GPeople

G People

Once in a while a person comes along who brims over with creative talent and ambition and seems to breeze through life as the rest of the world steps back to watch him take over the world.

Ladies and Gentlemen, introducing Tom Ford....

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The Enigma of Tom Ford T om Ford was born on August 27, 1962 to parents Tom Ford and Shirley Burton. When he was 11, the family moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Tom’s mother was the quintessence of a southern belle; she taught him that dressing badly was disrespectful of others.

He spent his childhood worrying about how he looked. Raised in a liberal environment he credits his upbringing to his parents, “If my parents had discouraged me, I would have turned out very differently. They raised me in an open-minded, liberal environment”. Today, Tom remains loyal to all the places where he’s lived and experienced life, “I think of LA as my American urban experience, London as my European urban experience, and Santa Fe as my country escape”.

Tom left Santa Fe when he was seventeen and moved to New York

where he enrolled at New York University (NYU) as an art history major. However, he dropped out of NYU after a year, preferring to model as an actor in television commercials instead. Such was his popularity as a model that at one time, he was appearing on television on twelve national commercials at the same time!

After dropping out of NYU, Tom enrolled at the famous Parson’s School of Design where he enrolled to study interior architecture. However, he spent most of his time partying at Studio 54 instead of studying. The club’s glamouresque interior and clientele were a major influence on his later fashion collections. Before his final year at The New School, Tom spent some time in Paris interning in Chloe’s press office. The short stint in Paris reinforced his belief that fashion was his calling. Tom came back and finished his degree in architecture, but after graduation he started looking

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for jobs in the fashion industry. For a month after graduation, he would call American Designer Cathy Hardwick every day. Eventually, she agreed to see him. Cathy remembers the incident well, “I had every intention of giving him no hope. I asked him who his favourite European designers were. He said, ‘Armani and Chanel.’

Months later I asked him why he said that, and he said, ‘Because you were wearing something Armani’. Is it any wonder he got the job?”

Tom ended up working for Cathy for two years as a design assistant. In 1988, he moved to work with Perry Ellis but grew tired of working for American fashion after two years, “If I was ever going to become a good designer, I had to leave America. My own culture was inhibiting me. Too much style in America is tacky. It’s looked down upon to be too stylish.

Europeans, however, appreciate style.”

In search of style, Tom moved to Milan in 1990 to work at then failing company Gucci. Gucci was in the throes of overhauling its brand image.

Within six months Tom was designing men’s wear and shoes at the company. In 1994 he was promoted to Creative Director at Gucci. During his first year as Creative Director, he was credited with bringing glamour back into the fashion world. He revolutionised the fashion industry by introducing the world to Halstonstyle velvet hipsters, satin shirts and metallic patented boots... Suffice to say, fashion enthusiasts around the world rejoiced.

In 1999, Gucci was valued at US $4.3 billion. It had been verging on bankruptcy when Tom had joined.

Tom left Gucci in 2004, when the company was valued at US $10 billion. By then he had also served at Creative Director of Yves Saint

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three brands around the world. Also in 2005, Tom, ever the true artist, announced his entrance into the movie business with creation of company Fade To Black. He made his directorial debut in 2009 by directing the movie, A Single Man, starring Colin Firth and Julianne Moore. The film was nominated for a Golden Lion and was also nominated for Best First Feature and Best First Screenplay at the Independent Spirit Awards.

Laurent, which Gucci had acquired earlier. Tom says, “What I did as a fashion designer for both Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent was to create a character and then costume that character throughout her life.”

The public and the fashion industry certainly did not reject the costumes or the characters that Tom seemed to have created out of pure fashiondriven talent. Whilst working for the two fashion houses Tom won many Council of Fashion Designers of America Awards. The quiet, serious designer has, to date, many awards to his name and is also credited with bringing a new level of creativity and passion to ad campaigns for fragrances. He has a special love for

perfumes and says, “Compared to other things I do, creating perfumes is relatively painless. Sometimes you kill yourself for designs, a shirt that’s gone in a season and then the collection is over and you have to think of something new.

There’s something nice about the permanence of fragrance.”

In 2005, he started TOM FORD the brand. To date, the brand has an alliance with Marcolin Group to produce and distribute optical frames and sunglasses. A partnership with Estee Lauder resulted in the creation of TOM FORD the beauty brand.

Both eye wear and beauty products are consistently ranked as the top

Despite this all, Tom Ford still remains an enigma. Perhaps he plans on remaining so, preferring to work behind the scenes as an artist, “Both film and fashion are businesses where the audience doesn’t feel or

“What I did as a fashion designer for both Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent was to create a character and then costume that character throughout her life.”

see the work that goes on behind the scenes”. In his own words, “I’m a very serious person. Fun isn’t a word I think about so much.” His seriousness about his work is indeed legendary. He trusts his ability to predict what consumers want; when asked about his muse, his answer is startlingly confident, “I think you’re looking at him. I think it’s me.” He puts the same amount of faith in his intuition, “We need to trust our intuition. If we’re bored while we’re designing a product, the consumer will be bored.”

So, is Tom Ford, then a true artist?

According to him, no – “As a fashion designer, I was always aware that I was not an artist, because I was creating something that was made to be sold, marketed, used, and ultimately discarded.”

And yet, we can’t help but not be convinced. His fashion designs and talent has had the world mesmerised for decades. We expect great things from his films too. This designer is on a pedestal of his own making, but this time, we’re likely to bet... there will be no fall... only greater, better and bigger things for the fashion icon that is Tom Ford!

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