Tom Ford : Life after Gucci #2

[Chanelcouture09]

^Well not really, Nicolas first season was at the Louvre, then the last two were at the Louis Vuitton Foundation in the Bois de Boulogne, it's only really his resort/pre-fall collections that have moved around (Place du Palais in St Tropez, a look book and then Palm Springs at Bob Hopes Estate). I know Nicolas is set to show in Rio - but that is only because of market strategy to open the houses RTW up to emerging markets. Which is why Chanel move around so much, it's not out of creativity, its all marketing the brand to new markets (which is why both Chanel and Dior both do a re-show of the Couture and some RTW collections in Asia), Dior did it one year with their show in Shanghai for Resort 2011 which was to celebrate the opening of their store, which is quite commonplace with brands such as these.

In Tom's case he is quite schizophrenic, one season its a film - the next its a presentation - the next is a catwalk show etc... so the excitement around his shows is of a different nature, He is bringing something to the table that a lot of designers aren't at the moment, a level of glamour, I think some designers are scared to venture out of the 'Philo aesthetic' which has had its day now.

 

[Lola701]

For Tom Ford, the Real Runway Is the Red Carpet

The international fashion superstar has turned the award show step-and-repeat — Hollywood's prime promotional tool — into his runway: a showcase for his meticulous evening attire.
BY BLOOMBERG
JANUARY 11, 2016 17:30

LOS ANGELES, United States — According to the fashion calendar, Tom Ford wasn't supposed to be on stage Sunday night at the Golden Globes. Instead of arriving on the arm of Julianne Moore and presenting an award alongside Lady Gaga, he was scheduled to present a runway collection in London on Monday, January 11.

That was according to the fashion show schedule for London Collections Men, released in November. For the first time ever, the multitalented American (he of god-like manliness and power lapels) was set to stage a full-scale catwalk production for his Autumn/Winter 2016 menswear collection in his adopted city of London. Editors, buyers and staunch consumers rejoiced; the provocateur-showman was back.

But then, just as mysteriously as he appeared on the week’s official schedule, he disappeared. The show was cancelled, a statement via his public relations team followed. Ford was instead returning to New York Fashion Week in February to show both his men's and women's Autumn/Winter 2016 collections in small, intimate presentations to key fashion retailers and press.

The unconventional move was not surprising for Ford; he’s become known amongst insiders for rebelling against the fashion industry’s regimented calendar. For years, he's experimented with different formats to present his designs. For his Autumn/Winter 2015 womenswear collection, he hosted a runway show in the anti-fashion capital Los Angeles—the Friday night before the Academy Awards—to an A-list front row. This past season, he presented his Spring/Summer 2016 collection with a disco music video featuring Lady Gaga and a bevy of leggy models wearing his '70s-inspired, psychedelic creations.

Ford can do this because he isn’t anchored in any one place—except, perhaps, the red carpet. When it comes time for awards season (which kicked off this Sunday with the Golden Globes) his clothes triumph, particularly on the very famous men he dresses.

“One of the most effective ways Ford showcases his designs is by dressing celebrities on the red carpet, with the world’s paparazzi and social media diffusing the images globally within seconds,” says Dan Rookwood, US editor at luxury online retailer and destination Mr Porter. “The red carpet is his true catwalk; celebrities his models.”

Simply put, Ford has learned to wring the marketing and PR benefits that other brands get from staging a dramatic runway show during fashion week out of the January-through-March awards season.

The Ford Method

Plenty of brands capitalize on the attention they get from dressing celebrities for events; for an up-and-coming brand, even one appearance on a major red carpet can change the stakes for their business. For many years now it's been a big part of the fashion game. Yet until relatively recently, this was mostly meaningful for just womenswear designers, whose gowns always tend to be the focal point of the pre-show coverage. As Rockwood points out, “Ten or even five years ago no-one seemed to care what men wore on the red carpet. The interviewers never asked men, ‘Who are you wearing?’ Tom Ford changed that.”

Wendell Brown, senior fashion editor at Esquire, agrees, "He's one of a few designers who actually courts men and treats menswear as a priority rather than an after thought. He designs for, and creates, men who see dressing up as a pleasure and not a required burden."

The designer's personal fame, plus the ubiquity of his flattering suits—at Sunday's Globes he dressed Michael Fassbender, Will Smith, and Nicholas Hoult—make the red carpet a great showcase for what he could do for a regular customer: a man (with money) watching at home.

“His designs make men look like men—with his signature strong shoulders, bold lapels and trim waist," notes celebrity stylist Ilaria Urbinati, who dressed her clients nominee Rami Malek and presenter Chris Evans for Sunday's ceremony. "The result is a very masculine sort of elegance.”

From Gucci to Glam Cam

In 2005 Ford launched his eponymous mega-brand (Tom Ford International also has a successful beauty division via a partnership with Estee Lauder, and an eyewear line produced by the Marcolin Group) after breaking from a long, successful tenure at the Gucci Group —now known as Kering. There, he had served as creative director of top luxury brands such as Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, making glamorous, sleek dresses and accessories—but Ford’s identity as a designer has always been about the sharp suit and his meticulous tailoring.

