"Every product a man could possibly want," announced Tom Ford to a roomful of editors during a day of presentations in London for his latest collection for men. He wasn t kidding. And against the broad strokes of choice—like the five jacket silhouettes, the seven widths of tie—there were the small flourishes that defined Ford s manic eye for detail. Like the buttonholes of a made-to-measure suit, which demanded thirty-five man-hours to finish. It s always the buttonholes that bring out the real obsessives.
Distinguishing a collection that has, in the past, been fierce in its rejection of one extra kilo of imperfection was a new (semi-)generosity of spirit, perhaps influenced by Ford s work with Daniel Craig on the James Bond movies. He did, in fact, mention that his suit base had been modified for Mr. Muscle: the jacket not as skinny, the single-pleated pants trim but not tight, the waistcoat with a higher cut, giving it an early sixties secret-agent feel. The coats—boxier, cut short at the knee—and the clean lines of a roll-neck also echoed that era (though maybe more Harry Palmer than James Bond).
Ford differentiated between his women s and men s collections like this: Womenswear is very fashion, men s is very classic. But that distinction seemed a little on the reductive side for menswear that had enough quirky charm to take the chill off Tom s perfectionism this time round. He used to say he d never do knits (never flattering, he felt), and yet they have evolved into one of the collection s strong points: lush in color, delightfully soft of touch and personal association. "I was wearing a Fair Isle sweater when I met Richard [his partner, Richard Buckley]," Ford said, holding up his reedition of that signal item. There were also Fair Isle socks, which we saw a lot of in well-turned ankles. ("You could always see Cary Grant s socks," the designer explained.) Items such as a cropped shearling, as well as a duffle coat that Ford said was his male version of the one worn by Ali MacGraw in Love Story, highlighted a real facility with deluxe sportswear, a healthy association for the label "Tom Ford," which is most often attached to penguin-suited superstars on the rarefied upper strata of the red-carpet world.
Those outdoorsy pieces were more pragmatic functionaries of the "every product a man could possibly want" ethos than the velvet slippers embroidered with art-nouveau nymphs. But typical of Tom to give new-world feet the gift of old-world decadence.
