The Tom Ford SS27 collection opened with a hairy-chested man in a pinstripe suit, shirt unbuttoned to the sternum, admiring his own reflection in a glass partition. The message was unambiguous before a second look had even left the wings. Haider Ackermann, appointed artistic director of the house in September 2024 according to Numéro, has now produced what may be his most libidinous statement at Tom Ford to date.
The woman who followed that opening man was equally unabashed: briefcase in hand, pinstripes on her body, a string vest worn without a bra underneath. Only on closer inspection did the vest reveal itself to be laser-cut leather, supple enough to move like a second skin. This is the particular sleight of hand Ackermann has been refining here. Kink and craft are not in opposition at Tom Ford; they are the whole point.
Tom Ford SS27 collection: leather, chiffon and the art of undress
Leather ran through the collection in several registers. Folded leather bra tops appeared with sheer pencil skirts. Sleek tailored trouser suits, cut for both men and women, were worn with nothing underneath. One trouser suit arrived in sheer chiffon, the tailoring immaculate and the transparency entirely deliberate. Even the denim pieces leaned into déshabillé: one pair of jeans so tattered at the back that the model’s boxer shorts were fully visible, which managed to read as considered rather than careless.
Models in sheer unitards poured onto the catwalk, eyeing one another as they moved. Strong-shouldered bodysuits were worn without skirts. Deeply scooped silk tees appeared beneath tuxedos, hinting at undress without quite committing to it. The red gowns, lean and precisely cut, delivered the drop-dead sophistication this label has always excelled at. There was, across the whole show, an atmosphere of heavy breathing and controlled provocation, as though the clothes themselves were aware of being watched.
A series of swimwear looks closed the proceedings, with Ackermann cutting daring, architectural lines across the body. In person, the construction was arresting in the way that only live shows can be.
The thong moment and its Gucci echo
The most talked-about moment came mid-show, when a male model in swimwear turned to reveal thong-backed trunks. The callback was hard to miss. In 1997, Tom Ford pulled off a buttock-baring moment at Gucci that became one of the more scandalous images of that decade’s fashion weeks, and Ackermann’s reference to it here felt less like nostalgia than like a statement of inheritance. The house knows where it came from.
There is a broader argument being made across this collection about what Tom Ford is, or what it should remain. Ackermann has not softened the sexuality that defines the house’s DNA, nor has he leaned on it lazily. The laser-cut leather vest worn in place of something ordinary, the chiffon suiting that requires commitment to carry off, the red gowns that land with genuine force: these are not the moves of a designer coasting on a predecessor’s mythology. They are the moves of someone who has absorbed that mythology and decided to build on it rather than around it.
The Tom Ford SS27 collection will be available via tomford.com. Photography for the show is courtesy of Tom Ford.
