Tom Ford made his name with sexy tailoring - the latterday rejuvenation of both Saint Laurent and Gucci was predicated on just that.
So how thrilling to note his return to the genre for Spring/Summer 2015 at his own label, a collection that walked on Marc Bolan platforms to a growling female cover version of Robert Palmer's Addicted to Love. A seventies pastiche, for sure, but we've had a few of those this week and this one felt every bit as relevant - if not more so for its sheer glamour. After all, whoever really stopped wanting to look like Marianne Faithfull?
Legs were long and lean in black kick flares, some made from suede, others in amazingly supple leather and yet more in the form of 'jeans'. Of course, jeans in the Tom Ford galaxy are made from thousands of micro-sequins rather than denim, in midnight blue, bronze and oil slick hues, even a reworked and abstract leopard print. In fact, he also made 'jumpers' and 'leggings' from these, as well as a sweeping and elegant floor-skimming cape.
The inverted commas are necessary, because describing Ford's clothes in usual terms feels not quite right. These pieces are so luxe, the look so refined (even when, in this case, it's channelling something rather filthy-nasty in its fabulousness) that they defy the usual codification.
But some were identifiably mortal - tuxedo jackets were cut close and hard on the shoulder. A cheaper version just won't be the same, but you'll buy one in homage anyway.
And there were dresses too, somewhere between Patti Boyd and Elizabeth Taylor in their references. Short, sheer and unbelievably slick, sequin-dripping babydolls featured clusters of jewels acting as the most upmarket pasties any nipple has ever hid behind.
Perhaps it's a sign of the times and how inured we are to sex culture, but this collection, though oozing sensuality and gloss, wasn't shocking in its eroticism in the same ways that Ford-era Gucci was. Instead it was gobsmackingly opulent, and of the sort of cool calibre that will surely show up other, more frothy red carpet choices as staid come award ceremony time next year.
