Tom Ford was hailed “the king of sex” for transforming the fortunes of Italian fashion house Gucci in the Nineties. He later went on to prove designers can sometimes break free of their sewing machine when he made his directorial debut in 2009 with his BAFTA award winning film A Single Man, with Colin Firth as his leading man. Today, the super manicured Texan presides over his own sultry global fashion label, ‘Tom Ford’, and admits he gets his best ideas when he is alone, naked in the bath.
Just a week ago, the dashing 50-year-old, (yes 50!), bared all about his über glamorous life to Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman and a handful of fashion wannabes at The Vogue Festival in London. Marc Baker for QX was on the front row to hear what the fashion god had to say…
So Tom, why do gay men make the best fashion designers?
It’s interesting. I wish I knew the answer because it’s true that most male designers in our world are gay. I don’t know. Actually, I hate using the words ‘gay or straight’, I just think that we are all on a sliding scale. Perhaps gay men can actually project certain feelings about life that a straight man can’t imagine. I really don’t know. I don’t know the answer to that question. But it is a great question.
How do you get your inspiration, where does it come to you?
My favourite part of the day is lying in the bath tub. I do it all the time. It’s just me and some hot water. It is there where I think about the things I am going to do for the day. There is always a note pad close by, sometimes it gets a bit drippy. Then I go to the office, I surround myself with people who have great taste and energy. But my name has to go on the products, so I have to say what I like. My job is to inspire people to get the very best from people. If I don’t like what people show me, I am pretty blunt. I say what I think.
Your clothes are super sexy and come with a super sexy price tag. Do you live the image in reality?
A lot of people tell me I create glamorous things, but it is not a word that I think about. It’s just what I see. It’s like ‘sexy’, that is just what I see. It’s all about an expression of my natural taste. It’s because I spent the 1970s in New York where everything was super-streamlined, and I guess that is just built into me. It was a very glamorous time. We all grow up trying to create the world we always wanted to have and I have been able to do it, which is nice, but my real home life does not have all that glamour. My real life’s not like the fantasy Tom Ford world with naked girls pouring perfume everywhere. It’s more staying in and watching Friends on television.
You are very open about your sexuality as a gay man, but why do you play the heterosexual man in campaign images?
There are lots of pictures with me with naked boys, too. I’m selling make-up and I am the face of the brand. I don’t like having my picture taken though, I am extremely shy. But having me in the pictures puts myself into the brand. With Chanel, you feel that Karl Lagerfeld’s personality has really welded with Coco’s but not everyone knows yet who I am, so that’s why I’m in the pictures. I don’t like having my picture taken, but it helps people to respond.
You and your boyfriend, journalist Richard Buckley have been together for 25 years, how does he deal with the fame?
How does he deal with me? That’s the question. You would have to ask him that. There is none of that at home though.
So, looking back tell us about it all started. What was it like growing up in Texas?
When I was growing up in Texas I was right in the middle of the hippy period. I was in a small university town and I had long hair. I had long hair right up until I was about 18. I remember one time we stopped for gas and I had long hair, had this shirt on which laced up at the front and had these beads on that I had made and you could have mistaken me for a girl.
How did you first get into fashion?
This sounds like a made-up story but it is true. I was in Moscow in 1984 and I was studying architecture, but when I was building the models I was always more concerned about how the people looked like in them and what they were wearing, so it was like “Bong” it was one of those moments. That is when I decided I wanted to be a fashion designer.
What did you want to create when you first started out?
I just had a vision of that world. That is when I met my partner and we have been together for 25 years and we went on our first date. But I love fashion and I love designing individual things. Ralph Lauren was the first person to create their own world in fashion, and Calvin Klein. Americans are very business-like, not that the rest of the world is not. But having worked on Seventh Avenue in New York I knew from experience that if you created a collection that nobody liked you would be fired the next day. Coco Chanel managed to do it also, I mean she created bronzer in the 1920s. It was quite amazing the things that she did.
Do you remember the first time that you saw something that you created in a shop?
On yeah, absolutely. The first thing I ever saw my name on was a pair of sunglasses in about 2005. Before that my name had always been attached to a label like Yves Saint Laurent and Gucci, so that really meant something to me.
You transformed the fortunes of Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, but established your own label in 2004, why do you now prefer to work for yourself?
The reason I present in a small controlled way is that so much of what makes my clothes special is the cut, the stitching, the lining – things that would be lost on the catwalk. On the catwalk you have to exaggerate, almost. In creating clothes that I hope will last a long time, [I] think it is all about being the best in how I can show clothes in a way that I hope the consumer will respond to them.
What are your views on couture. Are you ready to try your hand?
