Tom Ford is clearly the star of his own movie. After a six-year break from designing womenswear, Ford showcased his comeback Spring 2011 collection in an intimate hotel setting amongst 100 very glamorous guests and editors, with an even more glamorous lineup of famous ladies as his models: Julianne Moore, Lauren Hutton, and Beyoncé to name a few.
Shortly afterwards, he explained that his impulse for such an exclusive and private affair had to do with the rampant oversaturation of fashion images on the Internet: "I do not understand everyone’s need to see everything online the day after a show,” he said to Vogue. “I don’t think it ultimately serves the customer, which is the whole point of my business—not to serve journalists or the fashion system."
And so it's with great irony that we, journalists and members of the fashion system, point out that the first images of Mr. Ford's spring collection made available to the general public are indeed on Vogue.com—which resides on the Internet.
Although the profile of Mr. Ford accompanied with a fashion spread shot by Steven Meisel does appear in the magazine's December issue, the fact that Ford's very vocal disapproval of the Internet's churn, throwing fashion out a faster rate than designers can keep up, is a difficult one to accept when read on a computer screen. We'd also like to note that Mr. Ford's clothes are not yet available in stores—that won't be until December—which undermines the magazine's explanation of "why you see them here for the first time in Vogue."
Still, despite it all being on his own, somewhat self-contradicting terms—Mr. Ford is back, and very much back in Vogue. Besides his collection's exclusive coverage the U.S. edition (currently on newsstands), WWD reports today that the designer has been tapped by Carine Roitfeld to guest edit and also appear on the cover of French Vogue's holiday issue next month. We wonder if he'll oversee the print-to-web process as well.