Ford debuted his eponymous menswear line in 2007 with the goal to serve the well-lived male customer who appreciates not only how his clothes look, but how they fit and feel. He’s been both praised and criticized for being too much of a commercial designer; but he celebrates his glamorous wearability. In fact, it’s become the brand’s signature sensibility and what makes him so desirable to Hollywood’s elite.

“I use his suits and tuxes on clients whenever I can because of the construction and quality,” says Urbinati, “I find that his suiting needs the most minimal amount of additional tailoring, my guys nearly just slip right in to his clothes perfectly.”

But, she adds, "Only a few of my clients get to wear it." Ford and the people who manage his brand are notoriously protective of the brand's identity and practice an "invite-only" selection process to decide who gets to wear Ford's covetable evening attire. (Just ask Hayden Panettiere.)

“The name Tom Ford definitely has an empowering psychology about it,” says Brown, who himself has been lucky enough to wear a Tom Ford tuxedo. “To wear it feels like a certain kind of armor. Ford understands that men want to look bold, sexy, and masculine and want to have the confidence to make a fashion statement in that James Bond or Bond villain kind of way.”Formally Dressed for Success

Tom Ford wouldn't share numbers for how much the brand's business relies on red carpet buzz, but his ability to flout the standard conventions of the fashion weeks—and still be beloved by shoppers and magazine editors—pays testament to how well this strategy works (he has previously noted to WWD, however, that he has never and will never pay for a red-carpet get). He's picked a niche, and it's high-end formalwear.

“Clearly we see a lift in sales of formal clothing [in general] during the event season, especially in New York and Los Angeles," says Tom Kalenderian, the executive vice president and general merchandise manager for men's at Barneys New York. "We keep an eye on all the award ceremony dates with the intent to peak our inventories and assortments to meet the demand. We've gone so far as to even set up a Barneys Oscar Week 'Bungalow' inside our Beverly Hills store. When the Met Ball in New York specified 'White Tie' as the dress code, our sales of white formal clothes peaked.”

In other words, for a brand like Tom Ford, awards season is "Go Time."

"Tom Ford is 'owning' men's formalwear and I suspect this is a calculated decision," says Rookwood. "And it's clever because formalwear is about glamour, it's about sexiness, it's about dressing up and looking your best. And so all of this has become synonymous with Tom Ford."

He adds, "When I think of Justin Timberlake, Colin Firth, Bradley Cooper, or Daniel Craig … I think of them wearing Tom Ford. They may also wear other designers, and indeed they all do, but the first designer I associate with them is Tom Ford.”
Maybe he is setting a new way for independent designers. We can't even compare him to Dolce & Gabbana and others independent designers. When he started to present his collections at LFW, he was kinda vital to the city. They needed his name to be taken seriously and to attract buyers.

businessoffashion

 

[Chanelcouture09]

 

[Lola701]

Tom Ford Wants to Change the Way We Shop

Ariel Foxman @ArielFoxman Feb. 11, 2016
‘We’re dictators’

Opulent sensuality. If you could trademark an aspiration, fashion designer and sometime film director Tom Ford would have dibs. The king of swagger has crafted a career out of selling us our most luxurious fashion fantasies.

Two decades ago, Ford revitalized a bloated, floundering and nearly bankrupt Gucci when he was made creative director at the age of 32. His purview expanded to include YSL in 1999, which he also revived. Ford’s jaw-dropping and register-cha-chinging maneuvers—including a banned ad campaign shot by Mario Testino that featured a female model with a Gucci logo shaved into her pubic hair—won the daredevil designer accolades and fame. But in 2004 he broke free of both legacies and steadily began building his own eponymous luxury brand, which now encompasses menswear, women’s wear, beauty and a periodic table’s worth of perfumes and colognes.

At 54 he continues to play muse to his own master: an impeccable stud serving up a swirl of bons mots, earthy scents and debonair fashion. Ford spoke to TIME from London, where he’s wrapping up edits on his second film, Nocturnal Animals, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Amy Adams. He and his husband, editor Richard Buckley, split their time between the U.K. and Los Angeles, with their toddler son Jack in tow.

Though he’s got no time to dilly-dally, Ford’s success has afforded him the freedom to do what he wants when he wants. And that means bucking convention when something just doesn’t sit right. Ford recently announced that he would no longer present his fall 2016 men’s and women’s collections during this month’s New York Fashion Week but instead would show his fall clothes in the actual fall, within a see-now-buy-now, consumer-friendly time frame. Earlier that same day, Christopher Bailey, chief creative director and CEO at Burberry, had announced a similar groundbreaking change. The two men sent shock waves through an industry that has been grappling with what many have decided is an antiquated model: showing clothes five months before shoppers can buy them. Now Ford aims to change the game he’s been influencing for so long.

TIME: Why make the move to skip an entire Fashion Week season?

