“It’s an almost airbrushed kind of beauty that starts to permeate the mind,” he said. He described the collection as “simple in cut but not in impact”.

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Ford, the chairman of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, significantly pared down his crowd to conclude New York’s first full in-person fashion week since the pandemic began. Dozens of designers spread out over Manhattan and Brooklyn to welcome generally smaller crowds with varying degrees of attention paid to Covid-19 precautions.

Jennifer Hudson, seated between Dan Levy and Julianne Moore, bounced to Aretha Franklin’s Respect as she took video of Ford’s show on her phone. Hudson plays Franklin in a new biopic of the same name as the mega hit.

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Of his bold mix of colour, Ford said he likes tones of one hue worn together or “hard clashes that shock a bit. A little bad taste is always good taste in my book”.

One model carried a bouquet of white flowers in loose gold pants paired with a silver bra top and shirt coat that reached the ground. Ford didn’t explain his bride.

He called the collection of mostly evening clothes heavily influenced by sportswear after struggling with his eight-year-old son’s desire to wear basketball silks to school.

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“I decided to embrace the trend but turn the sports look into evening wear for women,” Ford said. “Of course, I still won’t let him wear basketball silks to school but I suppose if he really, really begged me to wear a sequinned pair from this collection I might make them for him.”