In 1994, Tom Ford, the newly-appointed creative director of Gucci, invented sex. Technically, people had been bonking for a while before then, but it was the Texan designer who first beat the drum for greased-up, high-class, tectonic plate-shifting levels of horn. Throughout his decade-long reign at the Italian label, Ford’s collections brimmed with revealing cut-outs, navel-grazing silk shirts, and knee-skimming shoelace chokers. And occasionally, when the build-up of desire became too much to bear, models would swagger onto the runway in nothing but a g-string and a pair of chelsea boots. If sex sells, Tom Ford was its merchant-in-chief.
Prior to his tenure at Gucci, Ford had been working under Marc Jacobs at Perry Ellis. As a relatively unknown designer, not only did his appointment as creative director come as a surprise, it was met with disapproval – an American at an Italian heritage brand, whatever next? But within a year, Gucci’s profits rose by 90 per cent and the press couldn’t get enough.