Under Haider Ackermann’s direction, Tom Ford has entered a new era: an age of reflective sophistication, where beauty does not sit atop the surface but emanates like lacquered light. For Spring/Summer 2026, Global Makeup Artist Lucy Bridge staged a beauty ritual that was both modern and cinematic luminous skin, lacquer-layered lips, eyes touched with deliberate imperfection. The runway, glossed in navy, set the mirror for this season’s beauty codes: reflective, multidimensional, and undeniably desirable.
The Face: Radiance as Architecture
Skin was built, not painted. Tom Ford Shade and Illuminate Soft Radiance Primer smoothed and hydrated, while the new Tom Ford Architecture Radiance Hydrating Foundation SPF 50 worked as both protection and seduction, infused with hyaluronic acid, botanical oils, and the rare Queen of the Night flower — a nocturnal bloom captured here as skin’s defender. Niacinamide lent a glow that felt more eternal than fleeting. The highlight shade of the Tom Ford Shade and Illuminate Contour Duo was placed not merely on the cheekbones, but across the eyelids, sculpting glass-like naturality: light becoming architecture.
The Lips: A Masterclass in Desire
The collection’s central gesture was the lip lacquered, layered, unapologetically kissable. This was not a single shade but an orchestration: Tom Ford Runway Lip Colour in Unzip laid the dimensional base, deep berry red and darkly romantic. Tom Ford Lip Colour Matte in Velvet Cherry followed, rounding the look in warmth. Then Slim Tom Ford Lip Colour Shine in Scarlet Rouge added vitality blood, breath, pulse before Tom Ford Gloss Luxe in Disclosure sealed everything in high-shine decadence. The result? A mouth that felt cinematic, alive, and deliberately excessive.
The Eyes: The Broken Lash
Subversion came at the eyes. Lashes, coated in Tom Ford Extreme Mascara in Raven, were touched only at the inner and outer corners, leaving the center bare. This calculated omission created a “broken lash” effect part undone, part deliberate. A glance that fractured expectation, that refused perfection.
The Fragrance: Oud, Rewritten
Every Tom Ford show closes not with silence but with scent. For SS26, it was Tom Ford Oud Voyager: an oud of the future. Jewel-like florals; geranium absolute and red peony accord collided with the depth of oud in a tri-distillate that was almost electric. It was oud not as tradition but as rebellion, an aromatic architecture that mirrored the reflective skin, the lacquered lips, the broken lashes.
The Tom Ford SS26 Woman
The Tom Ford woman of this season is deliberately sculpted yet defiantly human luminous skin as shield, lips as performance, eyes as disruption, fragrance as armour. She is impossible to look at without being pulled into her orbit: a mirror that reflects, refracts, and finally consumes.
