The Architect of Desire: Revisiting Tom Ford’s Gucci

We have strayed so far from the sensual light of Tom Ford’s Gucci.

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The ephemeral notion of “Desire” is slipped into the crevice of every product, campaign, and consumable — it is a call-to-action, an attempt to grasp sex itself. Desire acts as an emotional salve to soften the blow of parting with a hard-earned lire. In fashion, it awakens a scarcity mindset that threatens to spew open and erupt in the form of late-night Tiktok trawls, rabid wishlist spiels, and digital fawning.

Arguably the greatest architect of this is the bona fide bon viveur Tom Ford. Capital “D” Desire has become his signature code. Since Haider Ackerman debuted as Creative Director for the Tom Ford brand last March, Ackerman has sought to imbue the label with the same raunchy witticisms seen from the namesake designer’s Gucci tenure. Ackerman’s SS26 campaign imagery, shot by Drew Vickers, spotlights leather goods, including a smackable corporate bag delicately clutched to obscure a nude model’s rear. Susie Cave smolders, partially masked by the erect collar of a mesh, pine-green trench.

Prior to the va-va-voom luster regaled for its sexed-up commercialism, the Gucci company was atrophied by immoveable piles of duty-free stock, a conservative reliance on its bygone greats (John Wayne’s penchant for moccasins can only get a company so far), and familial power struggles. In 1989, retail executive Dawn Mello helped to restructure the company amidst financial crises, and cast Tom Ford into a ‘jack of all trades’ creative director role. Ford, inextricably driven by ambition, welcomed the challenge — after all, he is the same man who cut his teeth at Cathy Hardwick by harassing the designer until a job offer was made. It was the ultra-sleaze of Tom Ford’s Gucci that revealed the perverse underbelly of a neglected house, and catapulted it into a $4 billion valuation by the turn of the century.

His FW 1995 collection was an undeniable turning point for the brand. An amalgamation of hedonistic, jet-set glamour had editors frothing at the mouth. Marrying the 70s Halston girl, a beguiling reference considering Ford’s own Studio 54 trysts, with Ford’s own tantalising optimism created a high-octane debauchery. Amber Valletta sauntered out in velvet hip huggers and a plunging chartreuse silk shirt, dipped indelibly to the navel. Punctuated by a horsebit belt, its Hepworthian curves mirrored the hard-edged areas of the body. It was a sure-fire hit. Madonna snatched up a runway look for her appearance at the 1995 MTV VMAs, much to a tipsy Courtney Love’s envy, who hurled makeup paraphernalia at Madonna during a post-show interview with Kurt Loder. The appearance marked a spike in Gucci loafer sales.

Desire is most visceral in the tactile and sensorial. Ford never shied away from titillating his audience, using “music as a tool” and an extension of his provocative arsenal. Calling on the Fugees’ rendition of “Killing Me Softly with His Song” for FW96, a lusty atmosphere was heightened by the throbbing soundtrack. A flush of skin-skimming, jersey dresses were stamped at the pelvis and sternum by circular cut-outs emblazoned with Gucci hardware. The slinkiest red velvet suit was followed by swathes of ostentatious fox fur. Katherine Betts reported for Vogue that “the effect was Pavlovian. By the end of the show, breathless editors and reporters were panting “Gucci, Gucci, Gucci,” whilst Tim Blanks quipped the designer had “lit the fuse of the sex bomb”.

Tom Ford’s early days at Gucci are in some ways parallel to Anne Bancroft’s portrayal of the sultry cougar Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate (1967). His collections fronted by oil-slicked models louchely clad in fabrics coyly ask, “Would you like me to seduce you?” aware of their sensuality and knowing that refusal is futile. Imagery headed up by Mario Testino and Carine Roitfeld fortified this vision. The SS03 campaign of a male model grasping the heel of Louise Pederson’s silver peep-toes mirrors the oft-parodied shot through Mrs Robinson’s legs of the hapless Benjamin Braddock.

Whilst all of Ford’s campaigns carry a throughline of voyeurism, not one did it quite as explicitly as FW 1997. This campaign toys with it on an industrial, governmental scale. Lo-fi, grainy effects mimic surveillance footage from CCTV cameras. We watch unconsenting on the orgiastic piles of people, breathy mid-make-out close-ups, and zoomed-in shots of varnished pumps whose concrete-splitting steel heel cast unforgiving shadows. In a culture on the precipice of unbridled internet access, this imagery “caught that tension early”.

Subjects of the SS 2000 campaign were entirely aware of the observer. Luridly saturated, a scene depicts multiple models decked out in a sizzling python print. One male model is suspended in a water tank à la Damien Hirst, palm pressed to glass, peering above the rump of a Jackie 1961. Another model stands accusingly next to the vitrine in shocking pink tights and a deep-slit turquoise python dress. Ford fortuitously dubbed the collection as a mash-up of “Farrah Fawcett, Blondie, and a little bit of Gwenyth Paltrow” to speak to its glimmers of a late 70s glamfest (The Goop meister slithered into the blue python dress for a 1999 Tommy Hilfiger exhibit at The Met). All subjects lock eyes with the camera lens. Eros lies in the suggestive.

Nowadays, Gucci to me is synonymous with the Sloane Rangers that slip into twee, horsebit loafers for £800 a pair, as flaccid in their style convictions as their Gail’s pastries. Authors Ann Bar and Peter York attribute the uniform to a hunger for a “military equine” look (Official Sloane Rangers handbook, 1982). It feels a cruel end for a brand that sold desire with scandalous pubic hair logo-mania (thanks to Carmen Kass), or shoulder bags so racy they were penned as “car-paint-slick vermillion”. Let’s hope Demna can bring back sex. 🌀

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Flora Ivins is a writer and armchair critic based in London. You can often find her plumbing the depths of eBay or online @flosivie.