Tom Ford
002
Author Tom
Ford, Text by Bridget Foley
https://www.rizzoliusa.com/book/9780847864379
A fashion
icon, provocative American designer Tom Ford brings us his highly anticipated
second book, which takes readers through the illustrious trajectory of his
billion-dollar luxury empire established in 2005.
Synonymous
with high-octane glamour, opulent sexuality, and fearless fashion, Tom Ford is
an iconic designer whose namesake label has devout followers across the globe,
from Milan and New Delhi to Shanghai and New York. Seventeen years after his
best-selling debut book Tom Ford (2004), which detailed his time as creative
director for the Italian label Gucci, this second volume is a visual ode to
Ford’s eponymous brand created in 2005 and encompasses cosmetics, eyewear,
menswear, and his critically acclaimed womenswear line.
The revered
designer not only catapulted his brand to the highest echelons of the fashion
world—receiving accolades from the Council of Fashion Designers of America and
Time magazine’s Best Designer of the Year—but also commanded the attention of
Hollywood by featuring loyal A-list fans such as Julianne Moore, Lauren Hutton,
Pat Cleveland, and Nicholas Hoult in his runway shows and advertising
campaigns. This gorgeous slipcased volume includes dazzling imagery of Ford’s
clothing and accessories designs, fashion editorials featuring top models such
as Gigi Hadid, Joan Smalls, Mica Argañaraz, and Jon Kortajarena, and his
signature sexually-charged advertising campaigns by photographers such as Inez
& Vinoodh, Nick Knight, Steven Meisel, and Mert & Marcus.
This
volume, printed with Forest Stewardship Council approved materials and edited
by Ford personally, reflects his exceptional taste and unapologetic sensual
aesthetic and is a true collector’s item for his devotees and connoisseurs of
fashion, style, and design.
About The
Author
Tom Ford is
a celebrated American designer, creative director of his namesake fashion
empire, and acclaimed filmmaker. Bridget Foley is executive editor of Women’s
Wear Daily (WWD).
Interview
Tom Ford: ‘I paid $90,000 for my own dress. The
clothes we make are not meant to be thrown away’
Karen Dacre
From fashion with va-va-voom to veganism – ahead of
the release of his new book, America’s starriest designer takes a moment to
reflect
Tom Ford
Tom Ford, a
self-confessed ‘hyper Virgo’. Photograph: David Bailey
Wed 10 Nov
2021 08.00 GMT
Tom Ford
answers my phone call in precisely the way I’d hoped he would: with a voice as
smooth as butter and the grace of Cary Grant.
We are in
touch to discuss his latest project, a coffee-table book charting the past 15
years of his career – or “post-Gucci”, as those familiar with luxury fashion
prefer to describe the era that has followed Ford’s departure from the Italian
super brand.
Tom Ford
002, which spans 444 pages, includes imagery by photographers such as Mert and
Marcus and Inez & Vinoodh and a foreword by Anna Wintour. The list of
celebrities featured reads like the lineup of one of Ford’s fashion show front
rows with Drake, Rihanna, and Jennifer Lopez among the headliners.
But first,
the gentleman prefers small talk. “You’re in London? How wonderful. I miss it,”
he says of the city he used to call home.
Texan-born
Ford speaks to me from Beverly Hills, where he has lived since decamping from
the UK in 2019. It is lunchtime where he is, and the sun is shining. “I do a
lot of Zooms, but it’s good to talk like this. It means I didn’t have to get up
and take a shower beforehand,” he says. It’s reassuring to discover that the
man credited with reinventing sex appeal is enjoying a duvet day of sorts.
Laid back
is not a phrase commonly associated with Ford. As a designer, he remains
fiercely loyal to the breed of high-octane glamour he used to transform Gucci
into a billion-dollar business. His brand, which spans womenswear, menswear and
cosmetics, is a status symbol for the super-rich. Its scintillating ad
campaigns, instantly recognisable as Ford’s, are an extension of his aesthetic.