Ford: I am not forgoing the season at all but will simply be communicating directly with the consumers at the time the clothes and accessories will be available to buy. As for the buyers, they will see the collection, as usual, well in advance so that they can place orders. There are still many kinks to be worked out, as this will be a complete shift in the way that we show and sell our collections. We will have to adapt and maneuver as we are transitioning to a new production calendar, so I honestly don’t have all of the answers yet.

When it comes to luxury brands, how much does the anticipation of a product add to its exclusivity?

Luxury and exclusivity are about the quality and service of the goods being sold. That will not change at all. The clothes and accessories will still be as beautifully made as always, and the service to the customer exceptional. In most other areas of the luxury market, instant gratification has also become part of the luxury experience. In fact, the ultimate luxury now is to not have to wait at all. It is a romantic notion to think that people want to wait for things and anticipate them, but I’m afraid that no one really wants to wait for anything anymore.

You have been a consistent disrupter of the conventional fashion-show business model—from your hyperexclusive presentations that forbid social media to a digitally released music video starring Lady Gaga, in which models sashayed down a Soul Train—style runway wearing your designs. Is this more about extending the boundaries of your brand or about fixing a broken system?

I hate the word disruptive because it sounds like the idea is to be, Ooh, that will be disruptive. I own my own company. I can do what I want. I want to be excited about what I do. If I am bored about the way I am going to show, that’s ultimately going to translate. I have to think what would be fun and what makes sense now. And with Gaga I had millions of hits, in terms of brand recognition. But I am not going to do a music video every season–that would get boring. And you can’t really see the clothes, feel the clothes, touch the clothes as you can in a show or presentation. It was the right thing at the right time.

Is there such a thing as absolute good or bad taste?

Behaviorally, there’s being elegant and being human. But visually no. Taste is really just formed culturally. And if you say I am a “tastemaker,” it’s that I am a tastemaker working within the framework of what is considered contemporary taste.

So, there’s no one beauty ideal?

As humans we do respond to certain things on some sort of very deep level. We find symmetry of the face generally more pleasing than not. But overall we are so completely conditioned to think certain things are beautiful and certain things are not. With the latest film I am working on, I cast some people in it who I did not necessarily originally think of as beautiful. And through filming them, watching them, editing them, I now find them so beautiful and so moving. I have been wondering, Why did I think they weren’t beautiful? If you can divorce yourself from what contemporary culture has told us is beautiful, you can then find it in places you would not expect.

How does your personal aesthetic play a role in defining our idea of what’s hot, sexy, beautiful right now?

I have always had this amazing ability—and I’m not saying I’m an amazing designer—that is one of the reasons I am successful: you put five shoes on a table, I will pick the one that more people than not will find attractive and that will outsell all the others. Simply by saying, “I like this one best,” it will sell the most.

Is that an inherent talent? How are fashion people like you able to be so influential?

It’s a combination of things. Part is innate. I also have the track record and the consistency and the platform. I also think it’s confidence, a kind of dictatorship mentality. We’re dictators. We say, “I hate that.” We don’t say, “I kind of don’t like …” And we have the confidence to say, “That’s awful” or “Yes, that’s beautiful. Wear that!”

Wearing designer logos cycles in and out of high fashion, and it’s safe to say shopping for a logo is less about a beautiful garment or an incredible shoe. As a designer, you’ve so deftly reignited logo lust over the years. What is it about logo mania that continues to intrigue consumers?

The logo is only as valuable as the thing it is on. I shouldn’t say things about another brand, but I love Alessandro Michele (creative director) at Gucci. That logo hasn’t changed, but only in the last year, now everyone wants to wear it. And that’s a compliment to him. He’s terrific. And the same thing happened to me at Gucci. The logo was there, and no one wanted to wear it. I had a couple good collections, and everyone wanted to wear it.

Are logos in good or bad taste?

If you are someone who takes it all very seriously and is covered in logos, I wouldn’t call it good taste. In my opinion, I would call it sad and pathetic if you believed that this made you “better than,” or more attractive. If you are covered in logos and it’s kind of kitsch and you realize this is kind of funny and you have the right attitude, it can be great.

Is directing a film a stretch for a fashion designer?

For me it’s the exact same process. You have to have a vision. You have to know, I want my collection or my film to look like this. Then you assemble a team. Then you lead them and push them and direct them into getting exactly what you want–whether it’s working with a shoe factory to get the exact heel shape or with an actor editing a film. I have to know what I want.

You received critical and commercial success for writing and directing A Single Man (2009). Were you concerned about tempting fate with Nocturnal Animals?

No, because it’s so much fun. It’s the most fun I’ve ever had in my life. Why would I deprive myself? It’s the ultimate design project! If you want to come close to playing God, write, direct, produce, edit a film. You design a world, you design everything about it and everyone in it–what they say, do, whether they live or die. It’s just so exciting.

How do you find inspiration collection after collection?

Sometimes you have to lock yourself in a room and think, “O.K., f-ck! What the hell am I going to do? I just did this, so that’s not going to work. And I’m tired of that. What am I not tired of?” And of course there’s always a thread that links it all because that’s your core.

What’s your thread?