People spend millions of dollars on art and couture is art. It requires such skill and labour and I have much more reference for it now as to when I was young. You have to look at it as art. I don’t wan’t to get into it yet though as most of my clothes now are couture-like.
What is the essence of Tom Ford clothing?
I really want the clothes to really last forever. If something is good it’s good. I want to create things that people keep. I want the best fabric, the best stitching, the best colours and the best cut. I try to make people as beautiful as the best they can look, and feel the best as they can feel.
How do feel about the speed and pace of the fashion industry at the moment?
It’s like a snowball coming down a hill and there is not much you can do to stop it. There used to be one shoe, one skirt and one look for a season but now everything co-exists. Now, everything is in fashion all at the same time. I don’t know where it is going, but it is interesting. Since we do have this snowball, we have to react to it and that is what you do.
How do you test your make-up products?
Believe it or not I have had them all on, but not at a drag party! I put every single thing on. I don’t wear it down the street, but I want to see how it covers, how it works. When you put your name on something, you want people to know you believe in it and worked on it. It’s important.
When you have a battle with someone over an idea, how do you deal with it?
I am more of an e-mail person, but if it is something serious I do phone. I don’t actually have or carry a cell phone though. All day long it’s e-mails, e-mails, e-mails… I can’t stand the idea that someone can reach me at any moment.
Do you think having set times for fashion seasons is restrictive?
It would be great to put out a collection when you felt like it. Really, it would mean “Hey I’m inspired”. There needs to be a change now, but you have to look at reality. We have stores and a lot of people work in stores, customers need to see new merchandise so there has to be a cycle, but it would be wonderful if there was a change.
What are your worst characteristics?
I’m a perfectionist to the point of insanity. It’s horrible, like telling people their eyebrows are not right or their breast implants aren’t quite the right shape. I no longer drink alcohol. Back then I was honest with a mean streak. Now it’s a different kind of honesty.
Do you find it hard to make friends now you are super-famous?
Other famous people are easy to make friends with. Yes I do. Nobody believes that though.
What do you like doing when your are not working?
Well for my 50th birthday I went white water rafting in the middle of nowhere. We had the same toilet which was not even a toilet. We were in the middle of nowhere. I like to do things that challenge me. Plus, nature is totally perfect but absolutely imperfect. I like being outside. I’m not there to try to redesign a tree or change the shape of a rock, so it’s restful for me. That’s how I wanted to spend my 50th birthday, in the middle of nowhere. The older you get the more you return to where you came from and for me that is Texas and New Mexico where you can literally see for 200 miles in every direction and there is something about that which gives me great peace.
Do you enjoy the English countryside?
Of course, and I go as often as I am invited. I shoot very badly, but that is a political question so I am not going to go there, but I was brought up in Texas if that is the answer you are looking for… but I am a Democrat. You won’t find me shooting with Mr Cheney.
You made a great impact with your BAFTA award winning film A Single Man with Colin Firth. Were you nervous moving into film?
What I wanted to do in my mind was very clear. I did not have any fear. It was something I wanted to say. It was very emotional, but I knew what I wanted. I had a lot of moments of fear when I was editing. It was only after the film that people said things to me like, “Do you realise people were laughing?” I had no idea. I may do another one as soon as I have designed some women’s collections. Designing women’s clothes is harder than the film industry, though. Fashion is so perishable but with films you can have about a four or five year break. We don’t have time to catch our breath in fashion.
What do you do on your downtime?
Downtime for me is work. I love working. I love to work, it’s what I enjoy, other than that it’s being in the bath. But I am very involved with my work. I shoot a lot of the campaign photos. I did a lot of the last ones. I could not do it if it were not for the marvel of what you can do with computers, but I also have the good fortune of being able to work with great photographers, too.
Why did you decide to bare all about your personal life in the recent Oprah Winfrey documentary in the US?
I love Oprah, I trust her and she asked me to do it.
What advice would you give to young fashion students who want to be the next Tom Ford?
Nobody has had more advantages than me. It is a struggle trying to start a new brand and I have so much respect for kids who come out of school and are successful at it. But when you start you have to have something to show people when you see them. When I was younger I stood in a lobby at an office block in New York where a fashion designer called Cathy Hardwick worked. I stood there with quarters in my hand, because there were no cell phones back then, and I called this woman every day for a month, all day long. I kept ringing the receptionist and saying, “I’m down in the lobby will you come and see me?” She saw me but later told me that she did not hire me because of my work, but because I had really pretty hands.
Finally, how do you see the future?
I would like to make more films and I want to make more collections. That does not mean I won’t quit, but I am pretty satisfied. I’m very engaged in everything I do. I can see myself as an old man in New Mexico working as a sculptor with my dog. I’m very happy, I’m very lucky.
• Tom Ford appeared at The Vogue Festival in association with Vertu.