A
self-confessed “hyper Virgo”, Ford has an unforgiving eye for everything from
floral displays (single-stem bunches only) to the length of a shirt cuff. He is
also fashion’s starriest designer. Catwalk shows for the eponymous label he
launched in 2004 attract a guest list to rival the Oscars. Julianne Moore and
Rihanna are regulars. In 2013, Jay-Z named a song in his honour.
Ford is at
ease among Hollywood’s top tier because he is in it. After parting ways with
the Gucci group, he switched from fashion to film set. Ford’s movies – A Single
Man (2009) and Nocturnal Animals (2019) – were nominated for Academy Awards.
Both are beautiful to watch.
At home,
where he lives with his nine-year-old son Jack, Ford’s life has been upended.
Richard Buckley, his partner of 35 years and Jack’s other parent, died in
August. It seems poignant that Ford’s new book, the result of much reflection,
should appear on shelves when he is processing such loss. “When Richard saw the
book, he said: ‘That’s a lot of water under the bridge’ and turned and left the
room,” Ford says.
A
photograph of Jack is among Ford’s favourite additions to the book. “It is the
only shot I have ever released of him publicly. He was five when it was taken,
so no one would recognise him from it,” he says.
A candid
Q&A with Women’s Wear Daily’s Bridget Foley is also featured. In it, Ford
discusses everything from exiting Gucci to being part of the only gay couple at
the golf club and describes his son as his “number one focus”.
The
designer also highlights the potency of good taste in the Buckley Ford family’s
genes. “One time when he was five, somebody at school asked what was the worst
thing you could think of. Jack said: “Brown shoes with a black belt.”
Work on the
book meant that Ford spent lockdown sifting through thousands of images. “It
was an interesting thing to spend so much time looking back,” he tells me, “it
is not something I do often.”
His
reluctance to take stock is a hangover from his days at Gucci, when there was
no time to pause for reflection, a period that led to burnout, and he had what
he has called a “mid-life crisis”. “It’s hard to look back when you’re
constantly expected to produce,” he says. “I remember having dinner with Karl
Lagerfeld and him telling me that I’d only understand how well things were
going in the future once I had the chance to go back.”
Undoubtedly,
this time of contemplation has enabled Ford to recognise how much things have
evolved. He cites an “obsession with political correctness” as a drawback for
this generation of fashion designers. “Cancel culture inhibits design because
rather than feeling free, the tendency is to start locked into a set of rules.
Everything is now considered appropriation. We used to be able to celebrate
other cultures. Now you can’t do that.”
Ford, the
elected chair of the Council of Fashion Designers of America and perhaps, the
world’s chicest environmentalist, welcomes the call for the luxury world to
lessen its impact on the planet. He started by doing his bit at home. “I
switched to aluminium straws, got rid of single-use plastic,” he says. In 2017,
Ford announced he was a vegan. “I really don’t need to meat,” he says, and
credits the Netflix documentary What the Health for inspiring the change in
diet.
He is
applying the same mindset to his business – Ford’s label turns over $2bn
(£1.48bn) a year, while Tom Ford Beauty turns over $1bn – paying attention to
details such as packaging and workers’ rights. “People are well looked after,”
he says.
In Ford’s
mind, true luxury fashion is sustainable by its nature. He tells me that he
recently paid $90,000 for a dress he designed during his tenure at Yves Saint
Laurent to add to his archive. “The clothes we make are not meant to be thrown
away,” he says.
Ford seems to
be fascinated and repulsed by the digitalisation of fashion.
“The future
of fashion is increasingly cartoonish,” he says. “Instagram has broken down the
rules. People dress up to take pictures of themselves to post online,
everything is exaggerated – especially the eyebrows.”
He recently
watched Fake Famous, the HBO documentary about influencers, and found the
revelation that Instagram users were using toilet seats to give the illusion of
being on a plane “completely hysterical”.
Can we
expect to see an airport selfie of him soon? “Never!” he says. “I’m very
private.”
You can
count on Ford to keep it classy.
Tom Ford 002, by Tom Ford, is published by
Rizzoli (£95).
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