Tom Ford Spring 2023 Ad Campaign Review

Review of Tom Ford Spring 2023 Ad Campaign by Creative Director K Studio and Photographer Steven Klein with models He Cong, Felice Noordhoff, Annemary Aderibigbe, and Akbar Shamji

Tom Ford explores opulence and obsession with a new campaign for Spring 2023, captured by photographer Steven Klein with creative direction from K Studio.

Taking his cue from the collection’s unabashedly sexy glamor, Klein’s imagery paints with deep shades of purple and blue as he explores themes of desire and deprivation through a narrative of nocturnal rendezvous. In hotel rooms awash with velvet and silk that feel like the natural habitat for Ford’s lacy bra tops and glittering pencil skirts, as well as the 80s-influenced hairstyling, an open-ended encounter plays out between the story’s protagonists: three women and one man, a classically Tom Ford subversion of sexual power dynamics.

The accompanying short film further develops this narrative without explicitly answering any of its questions. Our male protagonist pounds and the door and sets his ear against the wall of an adjacent room where he has apparently not been invited, and where our glamorous heroines seem to have gotten distracted while packing their suitcases. In other moments, characters pick up the phone but get no answer or squeeze into bed together.

Dripping with barely-restrained sensuality and a sense of glamor that is unmistakably Tom Ford, the campaign forms a heady synthesis of motel sleaze and haughty luxury while raising intriguing questions about desire and possession.