TOM FORD AT GUCCI: AN ECSTASY OF SENSUALITY AND GLAMOUR IN THE 90S

Tom Ford transformed Gucci from a declining house into the ultimate symbol of erotic luxury in the ’90s. His vision turned fashion into a spectacle of desire, power, and provocation.

Before Tom Ford transformed Gucci into an international synonym for desire, scandal, and sophistication, the Italian house was going through one of the darkest crises in its history. Founded in 1921 by Guccio Gucci as a Florentine workshop for leather goods aimed at the European aristocracy, the brand had enjoyed its golden age in the 50s and 60s: Jackie Kennedy carried its bags, Elizabeth Taylor traveled with its luggage, and the horsebit loafers had become a status symbol. But the 80s brought with them a destructive family war, full of betrayals, lawsuits, and a bloody internal power struggle that left the brand without an identity. In 1990, Gucci was little more than a luxury dinosaur trapped in its own archives.

It was then that Tom Ford appeared, a young Texan with a background in architecture, cinematic sensibility, and enormous ambitions. At that time, no one imagined that a designer from the southern United States, with a background in New York advertising agencies and experience in smaller brands, would be the one to orchestrate one of the most spectacular comebacks in contemporary fashion history. Not even Dawn Mello, then the creative director of Gucci, could have foreseen the hurricane she had unleashed within the Italian house by hiring him as the womenswear designer.

Ford understood fashion as an act of total communication. He didn’t just design clothes; he built sensory universes. Each piece was part of a larger narrative, where the body—especially the desired, suggested, exposed body—was the center. In 1994, when he was appointed creative director, the transformation was immediate. The first thing he did was free Gucci from its rigidity. He removed the heavier decorative elements, modernized the logo without erasing it, and began speaking a new visual language: one made of provocative leathers, deep necklines, tight velvet pants, and satin blouses that draped over the torso like an indecent caress.

The spring-summer 1995 collection marked a turning point. The runway show, which ended with Amber Valletta walking to the rhythm of James Brown in an emerald green look, became a manifesto for the hedonism of the late century. Ford had understood that sensuality should not be decorative but political. And that luxury was no longer about showcasing economic power but embodying a lifestyle desired by all and accessible to very few. Gucci no longer dressed the wives of the elite: it dressed the women who led parties, caused scandals, seduced with a martini in hand and a lethal look.

In his advertising campaigns, Ford took that vision to the extreme. With Mario Testino’s photography and Carine Roitfeld’s styling, he redefined the notion of fashion imagery. They created the famous series where models appeared semi-nude, in explicit poses, bathed in bright light and oily skin. The most famous image: Carmen Kass, legs spread, with the G of Gucci shaved onto her pubis. The image was deemed obscene, censored, debated in conservative media, but also celebrated as a masterpiece of postmodern branding. Gucci became a conversation, a controversy, a phenomenon.

The Ford effect spread like wildfire. In five years, the house’s sales tripled. The brand went from being on the verge of bankruptcy to becoming the hottest object on the market. Madonna chose Gucci for the 1995 MTV Video Music Awards, with a gothic, sexy, sharp look that opened the door to a whole new red carpet aesthetic. Soon after, Gwyneth Paltrow, Cate Blanchett, Jennifer Lopez, Tom Hanks, and Brad Pitt followed suit. Ford didn’t just dress celebrities: he turned them into refined sex icons. Hollywood embraced his vision as though it were an infallible script.

And it wasn’t just about image. His collections had impeccable technical construction. Ford knew how to cut a jacket with the precision of a Neapolitan tailor, but he dressed it with carnal energy. The fall-winter 1996 collection, for example, is still remembered for its perfection: velvet suits evoking Luchino Visconti, body-hugging coats, sheer silk blouses, and miniskirts that seemed to float. All in a color palette ranging from crimson to pure black, from gold to ivory white. Luxury, in his hands, was not silent: it was cinematic.

Ford also had the ability to apply this aesthetic to all product lines: from glasses to perfume. In 1999, he launched Gucci Envy, a fragrance that, with its name, already suggested a toxic and fascinating emotion. The scent was green, sharp, sexy. In 2002, Gucci Rush arrived, with its red plastic bottle that looked more like a designer drug than a perfume. The vision was total. Nothing was casual.

Under his direction, Gucci became the epicenter of the new millennium: fashion embraced sex, fetishism, androgyny, obscene luxury, the symbolic power of the body and skin. Ford orchestrated it all with a filmmaker’s precision, paying attention to everything from the music of the show to the runway sets. The minimalism of the 90s gave way to controlled excess. Each of his collections was a statement: the winter 2003 collection, with python fur, sharp boots, and dresses that seemed cut with a knife, is still considered one of the highest points of high-fashion erotism.

But not everything was eternal. In 2004, after a dispute with the PPR conglomerate (now Kering), Ford left the house. His departure was as spectacular as his rise: the entire industry was shocked. The Ford era had ended, but his legacy was irreversible. Gucci continued to exist, of course, but without that electric charge he had given it. He, for his part, launched his own label in 2006 and became a film director. His debut, A Single Man (2009), was celebrated by critics and showed that his talent for building atmospheres was not limited to fashion.

Tom Ford didn’t just redesign Gucci: he redesigned the very idea of what a brand could be. He turned sex into a luxury strategy, image into a cultural battleground, and the body into a manifesto. His Gucci didn’t sell clothes: it sold lifestyle, danger, seduction, power. And above all, fantasy. Because as he himself said: "Fashion is an illusion. But it is an illusion we need to live."