#archivalcollections

This week, Tom Ford dropped his last collection for his eponymous brand. Dubbed the “Archive Collection”, the promotional spot for it (watch it here) saw models in select Tom Ford designs from the past 13 years preserved in a glass box, with Tom Ford himself directing them where to stand and how to walk from outside the box, on the street. At the end of the video, the models stand still up against the glass windows, as Ford walks down the street of his past. We might even say he's taking it all in: all these archival designs, his favorite designs, what we might even call, perhaps, “iconic” designs, given their places in the fashion cultural zeitgeist (the Jay-Z inspired jersey dress!).

If there was ever a visual metaphor for archiving a brand and designer’s past, and a timely rumination on the timelessness of design, and how fashion heritage is made, this is it. American fashion brands, despite their innovation and connections to American history, might often be seen as too commercial to be heritage brands in a European sense. At times historicization of commerce in the American fashion sector can even smack of pure marketing, and not even remotely as the heritage marketing that is so prevalent across the pond (Exhibit A: the brand Nicole Miller’s efforts around its 40th anniversary). But, despite their links to commerce and an almost perpetual assumption that more artistically-inclined brands should show in Paris (Exhibit B: Thom Browne then) American fashion brands are not only embracing fantasy, craftsmanship and history stateside (Exhibit C: Thom Browne now), but European luxury conglomerates are taking an increased interest in American brands with a heritage, applying their own brand of magic to make Tiffany’s the new Bulgari (Exhibit D: LVMH’s recently reopened “Landmark” Tiffany store- I could go on about connections to historic preservation...). So, what makes an American fashion brand a heritage brand, a brand which sees its history as a key part of its brand identity and makes that history a key part of its value proposition for its customers?

Tom Ford may be providing us with a blueprint. First, Ford is creating distance between himself and the brand. History, after all, is harder to create when there is no opportunity for distance and at least some objective appraisal. While Peter Hawkings, a “longtime colleague and collaborator” of Ford’s, will succeed him as Creative Director (and, one might think, in a style very Tom Ford- esque, Exhibit D: Hawkings’ glasses in the photograph accompanying the announcement), Hawkings is not Ford, and this passing of the torch still leaves an opportunity for appraisal, even as Ford continues in an advisory capacity. Second, while creating distance, Tom Ford the designer is identifying and pointing to the heart of his brand by choosing these re-issues, the Tom Ford icons, as it were. These designs, along with the Tom Ford trademark and signature TF logo, can serve as archival reference points, starting points for Hawkings as he creates Tom Ford 2.0. In the process, these icons can become part of the Tom Ford brand identity DNA and a central part of the brand’s heritage. When combined with the Tom Ford myth, celebrity connections and cultural moments, sex appeal and design aesthetic, distance from the founder and iconic designs might just make Tom Ford the American fashion brand an American heritage brand.

The law is also central to the success of the heritagization of Tom Ford. Who owns the actual archive of Tom Ford’s tangible designs and sketches? Depending on whether ownership remains with Tom Ford the designer or Tom Ford the brand, and, by extension, with its parent company Estée Lauder, distance may be more or less successful, and original icons more or less accessible. Strength of trademark rights in future designs by Hawkings for the Tom Ford brand, especially those that riff on icons, may hinge on access to the archive and the copying of past designs: consumers need to continue to recognize icons on the market as originating from Tom Ford the brand. Newer designs still need access to archival authenticity, especially to garner consumer buy-in and recognition when new designs move the reference points in the archive further from the original designs conceived by Tom Ford the designer.

Presentations of Tom Ford’s iconic designs as part of cultural heritage in museums and retrospectives can also increase the brand’s fame, commercial strength, and broader connections to cultural moments that ground the Tom Ford brand heritage as part of our cultural heritage. There is speculation that Tom Ford might be the next Karl Lagerfeld, with a retrospective at the Costume Institute. How museum exhibitions present the iconic designs of the Tom Ford era might shape the contours of the historicization of the Tom Ford brand and cement the contents of its brand DNA. But how the Tom Ford brand builds on museums’ presentations in its marketing campaigns and in the products placed on the market will be fundamental to the scope of any possible trademark rights in the re-issued and archival designs Tom Ford has chosen for his brand’s future. These individual choices made by Tom Ford 2.0 also need to walk a fine line between the past and present, timeliness and timelessness. And here we return to the Archival Collection promo spot. It’s all well and good to place designs behind glass, but the nature of fashion still requires that aura of heritage and the past to spill over into the present onto human bodies, as it does on Amber Valletta and other models in the video.

And, on this note, we might see more bodies enveloped in reissues from the Archive Collection on the Met Gala Red Carpet on Monday, providing some clues, and more answers, for the heritage trajectory of the Tom Ford brand post Tom Ford….  

References and Further Reading:

https://wwd.com/runway/fall-2023/new-york/tom-ford/review/

Heritage Marketing By Shashi Misiura

https://doi.org/10.1093/jiplp/jpac105

https://cardozoaelj.com/fashions-brand-heritage-cultural-heritage-and-the-piracy-paradox/

https://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2022/09/guest-post-archival-authenticity-or.html

https://knowledge.essec.edu/en/video/heritage-brands-vs-brands-heritage.html

https://news.fitnyc.edu/event/fashion-culture-event-nicole-miller-in-conversation-with-valerie-steele/

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/26/style/tom-ford-final-collection.html

https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/luxury/peter-hawkings-named-creative-director-of-tom-ford/

https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/luxury/peter-hawkings-named-creative-director-of-tom-ford/

https://www.wmagazine.com/fashion/thom-browne-fall-2023-nyfw-review

https://www.tiffany.com/stories/the-landmark-fifth-avenue/

https://wwd.com/accessories-news/jewelry/tiffanys-fifth-ave-store-transformation-flagship-to-landmark-1235620166/