don’t get why Tom first appoints him and then starts talking sh!t about him, doing exactly what he complained about YSL.

The studio not having chemistry with him might be one of the worst excuses ever 😂 No one believes that, and if that’s the case, brands usually fire people under the “boss”, not the boss himself. So awkward.

I think getting old must be terrible…

Italian companies are awfully managed and I don’t think Tom Ford will go well with Zegna running it.

Let’s see what happens, but fashion is just tiring at this point.

 

[IndigoHomme]

I'll go back to the comment I made in Peter's debut collection for Tom: "Anyone who can make a tight suit, show some skin and add a metal detail, can keep this brand afloat."

 

[LadyJunon]

I'll go back to the comment I made in Peter's debut collection for Tom: "Anyone who can make a tight suit, show some skin and add a metal detail, can keep this brand afloat."

The exact quote:

Every designer who can design a suit for women and add a sparkling touch can keep this brand alive. Let's be honest guys: the Ford' success formula was the perfect balance between a shining fabric and show some skin

It's blunt and unforgiving, but there's absolutely no lie.

 

[chriswiles]

Not sure why. Peter’s first two collections were quite good actually.

I'm new here, massive Tom Ford fan, but had to register to make a comment. I agree with you.

I'm perplexed by this. I was shocked when Tom stepped down in 2023, but Peter seemed like continuation, which the brand required: had worked with Tom for years, knew the his ethos, the codes and even dressed and looked a little like Tom. It made it feel like it was in safe hands.

Obviously we don't fully know why they made the decision, but getting rid of Peter seems like a surreal directional decision.

I was only telling the guys in the Sloane Street boutique that I felt like the womenswear was quite strong and prefer some of the colours used in the AW24 collection over the mens!

 

[chriswiles]

I'll go back to the comment I made in Peter's debut collection for Tom: "Anyone who can make a tight suit, show some skin and add a metal detail, can keep this brand afloat."

I disagree. Like I said above, I'm a huge TF fan, but primarily from Tom's ethos, what he stands for and his approach to his work. I bought into a lot of that as much as I did the style.

Many of us are buying into this, which Peter offered as continuation, as much as "anyone can design TF...".

I'm sure there are plenty of designers who can 'easily design TF' but that isn't the point or attraction for me....

 

[Phuel]

If we’re going to reduce a designer to his worst cliches, then I’d even add those gaudy dinner jackets and the even gaudier animal-print loungewear to diminishing Tom Ford further LOL

But with such tropes, may as well be dismissing Margiela’s sensibility to anyone that can chop up a 1950s floor-length ballgown to knee-length; fuse a trench and a denim jacket together; and design tabi toes on every damn footwear. Or dismiss Galliano's as just really fab drag costumes for all the Victorian porcelain dolls and silent films he’s inspired by. Or reduce Rei's to just polka dots and her 100s of diffusion lines of tiresome CdG Shirts. Yohji’s is just an endless parade of bag ladies and hobos, frankly. And McQueen’s to just bumster pants and punky frock coats bedazzled with skulls, spiders and cobwebs that’s become the look of Hot Topic and Monster High dolls— oh wait, that’s what that kid currently installed at the label is doing LMFAO Of course if even every great designer were reduced to a flat caricature, all of them would look embarrassingly silly (…Nevermind the hyped lessers like JW, both Daniels, and Raf’s Prada, all of whom are all straightup fashion cartoons for people that want to live out being fashion caricatures). Frankly, high fashion as a whole is rather silly when reduced to its most basic idea: Adults playing dressup, and for the most part, end up resembling clowns convinced that they’re actually doing anything remotely important. Then bring all of that into 2024-- and it’s Zoolander/Edie Monsoon/Bruno Gehard/Rupaul’s queens IRL.

 

[PDFSD]

This is ridiculous. Peter was ok for Tom Ford, he did much better than Tom himself (which is not saying much though).

I don’t get why Tom first appoints him and then starts talking sh!t about him, doing exactly what he complained about YSL.

The studio not having chemistry with him might be one of the worst excuses ever 😂 No one believes that, and if that’s the case, brands usually fire people under the “boss”, not the boss himself. So awkward.

I think getting old must be terrible…

Italian companies are awfully managed and I don’t think Tom Ford will go well with Zegna running it.

