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Oh, that luscious blue velvet suit. It was the dark, rich hue of a dusky sky, its softness like dipping your hand into a tub of cocoa butter. And the structure! Artfully nipped at the waist to make anyone’s midriff feel perfectly cinched, while allowing your hips to bloom like those of Aphrodite.
Yes, I’m talking about a Tom Ford–era Gucci blue velvet suit from the fall 1996 collection. It’s Look 40, and comes right after its orange-red tailored sister that was once worn by Gwyneth Paltrow. I had seen the velvet piece pop up on my Instagram from the Chinatown-based archive vintage trove of James Veloria. Some wispy, beautiful shopboy had taken a mirror selfie in it. Immediately, I knew I had to have it—a rabid craving like that for a bar of milk chocolate, or a man who could deadlift me.
Some girls go crazy for the offbeat charm and quirk of Prada. Some love Phoebe Philo–era Céline, and how the label’s loose cuts make them look as if they gaze at outdoor sculptures all day. Others enjoy the saucy, sheer prints of vintage Jean Paul Gaultier that are prone to reveal a whisper of a nipple. My Achilles heel, however, is Tom Ford–era Gucci. The clothes exist for the sole purpose of making people look hot. The garments are aggressively sexy, usually cut from some delicious but severe satin fabric. If they had a taste, it would be sweat, the underside of a tongue, and a cherry Jolly Rancher.
I’ve been known to bag the rarest of the rare from Tom Ford’s Gucci on eBay by setting timers at 2 a.m., just to bid on a viscose tank top with two thin leather straps. (Sporty Spice wore it backwards to expose the hardware in the Vogue January 1998 issue. I have two. Oops.) I have shown up to sales 30 minutes before the doors opened to plow through and snag the prize piece: Madonna’s epic blue shirt that she wore to the 1995 MTV Video Awards. (Kate Moss wore it on the fall 1995 runway, too.) Bill collectors can call me, and I’ll press ignore. Sorry, not sorry—I already spent it on a pair of kitten heels with a thong strap affixed with blazing icy blue feathers. Hey! You can’t blame me: Those were in the fun-loving Gucci spring 1999 boho-themed campaign.
But the blue velvet suit is the holy grail of Tom Ford–era Gucci. It is as iconic as the tramp stamp emblem swim-thong from spring 1997, the white maxi dress with the cut-out and metal hip ornament of fall 1996, and, yes, the fall 1995 Bahamas-blue Madonna-Kate shirt that I own. And there it was, popping up on my feed, less than a mile away in the freaky-deaky, charming little shopping mall where James Veloria is located. I screenshot it. I pressed rewind, hovering my finger on the screen to pause the image. I took out my credit card and touched the numbers like I was reading braille. The price was $750. I should have told my boss I had an important meeting with a literal suit. I should have just left work. I should have just ran like I was trying to stop a lover from getting on the plane. I should have Citibike’d straight down there, bought it, and returned to work in the suit itself. Instead, my mind raced. Being an adult took over. The younger, more impulsive me would have just put it on a credit card and prayed for the rapture to take me right then and there. For a moment, I thought: YOLO. The world is sort of ending, so I might as well look good before it actually does.
And yet, despite the impending doom facing mankind, the steep price still made me halt. I knew deep down I didn’t need it. When would I ever wear it? I sport a continuous rotation of black items that show my midriff, like I am perpetually sitting shiva for my fourth husband. (To be transparent, for fear of ruining my blue Madonna-Kate shirt, I don’t wear it.) Besides, I needed a day to sleep on deciding whether to make the purchase. And while I slept on it, of course, it went away to another fan. Poof! Gone in a cloud of smoke. My non-buyer’s remorse swam over me, like I was doing the walk of shame in a broken heel or I had missed the subway to a life-changing meeting. I rabidly searched online for a replacement. Yes, these rare blue suits existed but the prices were outrageous, ranging from $6,995 for the full set or $1,595 for the jacket alone. No thanks!
But I couldn’t shake the look. It’s a killer look. It’s an expensive look. It’s a part-of-history look. I had to re-create it. I did a cursory search online for a blue velvet suit to see what was out there. What came up were new labels that ranged from $150 to $400, which in my mind, didn’t live up to the real thing. The velvet didn’t appear so luxurious. The silhouette felt sad. I felt like I had dumped the love of my life over not taking out the trash, and was now getting over my heartbreak by cruising through a Tinder of horrifying other options. Everything was just so second rate.
And yet, all was not lost. I love buying things already worn that are special and can’t be re-created. It’s how I exclusively shop, save for my underwear. So I hopped onto the TheRealReal. I knew in my obsessive, tiny brain that there had to be an affordable Gucci velvet look out there. And voila, there it was. I found a beautiful, orphaned blue Gucci blazer, languishing deep in the marked-down recesses. Yes, the color wasn’t exactly that intoxicating blue Tom Ford so fantastically created for the fall 1996 collection, but, sure, I felt a glimmer of it. Next up were the pants. In the mix of black skirts and black pants, were a pair of similarly marked-down blue Gucci velvet pants. In fact, I think they were actually the ones that Madonna wore with that iconic blue top to the MTV Video Awards back in 1995. Yes, as in my iconic blue top. Now, how about that?
