The Dangerous Seductions of Tom Ford's SS27 Collection Clothes Made to Be Torn Off
Desire has been something more or less absent from the current season of runway shows. The clothes are beautiful, of course, as are the people wearing them on the catwalk. But where is the sex? We are not talking, to be clear, about merely provocative garments: sex must be evoked, since displaying it outright would be vulgar. Desire is a tension — it ignites when, looking at a certain look, we can sense the intent of the person who put it together, the thoughts running through their mind. It should almost make you uncomfortable, while always stopping just short of the edge. And the only one who, for now, manages to evoke desire on the runway is Haider Ackermann who, yesterday, with the Tom Ford SS27 show, reaffirmed that he is simply among the best creative directors working today.
"Freedom at the edge," Ackermann writes in his notes. "Not to fall, but to feel that one could." The show truly lived at the edge: among the various tracks of the soundtrack that rang out now harsh, now impassioned, one could hear gasps and moans of an entirely unambiguous nature. The models, moving in and out of a glass structure, would sometimes press themselves against the walls as if possessed by invisible lovers. Over everything, there reigned that vibe of seduction Ackermann has instilled in Tom Ford: the seduction of the fatal lover, the libertine as elegant as he is corrupt, with a certain sadistic, dominant coldness in his bearing and, naturally, in his dress.
The best part is that this game of evocation and suggestion requires no overly revealing garments. Certainly, Mariacarla Boscono wore a two-layered sheer skirt that only ceased to fully expose the bare skin beneath right at the very edge of the groin. And certainly, there were plenty of debauched dandies with hair slicked back with pomade, pitch-black sunglasses, and bare legs beneath their evening jackets. Many of the looks seemed caught mid-undress, as though the guests at an elegant dinner were stripping off to take part in one of those more or less "bilateral" parties.
Even so, the connection between seduction and nudity was never a foregone conclusion: Ackermann suggests his sensuality even with the body covered, even with decidedly mature men and women (the younger models, in fact, seem almost like innocent novices given the scorching sense of perdition that permeates everything) and even in the midst of the most precise, painstaking tailoring. Certainly, after much covering and uncovering — particularly with tops plunging to the navel beneath rigid jackets — a swimwear section opened up worthy of Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct or Rebecca Romijn in Femme Fatale. But the Tom Ford woman seems precisely the type of person who strolls poolside in high heels for the sheer pleasure of taking everyone's breath away without ever truly giving herself.
The only criticism one might level at the collection or its styling was that this season there was a noticeable concession to commerciality: a leather top bearing the logo, a couple of shirts tucked into boxer shorts in what has become a rather tired styling trick for a brand so chaude and so chic. Everything else, however, was more than impeccable: the collection, like all those that preceded it, was practically perfect. The day Ackermann receives one extra flash of inspiration and makes his show just a touch more theatrical, fashion historians will need to take notes.