A certain sensuality. Lately, though, it’s a lot less sexual. I’m bored with that. I don’t start out saying, Wow, I’m going to make this woman as sexy as possible! It’s just in my nature. If I take a dress and it’s on a woman, I will pin it here, pull it there, drape it there. And she will end up looking, in most people’s opinion, sexy.

Are you your own barometer for when you’ve got it right?

I generally know in my heart. I will try to convince myself that it is it even when some little voice inside is saying, Ooh, I don’t think you got it this season. And that little voice is unfortunately—or fortunately—right.

And do you sometimes just run out of time?

No, sometimes it’s just that maybe you feel things don’t really need to move that season. The difficult thing about fashion is that you don’t get to wait years until your next inspiration strikes. An artist can have a show and go for years. People don’t understand it and they will probably laugh when they read this, but fashion is one of the most grueling, brutal industries in the world because we create a constant stream of product that is perishable. And it’s speeding up so fast. People consume. They’re bored. They consume. They’re bored. They consume. They’re bored.

Is this mad intensity a factor in all the firings and resignations at so many of the major fashion houses?

I think that businessmen often don’t realize what goes into a creative brain. People have bad seasons, bad moments. But I am a loyal person. If I placed my bet on a horse, I would let it run a bit. I started my company for personal reasons: I had something to say, clothes I wanted to see made, and I wanted control of it.

How does celebrity factor into your overall brand messaging?

I would never dress someone who was popular who I did not respect–someone who I didn’t think had great style or was not a great talent. I have turned down dressing people because I think, I don’t care that people think she’s hot. I think she’s awful, and dressing her would be a statement.

Why have you resisted social media, as a celebrity designer?

I am a personal person. I literally cannot go to the supermarket without someone coming up to me and wanting to take a picture or tell me that they are wearing my glasses–which is always nice–or ask me if they are wearing the right shade of lip gloss. If anything I would like to build a wall around myself, which I kind of have. The real me who’s at home now that I am not an alcoholic or a drug user is very, very quiet. It’s a family dinner at home, and it’s watching some television with Richard. It’s very domestic. And nothing can prepare you for having a child. You hear this all the time when you’re not a parent and you think you understand it, but only now can I actually relate to how it changes everything in your life.

Does Jack get to pick out his own clothes or do you dress him?

You have to let them. It’s a big part of their development. It’s very important that he feels he can make choices in his life. Let’s realize, though, that when I open those drawers every morning and I say, “Take out what shirts you want to wear,” that I have preselected by buying all those shirts. So he can’t screw up. But he is making a choice. He happens to like wearing a red shirt. He wears one almost every day. I don’t wear red, but I’m not Jack. So he gets to wear red.

time.com

 

[Spike413]

I always love reading his interviews because he's so refreshingly blunt and no-bs without coming off as brusque or temperamental. And more often than not he's absolutely right.

Also, there's a small part of me that loves the fact that he's praised Alessandro Michele, if only because Tom has so often been made out to sound like some egomaniacal prick throughout his career. It comes off as unusually genuine by fashion standards.

Thanks for posting Lola!

 

[Chanelcouture09]

US Vogue Apring 2016 : Rihanna by Mert & Marcus


*Vogue.com

 

[Spike413]

According to the Bergdorf catalogue (and just now, his Instagram account) the F/W 16 collection is being live streamed during NYFW. Can't recall the date I read, but it's 14 days from today.

 

[Lola701]

^^
September, 7th at 7 P.M. from what i remember.
The following day, i'll go to the store. I'm already excited.

 

[Lola701]

 

[Thefrenchy]

^ Nocturnal Animals is getting great reviews at the Venice Film Festival I hope we will get a trailer soon!

 

[Nymphaea]

“Can’t We Do Something New?” Tom Ford Discusses His First Show-Now-Buy-Now Collection

Nocturnal Animals, Tom Ford’s first movie since 2009’s Oscar-nominated A Single Man, received a 10-minute ovation when it premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Friday night. The designer-director was taking meetings at his Madison Avenue flagship this morning, as debonair as ever, and hoping for as warm a reception for his inaugural show-now-buy-now collection when it gets its own debut at the Four Seasons restaurant space tomorrow night. (It’s likely to be just as star-studded as that Venice premiere if the A-list crowd at his last runway show—Gwyneth! Julianne! Miley!—is any indication.)

Ford is part of the first wave of designers embracing a radical new direct-to-consumer model that rethinks decades of industry-wide standard operating procedure. There’s no long-lead press, no editorials in magazines. The new concept banks on immediacy, shrinking the gap between when a customer sees the collection and when she (or he, Ford is also showing men’s) can buy it. As the designer put it, Fall is, “hanging downstairs, steamed, and ready to be flipped into the store tomorrow night.” More on what Ford had to say on the subjects of risk, desire, Rihanna, and the architect Philip Johnson, below:

Your second movie premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Friday night and you’re putting on a show and coordinating a major restructuring of your fashion business. Did you plan it this way?
Yes and no. Venice, because I’ve been working on the film for quite a while—not to downplay New York Fashion Week—was the important date, so had it not worked out I would be showing in London or Milan in two weeks or somewhere else. It all just happened to work, with this, and Toronto [International Film Festival], it all just lined up. One reason that it works is because I designed this collection six months ago, so the creative part, that frustration you go through a few weeks before a collection—Is this the right thing? Is this the right shoe? Should we change it? Rip that off? Change that!—that’s not here, because the collection’s done. Now, it happens to me again in two weeks because I have to finish the Spring ’17 collection, so that the buyers can buy that and I can show it in February. There are still fittings to do, hair and makeup, hoping that the production works, that the whole evening flows as it’s supposed to, but there’s not that creative angst, that stress level. That would be almost impossible, to be doing Venice, this, and then Toronto.

