Tom Ford solutions my telephone phone in specifically the way I’d hoped he would: with a voice as clean as butter and the grace of Cary Grant.
We are in contact to talk about his most recent project, a coffee-desk reserve charting the previous 15 yrs of his profession – or “post-Gucci”, as those people common with luxurious vogue desire to explain the era that has adopted Ford’s departure from the Italian tremendous model.
Tom Ford 002, which spans 444 web pages, consists of imagery by photographers these kinds of as Mert and Marcus and Inez & Vinoodh and a foreword by Anna Wintour. The listing of famous people highlighted reads like the lineup of just one of Ford’s style show entrance rows with Drake, Rihanna, and Jennifer Lopez amongst the headliners.
But 1st, the gentleman prefers little speak. “You’re in London? How amazing. I pass up it,” he says of the city he applied to phone household.
Texan-born Ford speaks to me from Beverly Hills, in which he has lived because decamping from the United kingdom in 2019. It is lunchtime where he is, and the sun is shining. “I do a good deal of Zooms, but it’s superior to talk like this. It indicates I didn’t have to get up and consider a shower beforehand,” he states. It is reassuring to find that the gentleman credited with reinventing sexual intercourse attraction is having fun with a duvet day of types.
Laid again is not a phrase usually affiliated with Ford. As a designer, he continues to be fiercely loyal to the breed of higher-octane glamour he employed to transform Gucci into a billion-dollar organization. His brand name, which spans womenswear, menswear and cosmetics, is a status symbol for the tremendous-prosperous. Its scintillating advert strategies, immediately recognisable as Ford’s, are an extension of his aesthetic.
A self-confessed “hyper Virgo”, Ford has an unforgiving eye for every thing from floral shows (single-stem bunches only) to the duration of a shirt cuff. He is also fashion’s starriest designer. Catwalk displays for the eponymous label he released in 2004 attract a guest list to rival the Oscars. Julianne Moore and Rihanna are regulars. In 2013, Jay-Z named a music in his honour.
Photograph: Lenny ‘Kodaklens’ Santiago
Ford is at ease amid Hollywood’s leading tier due to the fact he is in it. Just after parting approaches with the Gucci team, he switched from fashion to film set. Ford’s motion pictures – A Solitary Guy (2009) and Nocturnal Animals (2019) – ended up nominated for Academy Awards. The two are lovely to watch.
At household, exactly where he life with his nine-year-old son Jack, Ford’s lifetime has been upended. Richard Buckley, his husband or wife of 35 years and Jack’s other mum or dad, died in August. It appears to be poignant that Ford’s new reserve, the result of much reflection, really should look on shelves when he is processing this sort of loss. “When Richard observed the e-book, he reported: ‘That’s a whole lot of h2o less than the bridge’ and turned and still left the place,” Ford claims.
A photograph of Jack is among the Ford’s favorite additions to the e-book. “It is the only shot I have ever unveiled of him publicly. He was five when it was taken, so no one would recognise him from it,” he claims.
A candid Q&A with Women’s Have on Daily’s Bridget Foley is also highlighted. In it, Ford discusses all the things from exiting Gucci to becoming component of the only gay couple at the golfing club and describes his son as his “number 1 focus”.
The designer also highlights the efficiency of fantastic flavor in the Buckley Ford family’s genes. “One time when he was five, someone at faculty requested what was the worst matter you could believe of. Jack mentioned: “Brown footwear with a black belt.”
Photograph: Simon Perry
Operate on the e book meant that Ford expended lockdown sifting through 1000’s of photos. “It was an appealing issue to invest so considerably time seeking back,” he tells me, “it is not something I do generally.”
His reluctance to consider stock is a hangover from his days at Gucci, when there was no time to pause for reflection, a period of time that led to burnout, and he had what he has termed a “mid-lifestyle crisis”. “It’s tough to glance back again when you’re frequently envisioned to produce,” he suggests. “I bear in mind obtaining meal with Karl Lagerfeld and him telling me that I’d only fully grasp how properly things have been heading in the upcoming at the time I had the possibility to go back again.”
Without doubt, this time of contemplation has enabled Ford to recognise how substantially points have evolved. He cites an “obsession with political correctness” as a disadvantage for this technology of trend designers. “Cancel lifestyle inhibits style for the reason that somewhat than feeling no cost, the inclination is to start locked into a established of policies. Anything is now thought of appropriation. We applied to be in a position to rejoice other cultures. Now you can’t do that.”
Ford, the elected chair of the Council of Vogue Designers of The usa and potentially, the world’s chicest environmentalist, welcomes the connect with for the luxury entire world to lessen its impression on the planet. He started off by doing his bit at house. “I switched to aluminium straws, obtained rid of one-use plastic,” he states. In 2017, Ford introduced he was a vegan. “I genuinely really don’t need to have to meat,” he suggests, and credits the Netflix documentary What the Health and fitness for inspiring the change in food plan.
He is making use of the similar attitude to his business enterprise – Ford’s label turns above $2bn (£1.48bn) a year, when Tom Ford Attractiveness turns over $1bn – shelling out notice to information these as packaging and workers’ rights. “People are effectively seemed following,” he says.
In Ford’s mind, correct luxury trend is sustainable by its character. He tells me that he a short while ago compensated $90,000 for a dress he developed for the duration of his tenure at Yves Saint Laurent to add to his archive. “The garments we make are not intended to be thrown away,” he says.
Ford would seem to be fascinated and repulsed by the digitalisation of style.
“The foreseeable future of trend is increasingly cartoonish,” he claims. “Instagram has broken down the guidelines. People dress up to get pics of by themselves to write-up online, all the things is exaggerated – especially the eyebrows.”
He not too long ago viewed Fake Well-known, the HBO documentary about influencers, and located the revelation that Instagram people were being utilizing bathroom seats to give the illusion of staying on a airplane “completely hysterical”.
Can we be expecting to see an airport selfie of him quickly? “Never!” he says. “I’m really private.”
You can depend on Ford to retain it stylish.