Let’s see what happens, but fashion is just tiring at this point.

some people left .....because it was too much already prior to Peter exit .....so the studio not having chemistry with his lack of leadership is sadly true, as i mentioned before his departure the studio team does not think highly of him, mixed in with toxic environment at the HQ office....but to be honest i don't think it's the main reason

Same as the GQ article that Tom replied on where Peter said he build TF menswear from the ground up .... Tom stepped in to comment and said Peter was still at Gucci at that time and he himself brought in his old Gucci clothes to start doing TF mens.

Tom said one thing he is proud of at TF is doing the men's ....building it up to where it is now ....so i he felt let down why Peter would say such thing in the press. etc etc

so it must be a mix of things

 

[Phuel]

^^^ Most reasonable conclusion to his dismissal. The chemistry of the CD and the team is vital. And Peter likely didn’t show a side to himself until he became the lead. This happens all the time. That Tom had publicly been critical of him wasn’t just some fickle gesture; he seemed adamant on removing him from his CD role.

Peter seemed… fine, in terms of his efforts thus far. WIth another season or two, he would have been expected to find his footing. And the handlers would have graced him with that period to find his footing since the products would have moved steadily without a loss in profit. Frankly, the majority of customers wouldn’t even care— or know, that there was a new lead at the brand (and kicked out so soon). Amongst the commoners, there are still those that namedrop Tisci as the designer at Givenchy-- if they know his name at all LOL

 

[LadyJunon]

Zegna's H1 report came in yesterday, so I got TF's numbers for Q2 and H1:

Q2 Revenue (in millions of €)
2023: 64,015
2024: 83,473
Revenue Growth: 30.4%
Organic Growth: 4.7%
H1 Revenue (in millions of €)
2023: 64,015
2024: 148,493
Revenue Growth: 132.0%
Organic Growth: 4.7%

The growth may seem impressive, but the revenue numbers are inaccurate due to the fact that Zegna acquired TF's fashion licence on April 28.

 

[chriswiles]

^^^ Most reasonable conclusion to his dismissal. The chemistry of the CD and the team is vital.

Peter seemed… fine, in terms of his efforts thus far. WIth another season or two, he would have been expected to find his footing.

We don't really know if the chemistry was the issue. It's all speculation. We do know Tom had a bit of a dig in GQ, but we also have to remember it was Tom that put Peter forward for continuation purposes.

One thing I did hear last night is that the next Tom Ford runway show planned for September is cancelled as a result of Hawkings leaving. That's concerning in terms of content, social media material and other imagery the brand needs for promotion.

 

[LadyJunon]

We don't really know if the chemistry was the issue. It's all speculation. We do know Tom had a bit of a dig in GQ, but we also have to remember it was Tom that put Peter forward for continuation purposes.

I thought that the goal was seamless continuation too, but GQ revealed that he was actually expecting a revolution along the lines of Michele's Gucci.

One thing I did hear last night is that the next Tom Ford runway show planned for September is cancelled as a result of Hawkings leaving. That's concerning in terms of content, social media material and other imagery the brand needs for promotion.

My best guess is that Zegna didn't want to spend 100-200k on a runway show for a studio-led collection.

 

[chriswiles]

I thought that the goal was seamless continuation too, but GQ revealed that he was actually expecting a revolution along the lines of Michele's Gucci.

My best guess is that Zegna didn't want to spend 100-200k on a runway show for a studio-led collection.

If Hawkings only left this week, the collection would have been designed months ago. When I worked with Orlebar Brown, the team had the collection designed 6 months prior to presenting to press.

It's more of a case of lacking a Creative Director for all the shoots and other content that come off the back of a runway show.

 

[brandon J pierre]

I thought that the goal was seamless continuation too, but GQ revealed that he was actually expecting a revolution along the lines of Michele's Gucci.

My best guess is that Zegna didn't want to spend 100-200k on a runway show for a studio-led collection.

That's not good! Something really bad had to go down. What a shame tho sometimes studio show are the best to keep things flowing.

 

[reese06]

Same as the GQ article that Tom replied on where Peter said he build TF menswear from the ground up .... Tom stepped in to comment and said Peter was still at Gucci at that time and he himself brought in his old Gucci clothes to start doing TF mens.

Tom said one thing he is proud of at TF is doing the men's ....building it up to where it is now ....so i he felt let down why Peter would say such thing in the press. etc etc

so it must be a mix of things

We will never really know but the truth is probably somewhere in the middle and it seems like there is pettiness and battle of egos on both Peter and Tom’s sides.

And there is a reason that Peter made that statement that he built Tom ford menswear.

I’m interested in this studio dynamic with Peter.