You couldn’t fiddle with the collection because it’s been produced, right?
It’s hanging downstairs, hanging, steamed, ready to be flipped into the store tomorrow night.

And the same goes for your wholesalers.
Absolutely, it’s at Bergdorf’s, it’s at Neiman’s. They’ve photographed it for their catalogs, they had to sign non-disclosure agreements, they couldn’t leak any pictures. So it’s done. It’s all over the world ready to go into our stores. I can’t change a thing. I can change the hair and the makeup.

How does that feel? It’s really flipping the switch.
It’s kind of great, because also I haven’t looked at the clothes since I did them. Luckily, I really love them and I’m not tired of them. So, I think it feels good. I don’t know if this will be sustainable. We’ll have to see. I’ll have to see how it works; see how our customers respond to it. The weird thing is, there’s no long-lead press because I’m not showing it to anyone. So, I don’t know how that’s going to work going forward, having no clothes to send magazines.

Any anxiety about that? Will that cycle correct itself so you could have clothes for magazines?
I don’t know, you know, I’m contemplating starting, for lack of a better name, Tom Ford Atelier, because I do constantly dress celebrities. I do constantly create things for Beyoncé on tour, for Rihanna, so I might create capsule collections in between the [main] collections for celebrities, and then once they wear them, then put them immediately in the store. We’re going to have to see how this goes. Now, the clothes that I’m showing tomorrow will be in the store; they don’t get marked down until January. So who knows, if someone loves something tomorrow, they’re certainly available to be photographed, but they won’t be able to make it into anything except the November issue. Or, certain magazines can turn around in two weeks. I’m the only one doing this other than Burberry and a few other people, but if the whole industry starts doing this, then magazines will have to go to a much quicker turnaround.

Was it important to you to be first?
It was funny—I had thought about it, I had done the research, we had figured out how to do it—and I panicked and didn’t do it. And then Christopher Bailey [at Burberry] announced it, and I called him that morning and said, “Goddamn it, you announced this first; I’m going to do it too.” And then I sent out the announcement as well. But Christopher beat me by about four or five hours, and he gave me the confidence to try it as well.

And now there’s a groundswell.
It’ll be interesting to see if the designer market latches on. It’d have to change the timing of shows. One of the reasons I had to do it in New York and not elsewhere was because this merchandise needed to be in the stores in August. I couldn’t have held it much longer. To put them in on September 7 or 8 is okay, because our customer really is away; she comes back on Labor Day and she starts shopping. If I had to stretch it out to Paris I’d be losing three or four weeks of key sales, so the other thing would be to do it during couture.

So being first didn’t impact showing in New York; needing to have them on the sales floor did. I had been wondering if this collection would feel “New York” the way the collection you did on the eve of the Oscars last year felt “L.A.”
I think it’s, I hope it’s international, which is where we are. However, we are showing in L.A. in February the Friday before the Oscars and I’m finishing that collection in the next two weeks. I’ve been working on it over the summer, and I’m very well aware that it’s going down a runway in L.A. during Oscar weekend, because you still kind of need to think about concept and your audience.

That could be a very big weekend for you, if the Venice audience is correct. You must thrive in that environment, where you’re making a movie and a collection at the same time.
I thrive in an environment where I’m stimulated; if I get bored that’s bad because then what I’m doing isn’t good. I had an editing suite set up in my London office; I’d edit for four or five hours, I’d go out for a fitting, I’d go back and edit, but I was so excited. I was having so much fun, and I think that spills over into everything you do. I thrive on being excited, which is one of the reasons I’m trying this tomorrow night. After almost 30 years in the business, I just thought, “Can’t we do something new? Can’t we change this?” I hope it works. If it doesn’t, we’ll try to think of something else.

You are a designer who went to Hollywood and at this moment we have celebrities getting into fashion. What do you think of the Kanyes and Rihannas getting into this business?
I think if they have a lot of personal style and they’re willing to devote a lot of personal energy, it can be good. I think a lot of people underestimate how serious our business is, how hard you have to work, and how dedicated you have to be. It is a tough, tough, ruthless industry and it takes a lot out of you. And so, if you’ve got a lot of style, as Rihanna does, and you’re willing to put a lot of energy into it, great. I sat next to Victoria Beckham the other day on a plane going from L.A. to London—she’s a friend—and I said, “Do you miss performing? You know, I actually forget that you were a performer because you’ve embraced what you do now as a fashion designer.” You know, she’s starting a beauty line. She’s very serious about it. And if you’re very serious about it, absolutely, great. If not, it can be hard.

