The Talented Mr. Hawkings?
So what really led to Peter Hawkings’ sudden ouster from Tom Ford, the brand he’d help his mentor create and eventually sell for $2.8 billion? Was it just declining sales? Vanilla Sex? New penny-pinching overlords? Or what if Hawkings desperately wanted to be Ford, and tried to be Ford, but just simply wasn’t?
Lauren Sherman
August 5, 2024
Last week, I was catching up with a designer who worked at Gucci in 2004, back when Tom Ford and Domenico De Sole famously and semi-acrimoniously left the group, which is now part of Kering. At the time, Gucci C.E.O. Giacomo Santucci put three people in charge to replace Ford: John Ray ran menswear, Alessandra Facchinetti designed women’s, and Frida Giannini looked after accessories. (There was also Karen Joyce, responsible for image and advertising.) Within two years, both Ray and Facchinetti were gone—Mark Lee, the former YSL C.E.O., was now in charge of Gucci, and did away with the complicated structure. Giannini had won, and would remain the creative director for nearly 10 years. By the time she got fired at the end of 2014, the brand message was severely watered down, allowing for one of her longtime, long-repressed deputies, Alessandro Michele, to step up and unleash his maximalist id.
This former Gucci designer very incisively compared that experience with what is currently going down at Tom Ford, the brand, referring to the abrupt exit of creative director Peter Hawkings, the lackluster sales for both women’s and menswear, etcetera. All those years ago, this person told me, the designers put in charge had to adjust quickly to life after the wunderkind: smaller budgets, fewer extravagances, and less tolerated eccentricity. For instance, this person recalled the Spring 2005 men’s runway show, where butterflies from the famous taxidermy store in Paris, Deyrolle, were fastened to the lapels. “I just remember, at the end of the show, going backstage and seeing the butterflies scattered on the floor” as if they were cheap sequins falling off a dress, the former Gucci designer said. It was excessive, wasteful: the remnants of a time of incredible wealth creation for Ford, De Sole, and the Gucci Group.
Peter Hawkings, who was fired last month after only one year on the job, had only known life under Ford. He learned from the master at Gucci and then joined his namesake brand in 2006 to continue to work under the tutelage of the original merchant-designer, who knows how to sell a pair of loafers as well as he designs a splashy runway collection. Just like the trio of Gucci designers back in the day, this person suggested, perhaps Hawkings was used to certain budgets and treatment that, maybe, were wiped away when Ford exited.
The only problem with this theory is that Ford and De Sole were not running the Tom Ford fashion brand in excess. Beauty, not fashion or accessories, was the profit center, and the duo adhered to tight budgets. And from what I’ve been told by several people in and around Tom Ford Fashion, Ford and De Sole did everything in their power to ensure that Ford’s exit would be as painless as possible. When the news broke that they planned on selling to Estée Lauder Companies, in late 2022, the duo hosted a conference call with the entire company—employees in Los Angeles, London, New York, and Milan—explaining candidly why he wanted out (the personal and professional), and what would happen next. De Sole had been on the board of Zegna since 2005, and would remain there as that group became the official custodian of the fashion brand. (Remember, Estée Lauder owns Tom Ford, but Zegna runs Tom Ford Fashion, and an eyewear company makes the glasses.)
It was decided fairly early on in the process that Hawkings would be Ford’s replacement—a detail that Hawkings shared quite openly. This seemed like an obvious and brand-affirming choice. In fact, I wrote about it in the very first issue of Line Sheet since it was common knowledge among the London fashion set. And despite dedicating his entire professional life to the service of his mentor, Hawkings soon seemed to be serving a brand of his own.
The Imposter Syndrome
The bond between Ford and Hawkings was once, indeed, a very real thing. After the Lauder deal, I’ve been told, Ford gifted Hawkings a large sum of money out of his own payout as a personal thank-you for years of work. But as Hawkings began to assume more responsibility, tension grew between the two men. The dissolution of Ford’s Los Angeles womenswear design studio was unsurprising—Hawkings is based in London, and there is more design talent in Europe. However, I’m told that Hawkings made a faux pas by inviting Ford to his first womenswear show without sending a personal note, according to me, multiple people. (Ford, like everyone else, received an invite via email.) Still, Ford did try to attend, I’m told, but faced a logistical nightmare that made it necessary (and easy) to say no. (Ford didn’t respond to a request for comment. A rep for Hawkings declined to comment.)
There were several decisions made during the Hawkings era that were brand damaged, and Ford noticed. Ford and his team long claimed that they never resorted to paying celebrities to attend shows because Ford, himself, was an icon and friends with many of the stars he dressed on the red carpet. Hawkings, without such a network, decided to pay celebrities to attend the shows, I’m told. (He understandably did not want to invite Ford’s friends.) But the mix of celebrities—the first season, it was Elizabeth Banks, the second, Iris Law and others—felt strange and unspectacular.
As for fashion? Combing through the currently for-sale pieces over the weekend, I continue to find the womenswear appealing, if generic: silky blouses, nicely cut trousers, body-skimming dresses. There were chic accessories, too, including the Whitney bag, named after Hawkings’ very involved wife and longtime muse, Whitney Bromberg Hawkings. To build the womenswear collection, the couple shipped pieces of Bromberg Hawkings’ own wardrobe to the studio to serve as a three-dimensional mood board.
But executives and designers at brands including Saint Laurent and Celine, as well as several independent labels, whispered that Hawkings was too inspired by their work. Brands copy brands all the time—nothing is original in fashion—but the key is to bring something new to the table. Hawkings failed to do that in the eyes of many. And yet, he certainly wanted to distinguish himself from Ford, the man, at one point suggesting to the Zegna group and Estée Lauder that he wanted to change the name of the brand to TF by Peter Hawkings. (A rep for Zegna did not respond to a request for comment. A rep for Estée Lauder had no comment.)
In the end, it was likely a confluence of factors that cost Hawkings the gig. Here’s hoping he is able to share his side of the story one day. And more importantly, that he is able to move on, because everyone needs to do so. The question of who will replace him remains unanswered. One reader, a luxury exec, pushed back on the idea of Haider Ackermann, which I floated last week. His exit from Berluti was not good, and Canada Goose is doing a lot to make him happy, setting up a design studio in Paris and so forth.
Another doozy of an unfounded rumor concerns Pierpaolo Piccioli, who I’d sooner believe is going to Chanel. To be sure, it’s not going to be as easy for me to find out who is replacing Hawkings as it was for me to discover that he got the job—or that he was leaving, for that matter. On the subject of Ackermann, I get all those reasons that he wouldn’t be right, but what Zegna likely needs is someone who will make beautiful clothes and let the literal suits run the business. Perhaps he’s the best choice after all.
