Everything can't be Tom Ford Gucci
Thoughts on fashion, algorithms & Peter Thiel
If you have spent anytime in fashion communities across Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest etc. you will have come across Tom Ford Gucci. Everything nowadays seems to be Tom Ford Gucci, and if its not Tom Ford Gucci its an influencer brand dupe of Tom Ford Gucci.
What I am describing is not aesthetic fatigue, I have the little fashion worm in my brain that allows me to look at beautiful clothes for the rest of my life without getting bored. This is exhaustion, what we are seeing is inertia disguised as taste.
Tom Ford was at the helm of Gucci from 1994 to 2004, his work was radical because it was disruptive, weaponized sex and commercialised desire. He made luxury predatory and modern. All things that seem to still be relevant and relatable for the “modern woman” because sex sells or whatever, but Tom Ford Gucci is somehow being seen as the last safe point of originality. It functions as a sort of security blanket, like a sure way to get on a best dressed list after a red carpet. The look has arrived pre-validated, we all know it gorgeous and thats what makes it boring.
Red carpet dressing no longer exists in isolation, it exists to be processed by the algorithm. A “successful” look is one that travels well across platforms, one that can be clipped, captioned or memed. Best-dressed lists are no longer written for readers but for engagement metrics. A sure thing is necessary because the algorithm rewards familiarity and speed. Tom Ford Gucci performs perfectly in this system: it is instantly legible, endlessly referenceable, and already culturally approved. Risk does not trend but recognition does.
The result is that stylists are not dressing for the event, or even for the wearer, but for the afterlife of the image. A look must survive compression into a Tweet, a TikTok slideshow, an Instagram carousel. Archive fashion thrives here because it arrives with a built-in narrative. The algorithm does not reward originality, it rewards what can be immediately understood, and a short history lesson attached to a look helps.
Fashion risk has been replaced by recognition. Twitter accounts scurry to be the first to identify the collection, year or the reference. Somehow being able to “clock a reference” has turned into a way to signal taste or positioning yourself as a fashion insider.
Without trying to point fingers, Law Roach seems to be the one that has popularised this way of styling. He has dressed his clients in some of the most beautiful looks, he is a great stylist but this obsession with the archives has created this narrative of “old is good, new is bad”. The final frontier of this has been the Kardashians adopting this way of dressing. Once mass culture validates something, it becomes the law.
This validation has allowed brands like Helsa or Khy to replicate these looks. It’s not reinterpreting the style its flattening it. Now we are consuming archive pieces without the authors name attached, this referencing loop is making the archives commercialised and diluted.
But we have been stuck in this riskless fashion loop for a while. We see this on an industry level with the same (mostly male) Creative Directors jumping from house to house, barely given enough time to build a long term vision, also forcing them to reference the archives, because its a safe fallback.
The result is a pervasive belief that there is no innovation left. Seemingly nothing good has been made since Tom ford Gucci. I’m starting to sound like Peter Thiel, innovation has stalled, that is why we need AI and Sam Altman is our Messiah. Fashion has responded to this same anxiety by worshiping the archive. Both tech and fashion are relying on the myth that nothing new is possible without extreme intervention, but I don’t think it has to be this way.
We have all been taught to trust systems over creators. Experts are out and algorithms are in. We are funneling billions into these obscure future technologies whilst also being told that human creativity is declining, and has been declining for a while. Fashion mirrors this exactly.
When does reverence become stagnation? When does taste become obedience? And when will we be bored enough to demand something new?
‘also forcing them to reference the archives, because its a safe fallback.’
When you said this I instantly thought of JW Anderson’s pre fall collection 26. After a while you sort of notice 1 bow 2 bow the they sort of accumulate.
Yes I understand he has only been there not long enough for the kettle to boil. But it got to a point that the bows were it was becoming hard to digest and that the designs got lost in the DNA Codes. Of course he is still world building it’s just the fear that he could fall into this category of the ‘safe fallback’
“When does good taste become obedience?”
It’s such a good question to ponder. I think in the pursuit of being perceived as a person with good taste, the unintended consequence is that a lot of people become less adventurous in their own sense of style.