Why the Four Seasons?
I wanted something intimate. I wanted a dinner set up. I didn’t want a regular show. I think that’s one of the chicest rooms in New York. I’ve always loved to eat there. Philip Johnson was someone I came to know toward the end of his life and I used to go pick him up upstairs and we’d go for lunch there. And I just love that room; it felt right, so that’s where we’re doing it.

vogue

 

[MyNameIs]

^ Nocturnal Animals is getting great reviews at the Venice Film Festival I hope we will get a trailer soon!

He looks to be 2 for 2. Hope he continues to make movies.

 

[Lola701]

Q&A On the eve of New York Fashion Week, Tom Ford talks about his move to L.A. and the future of his brand

By Adam Tschorn
The day before he’s set to kick off New York Fashion Week by sending his fall/winter 2016 collections down the runway and right into retail, fashion designer and filmmaker Tom Ford took a break from model and VIP fittings at his Madison Avenue boutique to talk about the logistics of actually pulling off a “see now/buy now” collection, how he juggles his two, high-profile careers and why he’s still looking for a place to live in Los Angeles – even though everyone thinks he bought a $50-million Beverly Hills mansion out from under Jay Z and Beyoncé.

While showing a collection that consumers don’t have to wait for months to buy certainly makes sense — especially when they can watch a livestream of the runway show — what’s a little harder to understand is the supply part of the supply-and-demand equation. How is this going to work?

It’s actually pretty easy because I finished [designing] the collection at the exact same time that I always would have — way back in February [2016] — so I had a collection that I could have shown. That’s because our buyers had to buy it. Neiman’s had to buy it. Bergdorf’s had to buy it. So the showroom was open as usual, and everyone signed a non-disclosure agreement. So I’d already identified the exact outfits that would be on the runway that everyone had bought: a particular blouse, a skirt, a pair of shoes. That’s the only way it would work. All those things are downstairs right now. They’ve been steamed and they’re ready to go tomorrow night. [Tonight store employees] will stay up late. They’ll take down all the old merchandise, and the whole store flips to what was just in the show.

And, in 10 days, I [will] define the [look of the] show that I will show in L.A. on the Friday before the Oscars — which I am doing again.

So the runway looks are locked in pretty early in the process — based on buyer response?

Right now, I’m doing fittings because I can change the girl, the hair and the makeup and what pieces of music I want to have playing. But [garment-wise] I cannot change a thing because it’s not only been bought, but over the summer, we photographed each one of those outfits live on a girl, and as individual pieces, priced them all for our site because the minute the show is over it goes live and you can buy it.

How do you see that affecting the role of the fashion industry press?

Newspapers journalists are still fine. They can still write and show pictures – and short-lead press like People, Us [Weekly] and In Style, that can turn things around fast will be fine. Vogue.com? Absolutely fine. Online? Yes. Long-lead magazines? Hmmm. No. So I may have to come up with something in between those seasons for long-lead press. I have no idea. I’m kind of just playing it by ear to see how it works. Tomorrow night is the big test. I think it will work from a retail standpoint. I’d be very surprised if we don’t get a lot of women in here the next day who watched [the show online] or looked at photos from it and want to buy it.

Does the changing nature of your runway collection have any impact on the dressing you do for the red carpet?

That’s different because I usually make those things custom … I made one for Amy Adams the other night in Venice. It looked great so I’m immediately copying it to put it in our stores. But most of those I do from scratch for special events. I make Beyoncé’s costumes a lot. I make things for actresses all the time, but they don’t usually want to wear something from the collection.

Speaking of the collection, what can you tell us about the fall/winter 2016 collection that will be livestreamed out to the world on Wednesday night?

There will be beautiful clothes! I never talk about the clothes — they have to speak for themselves. And you’ll see that tomorrow.

You’re just back from the Venice Film Festival where your second film, “Nocturnal Animals,” received a pretty positive response. Has it gotten easier or harder to juggle the demands and schedules of the film and fashion worlds?

I plan all that so far in advance. There’s only one window every year where I can actually film a movie and that’s the fall, because in between the women’s shows in September and the men’s shows in January I have a blank space. So, to film, I have to do it in the fall, which I did for this movie — last fall — and which I did for “A Single Man,” seven years ago.

But editing is different. I set up an editing suite in my office in London where I’ll edit for two or three hours, go out for a fitting [for] two or three hours, go back and edit three or four hours, go back to the fitting [for] two or three hours. I did that for seven months. And it’s actually been convenient that there haven’t been any creative decisions — beyond the hair and makeup — for me to make for tomorrow’s show because that’s allowed me to go to [the] Venice [Film Festival], and I’ll be able to go to [the upcoming] Toronto [International Film Festival] and then L.A., where I have a design studio now. I’m going to be working and living in L.A. this school year instead of in London. [Ford’s son Jack starts school in L.A. on Wednesday.]

