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No one does Tom Ford better than Tom Ford. “His inspiration was actually his 1996 runway show,” makeup artist Diane Kendal revealed backstage at Ford’s spring 2022 New York Fashion Week closer, a splashy affair on the mezzanine of Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theater. So Kendal looked back at the archives to Ford’s seminal show for Gucci, where one could argue that the Tom Ford makeup aesthetic was officially born: sultry lids, sculpted cheeks, nude lips, and a lot of sex appeal.
“This is very Tom Ford,” Kendal continued of the familiar face she applied to a familiar cast of characters: Perennial Ford favorites including Joan Smalls, Gigi Hadid, Soo Joo Park, and Vittoria Ceretti worked the makeshift runway to the bass-pounding beat of mashups that paired Stevie Wonder and Ella Fitzgerald with Kanye West and Jay-Z. But this season—Ford’s first live and in-person show since New York went into lockdown in March of 2020—required a slight tweak to the normal programming. “I suggested we try glitter just in the center of the eyelids, and he went for it,” Kendal continued, of the bronze flecks she pressed onto a smoky layering effort of pencils and the saturated pigments from Tom Ford Beauty’s Eyecolor Quad in Leopard Sun, which were topped with a slick of balm for hold.
Hairstylist Duffy’s super sleek side parts and low and tight chignons, which 21 of the 24 models received, were a similar throwback to Ford’s ’90s heyday—as well as his last show, a celebrity-studded pre-Oscars event in Los Angeles. “We’re basically doing the same thing we did in L.A., but instead of flower barrettes, we’re using these rhinestone clips,” Duffy said with a laugh, showcasing a series of utilitarian styling clips that Ford’s studio had bedazzled to catch the light of the runway—and those of the greatest city in the world, flickering through the floor-to-ceiling windows—just right.