The musical chairs of designers is exhausting at this point. I thought Peter was doing a fine job aligning the men’s and women’s. Tom was doing terrible at trying to make womenswear a fashion label. Peter seemed to be leaning more into luxury by establishing a women’s look and codes, than a fashion brand

Alexandre does not have the range

 

[brandon J pierre]

We will never really know but the truth is probably somewhere in the middle and it seems like there is pettiness and battle of egos on both Peter and Tom’s sides.

And there is a reason that Peter made that statement that he built Tom ford menswear.

I’m interested in this studio dynamic with Peter.

The musical chairs of designers is exhausting at this point. I thought Peter was doing a fine job aligning the men’s and women’s. Tom was doing terrible at trying to make womenswear a fashion label. Peter seemed to be leaning more into luxury by establishing a women’s look and codes, than a fashion brand

Alexandre does not have the range

My thoughts on him exactly I remember seeing an interview with Tom Ford said he wanted a sexy modern Hermes, he was getting there on his own but then the last season's during the pandemic kind of fell off, but then Peter took and it was back on that direction.

 

[PDFSD]

puckdotnews​

Tom Ford After Tom Ford…​

The quick departure of Peter Hawkings, Ford’s handpicked successor, begets the question: Without the founder’s obsessive control and inimitable taste, what’s left?

After breaking the news of Tom Ford creative director Peter Hawkings’ exit, Puck fashion correspondent Lauren Sherman drills down on what went wrong (Hawkings’ proposition for womenswear was “essentially a neutered version of the Tom Ford and Gucci archives”) and what’s to come for the brand ​

Two months ago, I got a tip from a well-placed source in Milan that Peter Hawkings, the creative director of Tom Ford, was out and that Hedi Slimane, designer of Celine, was in. The Slimane detail seemed far-fetched to me—he’s too expensive, among other things—but I wasn’t surprised to hear that something was afoot at Tom Ford, which the designer and Domenico De Sole had sold to Estée Lauder for $2.8 billion in 2023. It was just a week earlier, after all, that Ford, himself, had worn an Anthony Vaccarello-for-Yves Saint Laurent velvet dinner jacket to the Met Gala—a not-so-subtle dig at Hawkings, a protégé who had designed menswear under him for nearly 25 years, dating all the way back to his days at Gucci. Ford had also handpicked Hawkings to succeed him to design his fashion collections.
My source was half right. A year after Hawkings got the job, he was fired, as I reported on Friday. The news was officially announced on Monday before the opening of the U.S. markets, where both Estée Lauder Companies, the owner of Tom Ford, and Zegna Group, the operator of its fashion business, trade publicly. Unfortunately, the press release didn’t offer much besides the usual pablum about a “successor” being named “in the near future.”

I’m told that a new designer has already been chosen, but I can’t confirm whether the contract has been signed. (We all know these things aren’t official until they’re official.)

Read the full story at the link in bio.

---

https://puck.news/chinas-muted-passion-for-fashion-hits-lvmh-kering-earnings/

 

[Kimihiro]

Hedi? I could see the appeal and it might work for him and he might help with the fragrance but he hates Tom. He left YSL because of Tom. Can they even afford one of (if not the) most expensive designer on the planet?

 

[LadyJunon]

Hedi? I could see the appeal and it might work for him and he might help with the fragrance but he hates Tom. He left YSL because of Tom. Can they even afford one of (if not the) most expensive designer on the planet?

I know that Hedi would do insane numbers at TF and they're both very commercial in their approach, but they exist on completely different ends of the aesthtical spectrum. Ford is very "Rive Driote" (glamour, sex, opulence), while Slimane is very "Rive Gauche" (coolness, rebellion, youth).

 

[Kimihiro]

I know that Hedi would do insane numbers at TF and they're both very commercial in their approach, but they exist on completely different ends of the aesthtical spectrum. Ford is very "Rive Driote" (glamour, sex, opulence), while Slimane is very "Rive Gauche" (coolness, rebellion, youth).

I’m with you in that. I guess that’s why it’ll work more for Hedi and not more for Tom. Since when did an antithesis stopped him? Look at Celine, on paper it shouldn’t work but it did. It’ll provide him another blank slate, while by just adding a bit of sex and lushness to his work he can claim heritage. At the end of the day we know the numbers would be good. TF parfums could really use him.

That said though it’s much improbable and personally I don’t want to see it. Hedi no matter how scantily clad rarely exuded sex at womenswear. His men meanwhile no matter how layered, lean and feminine always had sex appeal. His boys can wear skirt and still be nothing but straight.