So What If Tom Ford Is On The London Fashion Week Schedule?

by Justin Fenner | 3:26 pm, July 14th, 2011

In a move that has our heads just a little bit confused, designer Tom Ford has added himself to the very public schedule of designers who will present their spring collections during London Fashion Week. This from a man whose last two shows were harder to get into than West Point.

The Daily Telegraph reports that Ford will join some 100 other designers who on the official roster of London spring shows. But just because he’s on the schedule doesn’t mean his show will be as open as Burberry, which live-streamed its last London show on the Internet.

Ford has staged women’s wear presentations before, but he’s only unveiled information about them to a select few. His spring 2011 collection, which he showed off the New York Fashion Week calendar last September, had a limited audience of 100 editors, including the lone photographer Terry Richardson. It was the object of curiosity and speculation for months, until the designer was gracious enough to unveil photos of it in November and video of it in January. His fall 2011 collection was presented in Londonhttp://www.styleite.com/media/tom-ford-london-fahsion-week/ this February under similar strictures, but got less attention. That may be because he asked the show’s attendees to sign a non-disclosure agreement. The entire spectacle prompted the fashion industry to ask whether it was prudent to have images of a new collection online within hours of the runway show ending.

Ford’s opinion was — and presumably still is — that putting a collection in front of consumers out of season would only ensure they got bored with it sooner rather than later. So is he changing his tune by adding his name to the London list? We think not.

Just because he’s on the calendar doesn’t mean he’s all of a sudden going to start tweeting pictures of samples arriving at his atelier, and it certainly doesn’t mean he’s going to allow just anyone into the show. The London Fashion Week website only tells us that the show will go down at 6 pm on Sunday, Sept. 18 somewhere in postal code SW1. Putting the time and date of his show out there just means his show will get more attention — and more coverage. We, for example, just wrote a post about it. And you just read it. And now you know.

[The Daily Telegraph]

Tom Ford Tom Ford London Tom Ford London Fashion Week Tom Ford Presentation Tom Ford Runway Show Tom Ford Secret Show