Tom Ford S/S 2011 New York

[fashionista-ta]

I still see the spirit of Ford consistent throughout his work, and I really don't see a deep aesthetic or intellectual evolution from the 90s to now. Again, I don't have a problem with an emphasis on sexuality, I have a problem with his IDEAS of sexuality. And, really, I don't see how he has introduced any revolutionary ideas about sexuality in the work under his name. Sexuality as a choice, on your own terms? Really? I think the problem is that the topic of sexuality has been so thoroughly exhausted by fashion already that at this point it's like talking about the weather: banal, unnecessary, mildly interesting, simply occupying blank space. I think fashion should be talking about other things. It will take a wiser and more intelligent man than Ford to propose something new about female sexuality in this day and age.

Sorry, but there are designers out there who have more talent than Ford when it comes to the construction of clothes. And there are designers out there who are more intelligent when it comes to their ideas about fashion, sex, and beauty. Tom Ford just has better marketing, PR, and a bigger, younger, and more vocal cult.

The outsider's perspective can certainly be fascinating (and valid), witness Camille Paglia. I don't know fashion history like some of you guys do ... am I correct in assuming that Le Smoking was inspired by YSL's muse (and very close friend) Betty Catroux?

I agree there's a difference between wearing men's clothes (as Fran Lebowitz does) and Le Smoking, but the famous Nan Kempner story seems to indicate that Le Smoking was perceived that way by those not in the know.

Personally I would like to see a proposal of something new by someone who actually knows something about female sexuality ... we've certainly seen quite a lot from people who don't. I think banal is a good word for it ...

 

[chloehandbags]

And to suggest that this concept dates back to Dietrich seems to misunderstand Sander's and Saint Laurent's contributions to fashion. Dietrich was about performance, about women pretending to be men, about the transgression of gender roles, but hers is an aesthetic that never entered the mainstream of fashion until Saint Laurent introduced Le Smoking. Dietrich was a woman who dressed in men's suits. Le Smoking was a woman's suit. There is a world of difference in that.

This simply isn't true.

My grandmother - a lower upper class British (London) housewife - was wearing trouser suits, specifically made for women, in the 1930s.

She was considered fairly daring, at the time, I believe; but she was, by no means, alone.

If you read The Beautiful Fall, you will see that certain claims were made by Pierre Bergé, about YSL's so-called 'inventions', that were rather fanciful, to say the least...

Call it good marketing, if you will?!

BTW, please don't think I'm rude, if I don't answer you (if you reply), as I am rather busy at work, ATM.

 

[Littleathquakes]

Of course, because all it takes to fully understand a person's complex love for fashion design is a few wordy posts on a forum thread. Well, then, you have made a very poor assessment of me. I focus equally on both the positive and negative aspects of fashion. I'm just not positive about the things that maybe you'd expect me to be positive about.

No. it's because I express my opinion once and if someone else happens to disagree, I accept it. Like I said, I understand your opinion, I just don't agree with it. People have differing opinions, it's a fact of life. But I do not repeat the same thing over and over to defend my opinion. I'm not an authority on this matter - neither are you.

**

I'm not saying yo don't have a right to do so, this is a public forum after all. But I think this pretention of an "open debate" is really an insult to the intelligence of some of us. We know it's not.

 

[mademoiselle_]

Uemarasanabout this comments

"It will take a wiser and more intelligent man than Ford to propose something new about female sexuality in this day and age."

This shocked me as it seems you know alot of fashion right? but this is completely subjetive, I can feel very sexual wearing Lanvin or wearing Prada, each woman has their own sexuality, and each man and woman see it different

Sorry, but there are designers out there who have more talent than Ford when it comes to the construction of clothes. And there are designers out there who are more intelligent when it comes to their ideas about fashion, sex, and beauty. Tom Ford just has better marketing, PR, and a bigger, younger, and more vocal cult.

Personally and in my opinion, his man suits are perfect it's hard to find the sophisticated cuts he gives to them , he made Gucci dresses for many time the desire of houndreds of women and man, and who are you to say what are the intelligent ideas of sex and beuty? that is "in the eye of the beholder"
You just can't say and compare ideas as "intelligent" because you basically are saying that if you don't like an idea that maybe to me it's the bestest then I am not intelligent

What an ignorant thing to say
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[Uemarasan]

Mademoiselle, I never said Elbaz or Prada aren't wiser and more intelligent than Ford. They are infinitely more intelligent about female sexuality than he is.

Who am I to say what are intelligent ideas regarding sex and beauty? I'm someone expressing my opinion. By the way, just because you think an idea is intelligent and I don't think it is does not mean my opinion extends to you. I am criticizing the idea, not you, and I don't think that's ignorant at all. You should not take it personally.

chloehandbags, I don't know, the trouser suit is very different from Le Smoking. The idea behind it, I mean, is not quite like the idea of transgressing gender. Didn't, say, Katharine Hepburn represent something entirely different from Marlene Dietrich?

