Tom Ford Talks Rihanna, Fatherhood & Fashion

Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel were the front-row eye candy for Tom Ford’s big show in London on Monday night, held in one of the royal palaces, Lancaster House, just a stone’s throw from Buckingham Palace. But even they couldn’t out-dazzle the chief showman of fashion, who produced an explosively brilliant show crammed full of stye, panache, intelligence, and wit.

To a thumping beat reverberating through the gilded chambers, Ford magicked an extraordinary, gasp-inducing array of dazzling, disco-flavored designs—shaggy furs, thigh-high boots, and million-dollar hoodies encrusted with jewels.

There was plenty of print, masses of fur—the luxe Tom Ford kind—and an array of eye-bending geometric designs.

The colours were as disco as the soundtrack—yellows, pinks, and orange—but the best was saved to last: drop dead gorgeous floor-length gowns, clinging like liquid Viagra to the models’ bodies, mirror-ball starbursts of gems exploding ‘round the hip and butt.

Pure sex. Pure Tom Ford. The only sadness was it had to end.

Ford said afterward in an exclusive interview with The Daily Beast that becoming a father—he and his long-term partner Richard Buckley announced the birth of their son in September—had unleashed new creative energies in him and that he believed this was one of his strongest collections ever as a result. He also had a few words to say about my Rihanna piece.

It was his first big, proper show in London. And, as he told The Daily Beast, it won’t be his last.

Thank god for that. All hail Tom Ford.