Tom Ford Cancels New York Fashion Week Show Due to COVID-19 Surge

Kirsten Chuba
·2 min read
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Tom Ford’s New York Fashion Week show is the latest event to be canceled amid the omicron variant COVID-19 surge.

The show, originally scheduled for Feb. 16, was set to be the closing runway for NYFW, which kicks off on Feb. 11. But, the designer announced Monday, the company’s staff has been heavily affected by COVID and will not be ready to hold a show in three weeks.

More from The Hollywood Reporter

“I am incredibly disappointed not to be able to present a show during New York Fashion Week as I feel strongly that a live presentation is the best way to convey a clear message for the season,” Ford said in a statement. “We have struggled internally over the past month with many of our staff out with COVID-19 in our design studio and atelier in Los Angeles as well as in our factories in Italy. We have tried everything possible to avoid canceling our New York show, but ultimately are faced with the sad fact that we will simply not have a completed collection in time for New York Fashion Week.”

Tom Ford will instead release its collection imagery digitally, with timing to be announced at a later date. Ford himself is also chairman of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, which organizes NYFW.

As COVID-19 cases return to lower levels in New York City after hitting record-highs around the holidays, NYFW is carrying on while requiring vaccinations and masks indoors. Coach, Tory Burch, Proenza Schouler, Michael Kors, Anna Sui, Jason Wu and Christian Siriano are among those still on the calendar.

Tom Ford’s scrapped show also follows a wave of omicron postponements and cancellations in Hollywood, including the Sundance Film Festival moving online and the Critics Choice Awards and Grammys shifting into March and April, respectively.

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