Oh, right. I read somewhere that you bought a huge Beverly Hills mansion out from under Jay Z and Beyoncé for $50 million.

That’s not true. I didn’t buy that house. I looked at that house, but I didn’t buy that house. We’re still looking for a house.

But you did sell your house in Santa Fe, N.M., right?

Actually that was a ranch, which is an hour away from our house in Santa Fe.

Is the work/life shift to Los Angeles going to be long-term?

We’re going to try it and see how I like it.

Last question: You’re not the only designer showing an in-season buy-it-now collection during the next seven days. There are also a handful of temporary retail shops popping up around town in the same time frame. Do you think this is a defining season for New York Fashion Week – and the future of the fashion industry overall?

I think fashion is changing, and nobody’s quite sure of what it’s changing into. So everyone is trying different things. I think it will ultimately settle – I think into what I’m doing. Because it’s the last thing in the world where you see stuff and can’t have it for six months. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.

latimes

 

[Miss Dalloway]

He is on the cover of Hollywood Reporter, and its great! Actually excited to get the issue now!

Such a great time for Tom, and since we all know how hard he works, I'm very happy that he seems to be having a major moment again, in Fashion & Film!

Thanks to everoyne for posting the new interviews.

 

[Spike413]

I have to say, from a purely retail standpoint, this choice of his has always made sense to me. In a way it's very similar formula to the one H&M has employed for their yearly designer collaborations; announce something, talk about it in vague terms and then within only a few weeks start to tease it, then promote it, then debut it in pics and on a runway, and finally drop it into stores days later before the rush of "I need to own this now!" wears off.

Sales wise, who really wants to deal with pre-ordering anything? The more time you have to think about a purchase, the more time you have to lose interest in it, or decide you don't need it, or see something else that you like instead.

I'm surprised to hear about his approach to long-lead press though. For some reason I had assumed that, at least where the major mags are concerned, Ford would have taken a similar approach as he did with buyers by previewing the collection and lending it out to be photographed for issues that will land on newsstands after the collection does.

 

[GIVENCHYlover]

The more time you have to think about a purchase, the more time you have to lose interest in it

This!

 

[Nymphaea]

Tom Ford interview: 'Fashion is gone so quickly. But film lasts forever'

Two decades ago, Tom Ford had the fashion world at his feet. In 1990 the Texas-born designer had moved to Milan to take charge of womenswear at the struggling Italian leather goods brand, Gucci. When Ford joined, Gucci was almost bankrupt – both creatively and financially.

The company was struggling to pay its employees on time and even the then-creative director admitted that “no one would dream of wearing Gucci”. But Ford sexed up the brand, putting Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow in his clothes, creating controversial nude ad campaigns and wowing the front row with his movie-star good looks.

He was made creative director of the whole company in 1994, and quickly became known as the king of the celebrity designers. But after clashing with his bosses over creative control, in 2004 he abruptly quit. Despite walking away with $100 million in stock, Ford began to struggle with alcohol, depression and generally “not knowing what I was going to do”. Then he had an idea: he’d become a filmmaker.

Two more tough years followed as Ford tried to find backers and scripts, so by his own admission he "panicked". He went back to fashion, starting his own Tom Ford fashion line in 2006 and – in typical Ford style – generated interest through provocative imagery, which included appearing on the cover of Vanity Fair fully clothed between actresses Keira Knightley and Scarlett Johansson, both nude.

Thanks to the line’s success, Ford was able to largely self-finance his first film A Single Man, an adaptation of a Christopher Isherwood novel starring Colin Firth as a gay college professor in 1962. Although Ford “lost a little money on it”, the film was a critical sensation, earning both Oscar and Bafta nominations. Seven years later, Ford is at the Toronto Film Festival to talk about his follow-up film, Nocturnal Animals.

Sitting in a hotel suite, the 55-year-old looks exactly like a Tom Ford model: immaculate dark suit, white shirt, turquoise cufflinks, tinted glasses and just the right degree of carefully tended stubble. He’s coolly confident, articulate, courteous and still leading man-handsome, although he has admitted to using Botox to help maintain his looks.

Ford has just flown in from New York, where he had launched his new “fall line” following a visit to the Venice Film Festival for the film’s premiere, and a brief stop at his house in Los Angeles.

Such a peripatetic schedule must surely dictate that he travels with a veritable wardrobe of suits? “In fact, I’m travelling with only carry-on luggage,” he smiles. “I wear this same suit over and over and over. I have probably quite a lot of them but they’re pretty much all the same. I have a uniform; it’s easy: I get up in the morning and I put on that uniform.”

Since making A Single Man, Ford and his longtime partner and husband of two years Richard Buckley, 68, have adopted a son, Jack, now aged four. “I’m a very hands-on father and I told myself, OK, for at least the first three years I’m not going to do anything except really concentrate on Jack,” he says. “Also my business expanded and I didn’t find a story that I wanted to do.”

