The 1990s mid-to-late 1990s
Tom Ford at Gucci
A young Texan designer who turned an ailing Florentine leather house into the sexiest label of the decade - velvet hipsters, satin shirts and 1970s glamour in 1995 - and helped invent the modern 'creative director'.
The Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel entry shows how a 1980s designer revived a famous old house. Tom Ford's work at Gucci is the 1990s version of that story, and it was even more dramatic, because Gucci was in real trouble when he arrived.
Gucci had been founded in Florence in 1921 as a leather-goods and luggage maker and became hugely fashionable in the 1950s and 1960s, famous for its horsebit loafers and bamboo-handled bags. But by the late 1980s it had been damaged by family feuds, legal battles, and too many cheap licensed products, and it was losing money. Tom Ford, an American born in Texas in 1961 who had studied architecture and design in New York, joined in 1990 as the designer for women's ready-to-wear. After changes in management, he was made creative director in 1994.
His breakthrough was the autumn/winter 1995 collection. It drew on 1970s glamour and Halston-style sex appeal: low-slung velvet hipster trousers, silk satin shirts in bright colours, slim mohair coats, and gold hardware, shown on models who looked sleek, confident, and sexy. It was a sharp contrast to grunge and the waif look, and it was a huge success. Gucci quickly became one of the hottest labels in the world, with sales rising rapidly through the late 1990s.
Part of Ford's success was that he controlled everything: clothes, accessories, advertising, shop design, and image. With the stylist Carine Roitfeld and the photographer Mario Testino, he created provocative, glossy advertising campaigns that sold a whole mood of glamour and sex. That total control over a brand's image helped define the modern role of the "creative director," which has shaped luxury fashion ever since.
I find Tom Ford's Gucci a fascinating counterpoint to the decade's more serious and understated designers. Where Miuccia Prada was intellectual, Ford was frankly seductive, and his clothes brought back a sleek, polished glamour that many people had missed. His velvet hipsters also helped push waistlines lower, part of the story of the low-rise waistband.