'I don't miss the catwalk world'
(Filed: 11/11/2004)
Tom Ford, former designer at Gucci and YSL, wants to make movies and launch his own label. He talks to Hilary Alexander
Tom Ford is fashion's living legend. As the first designer-businessman, with the label's CEO, Domenico De Sole, he rescued Gucci and turned it into the world's most recognisable luxury label. In his 10 years as creative director, he reinvented the loafer, hippy dressing, the "it" bag, logo-chic and the velvet suit, and restored sensual glamour to the modern wardrobe. He had almost achieved the same for Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche when contractual negotiations with the group's new owners, Pinault Printemps Redoute, broke down last year.
Recovering from Gucci: 'It was tough, four collections between November and March. I wanted them to be amazing,' says Tom Ford
On February 25, he staged his last Gucci show in Milan and, on March 7, in a vast red-lit opium den of a tent in the grounds of the Rodin Museum, Paris, he took a bow at his final YSL show and turned his back on a company worth about £5 billion – and then walked out of fashion, ostensibly for ever.
Six months later, Ford, 43, is well on his way to fulfilling a long-cherished dream of a Hollywood career as a film director and producer. He has an office on Sunset Boulevard and is busy reviewing and writing scripts. But he has also had regular lunches with Bernard Arnault, the feisty CEO of Gucci Group's chief rival, Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy, and plans to launch his own label.
This week, he is in London – his second home for the past seven years – for the launch of his eponymous book. We meet at the Dorchester Hotel, a temporary roost while his recently acquired 18th-century mansion in Mayfair is restored and furnished in a mix of Georgian and Sixties styles for him and his partner of 18 years, Richard Buckley, Vogue Hommes International's editor-in-chief.
He is a few minutes late but not because of a "long lunch" – he is trying to lose weight and has given up alcohol and cigarettes. Quitting smoking is to please Buckley, who suffered throat cancer in the Nineties; the drinking ban started just last night.
"When I drink, I drink vodka – lots of it," he says, with a naughty grin. "I'm giving up mainly because of the fat. I was abusing myself pretty dramatically in the last six months at Gucci – drinking a lot, smoking a lot, taking sleeping pills and tranquillisers. I must have gained 12lb. I need to lose another four or five pounds. I played tennis this morning at Queen's Club and I'm riding more. It feels good."
Ford is not surprised that he is still recovering from his time at Gucci: "It was a tough final year. The negotiations over contracts had been going on for much longer than anyone realised. Then I realised that my time as a designer was finite. We announced I was going in November and I had to do four collections between then and March. I wanted them to be amazing. But leaving was depressing, like getting a divorce. Gucci had been 14 years of my life. Gucci was me, I was Gucci.
"I'm not complaining, I made a lot of money, but the adjustment was depressing. That night, after YSL, I flew straight to London. The next morning, I was in the office because I had things to finish. But on April 30, I walked out of the offices for the last time. I went straight home and took a nap, but I kept on having nightmares. I felt ill, empty."
Ford began the slow process of assuaging his nightmares in Hollywood. "Making movies is something I've had in my mind for years," he says. "But it's a long process. I can't say when we'll have something ready."
He doesn't see himself as another Spielberg or, indeed, Tarantino. "I'm a traditional romantic at heart, although Gone with the Wind is not the first thing that comes to mind. I love the concept of the pursuit of love, the connection with another human being. It's what keeps people going through the day-to-day business of life."
Despite the allure of movies, he has not turned his back on design. "I miss design, but I don't miss the catwalk world," he says. "If I went back into fashion, in the same way I was doing for Gucci and YSL, what could I achieve, except 30 more years of doing shows and then drop dead? Life's too short."
Instead, he plans to create a Tom Ford label, "not necessarily with LVMH," he adds, quickly. Initially, he won't produce clothes, so what will he be designing? "Lots of things," he says, enigmatically.
He plans to open an office and a store in London. "I find the culture of London appealing – not the weather, but I love the tradition, the formality, the manners, the people. They are incredibly attractive. It's one of the last places in the world, along with Italy, where people wear real fashion. In England, men can still be foppish. It's not like that in France. I think they're among the worst-dressed people in the world."
What with the movies, the label and the new book, there has been little time to think about his other passion – having children.
"I did want to have them and I still do, but Richard doesn't and he's probably right," he says. "If I did, I'd have my own biological children. I did the research a few years ago, and you can be very specific about the egg donors. I suppose it sounds a bit calculated but my mother says that all babies are calculated. But I'm not that focused on the idea right now – I've put it on the backburner."
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