He eventually discovered Austin Wright's psychological thriller novel Tony and Susan, optioned it and wrote a screenplay for it. The film, which he retitled Nocturnal Animals and which he produced and directed, stars Amy Adams as Susan, a successful art dealer who has a life-altering experience while reading a novel written by her ex-husband about a family man who gets brutally attacked while driving through rural Texas.

The two stories – Susan’s and the fictional family man’s (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) – intertwine throughout the film, which has received rave reviews comparing it to the thrillers of Alfred Hitchcock. (The Telegraph critic Robbie Collin declared it “intoxicating, provocative, delicious”.)

Through Susan, Nocturnal Animals explores the perils of materialism and consumerism, the very things that have made Ford a fortune. And the irony is not lost on him.

“Susan’s character in particular is autobiographical,” acknowledges Ford, who owns a Richard Neutra-designed home in Los Angeles, an 1827 John Nash house in London and a ranch in Santa Fe New Mexico which he has just put on the market for £60 million. “I have had the good fortune in life to experience that sort of materialism that our culture tells us is going to make us happy. I’m not saying that it’s not something that I enjoy; we live in a material world; we touch things that feel good and we get to see beautiful things.

“But you have to keep it in perspective and the most important things in life, certainly for me, are loyalty. I’ve been with the same person for 30 years and I’ve worked with the same people for many years.

“What drew me to the book was the story I took away from it which was really that when you find people in your life that you care about, that you love, you hang on to them. And this is a cautionary tale of what can happen to you if you don’t.”

His decision to write, direct and produce A Single Man was greeted at the time with skepticism by many, who pointed out that no one of Ford’s stature had crossed over from running a vast fashion empire into becoming a multi-hyphenate filmmaker.

But Ford, who had started his career as a teenage actor in New York, believes the two are not dissimilar. “You have to have a vision, you have to have something you want to say, you have to then hire great people around you and you have to inspire them,” he says. “I was not a great actor, in fact I hated acting, although I had a very successful career in television commercials. I took lots of acting classes so I think I understand what actors go through.

“Good actors want to give a great performance, so part of my job is to inspire them and to create an environment where they feel comfortable, where they can give their best performance. And I think I’m a good storyteller. If you were at a dinner party with me and I could sense that you were getting bored, I’d spice up the story with maybe something that wasn’t even true but to try to get you back.”

Ford points out that he’s spent 30 years working with the world’s best photographers, framing and telling stories: “I’m not saying this egotistically but even on A Single Man I felt very, very comfortable in the role as a director. But in fashion you get to do something new in two months, then it’s gone, it’s over and you move on. But film is something that lasts forever and I think because of that you give it a certain gravitas.”

Ford is, he says, at “a very good place” in his life and his past problems are well behind him. He hasn’t had a drink for several years, he has kept depression at bay, he exercises and plays tennis every day and, he says: “I have a wonderful family life. I think that the older you get the more comfortable you are with yourself. I am certainly more comfortable with myself now than I was 10,15 or 30 years ago.

“Somebody said to me, 'Are you going to wear a suit on the film set?’ And I said, 'Yeah, this is who I am and this is the way I dress. Why would I change my clothes? I’m most comfortable like this.’

Nocturnal Animals will be shown at the BFI London Film Festival on October 14 before its UK release on November 4

telegraph

 

[MissMagAddict]

Nocturnal Animals. He's on Charlie Rose tonight.

Too late for EC but still time for WC to see it.

 

[mistress_f]

Nocturnal Animals is amazing. I honestly think he's got a definite shot at an oscar nom for best adapted screenplay and if the academy is in his favor, at best director. I didn't think he had it in him, i mean i loved a single man but this is a whole other thing. One of the best films of the year, I've seen it in september and i can't stop thinking about it, can't wait to see it again.

 

[MulletProof]

^ A Single Man kind of faded away for me over time, I feel like it was a long perfume commercial with a narrative (like one of those nice Prada shorts).. I was expecting more or less the same from this until someone said the two magic words that make me never want to see a film but also want to see it right away lol: Funny Games .. (mild hints of Spielberg's Duel too, maybe?).

For the longest time Tom Ford and his work (but mostly his fans..) made my eyes roll, and still couldn't care less for his fashion career, but so much respect for the man... he's so driven and ambitious and one of the few designers that has managed to successfully express himself in full financial and creative force outside of fashion (if not the only one that has done it in this scale). He made such a beautiful and elegant film.. it's all in the right doses, and I think it's pretty amazing that he abstained from turning the violence of the film into the sellable points of the movie as most filmmakers do and instead, quite brilliantly imo, goes into internal violence territory, the way emotions go from numb to being ripped apart when there's love and loss.

Also loving him for portraying LA and its galleries as so painfully vapid and plastic, especially through Jena Malone's character, I know Tom put her there in Comme des Garçons so you feel even more tempted to push her down the stairs, I love comme, but he makes a point!

I wonder if he regretted casting Aaron.. even at his toilet grossest, he's such a gorgeous, non-hatable man (and hello, green cowboy boots ).

I just hope Tom wins something in the awards season.. you don't see something so visually relaxing but with substance and honesty that often.. it's a bit old-school.