Littleathquakes, I don't know how this is a pretension of an "open debate" when no one has been censored, belittled, or ridiculed. I am not the one here making things very personal. Besides, I was responding to something very different (my attitude towards fashion) in that quote above. Have I said I was an authority? No. I simply offered what I know and what I think in language perhaps stronger than usual. Sorry if I'm not interested in expressing my opinion just once or satisfied with a "let's agree to disagree" end to a discussion or having a pleasant opinion. I am more interested in exploring further my own views and those of others, and if that involves repetition, reconsideration, re-articulation, then so be it. Sure, I might be repeating my ultimate stance on Ford, but I don't see how I've been merely repetitive when it comes to all the finer points I have put forward. Can we stop arguing about the mechanics of this discussion? You can start a new topic if you want to discuss dialectics. Have a good day.

fashionista-ta, yes, Betty Catroux, in a way, and also Loulou de le Falaise was quite influential

 

[fashionista-ta]

^ This is a discussion forum, and it would be a very boring one if we all agreed My own opinion is that generally this thread is raising rather than lowering the level of discussion here ...

 

[Littleathquakes]

^ agreed. i will not bring this thread down any further.

 

[markese91]

From Harper's Bazaar here's Annette wearing Tom Ford Spring 2011 at the Golden Globes(it's Karlie's look)

 

[chloehandbags]

^ This is a discussion forum, and it would be a very boring one if we all agreed My own opinion is that generally this thread is raising rather than lowering the level of discussion here ...

Discussion is great.

What isn't so great, is when one person appears to be so utterly convinced they are right about everything, all the time (even when they're not necessarily and a lot of it is up for interpretation, anyway), that they assume that anyone, who doesn't always agree with them, must be very stupid, indeed.

I think most (civilised) people would agree that insinuating that other people are stupid, all the time, is not exactly the ideal way to raise the level of discussion?

Sorry, but I really think it needed to be said.

 

[Uemarasan]

Discussion is great.

What isn't so great, is when one person appears to be so utterly convinced they are right about everything, all the time (even when they're not necessarily and a lot of it is up for interpretation, anyway), that they assume that anyone, who doesn't always agree with them, must be very stupid, indeed.

I think most (civilised) people would agree that insinuating that other people are stupid, all the time, is not exactly the ideal way to raise the level of discussion?

Sorry, but I really think it needed to be said.

I don't think it has ever been insinuated on this thread that anyone is stupid. And I don't think anyone here is claiming to have the right opinions. I also don't see how the value of this discussion can be appraised by what other people assume one person's intentions to be.

I speak from a long-held, very anti-Ford point-of-view. Surely that much is apparent and that there should be certain expectations about what I'm going to say. I am not going to have "soft" opinions. Again, can this thread be more about Ford and less about the one person in question and anymore ad hominem issues? Let's go back to discussing the designer and his work. Thanks.

 

[Uemarasan]

I think it says a lot that Annette Bening looks terrible in that creation and only the model pulled it off.

 

[Street_a_Licious]

yes, and that's because she didn't bother with makeup or hair.

and honestly, dude, you sure protest a LOT. for someone to flood a designer's thread with their comments, it sure looks like you intent to force your opinion down everyone's throat.

not cool.

 

[Uemarasan]

I wasn't even looking at her hair and makeup. The design of the dress makes her body look misshapen.

Dude, I'm merely responding to posts addressed to me. I don't want to seem ungracious here. And the wordiness is just my personal writing style. Until a mod kindly tells me to stop flooding this thread, I don't think I am.

Now back to Tom Ford.

 

[Thefrenchy]

I think it says a lot that Annette Bening looks terrible in that creation and only the model pulled it off.

Is that supposed to prove he's a bad designer ? Please, that's just ridiculous ... The majority of celebs who wear designer dresses at events don't do them justice.

 

[markese91]

really... no shade to Annette but she doesn't have the most... ideal body. Please run along if you're going to judge Tom Ford as a designer by how one garment looks on her.

 

[fashionista-ta]

Wow ... I assumed from the pic that Annette was pregnant, but a quick search reveals she was born in 1958, so that would be unusual. The dress certainly seems like a poor choice if she is not (OK, even if she is).

Celebrities are far from ordinary women ... I would like to see much less of our doing the designers' work justice, and a lot more of their working to do us justice. I would be the last to deny that Karlie is fabulous ... but there's one of her, and millions of me.

 

[mikeijames]

annette bening actually took home a golden globe last night. i know we all like to pick apart the wardrobe choices of the various celebrities, but seriously, the woman is the real deal. would you rather tom ford put his dress on some starlet who looked 'amazing' but only got invited because she photographs well. that's the silly game of these fashion houses.

tom ford has made a point that he's creating a different kind of fashion house. he's not building a fashion house based on how good january jones' breasts look in a red frock. he's building a house around real women who are SERIOUS about what they do. and not to get too high on the horse, but annette benning can actually afford to shop at tom ford like many of the other women he has courted.

by the standards of some in this forum, coco chanel didn't look half as good in her own suits as her models did.

 

[Spike413]

I think it says a lot that Annette Bening looks terrible in that creation and only the model pulled it off.

The model being Rita Wilson, not Karlie Kloss as everyone seems to believe. You are still correct in that the model did pull it off far better than Mrs. Bening did, it's just that in this case the model isn't a model, she's another fifty-something year old woman with a normal body.
View attachment 571933

tomford.com, harpersbazaar.com

 

[fashionista-ta]

^ Who was wearing a corset ... which either didn't come with the dress, or Annette chose not to wear

 

[Uemarasan]

^ Who was wearing a corset ... which either didn't come with the dress, or Annette chose not to wear

Indeed, my problem with the design is that it looks its best only if a corset is used or if the wearer has an unrealistically fantastic body to begin with. Would Rita Wilson look just as good if she didn't let the corset dictate what her figure should look like (a perfect silhouette)? Otherwise, the dress actually works against the body.