There would always be the movies: Ford has optioned a couple of books and written a script. But fashion remained out there, looming. Before A Single Man, Ford had ventured into menswear, where he cut against the grain of super-skinny minimalism with rich wide-lapeled suits—an assertive counterstatement. Womenswear arrived in 2010, with a small, private show where Ford's pals, like Wilson, Eisner and Beyoncé, served as models. But there have been challenges, expected and unexpected. Tom Ford launched its flagship in New York just before the financial crisis struck—and De Sole acknowledges that 2008, 2009 and part of 2010 were unsettling times. "It certainly has been more difficult than we thought," he says. "It was very, very difficult for all luxury brands."
De Sole says the privately held company is now "on course." Ford speaks of a "tipping point," and is not meek about his strategy. He sees Tom Ford as a potentially global-dominant brand, the pinnacle of luxury appealing to a customer for whom money is seldom an object and peerless service is an expectation. The prices can be startling—suits ranging from $3,730 to $7,060, or $3,890 for a pair of crystal-embellished pumps—but there are plenty of loyal buyers willing to spend, he says. "We have customers—a lot of them—who spend more than a million dollars a year with us because they come in and just order: suit, suit, suit, suit, suit, suit," he says, snapping his fingers. Karen Katz, the CEO and president of Neiman Marcus, says that customers buying Tom Ford "tend to be people who are strong. They're confident. They're powerful. And I think buying the products just helps them with all that—being even more confident and stronger."
Ford has always prided himself as a commercial designer, aware of the market, not trying to isolate himself from the business of selling clothes. De Sole, who was on the verge of retirement when Ford lured him back, says Ford wants to know the bottom line. "There's always some sense that all designers tend to live in their own creative universe," De Sole says. "Tom can read a financial statement. He understands the practical aspect of the business. That's very important."
But the return of a designer like Ford also represents the return of a mood. No minimalist, Ford is not afraid of a little showbiz and razzle-dazzle, the kind of exaggerated playfulness that fashion sometimes lacks. There's a bravado—a largeness of life Jay-Z is referring to when he raps "I rock Tom Ford"—and a sense of humor about its vanity. Everything gets a little bigger. Bolder. Fun. Vogue Editor in Chief Anna Wintour, praising Ford for showing at London Fashion Week this spring, says "fashion needs designers like him—rock stars who give you a fabulous, no-holds-barred spectacle."
Of course, part of the Tom Ford experience is also Ford himself, the one the public knows from snapshots at fabulous parties—that dashing, louche-looking character who's always ready to find mischief at 2 a.m. The Ford on the red carpet is often a bit of theater, a dramatic rendering the designer acknowledges is a bit of a production—not necessarily fake, just a heightened reality. Ford says he gave up drinking four and a half years ago—"alcohol was getting in the way of my life, so I simply stopped," he says. He describes himself as a homebody. Says Ford's partner of 26 years, the fashion journalist Richard Buckley, who lives with the designer in South Kensington, London: "If he had his choice, we would never ever leave this house."
"I'm an absolute introvert," says Ford. "I do not like parties larger than eight close friends. I'm quite the loner. What I do publicly is a performance. It's part of my job, and I'm good at it."
These days, there's the best reason to stay at home. Ford and Buckley have welcomed a son, Alexander John Buckley Ford, nicknamed Jack, who was born via surrogate in Los Angeles last September. Now there are feedings, onesies, diapers and all the beautiful madness of parenthood, with some bespoke Ford touches. "Tom being Tom, all the clothes are folded in a drawer a certain way," Buckley says. "He's a 100 percent hands-on dad. He gets up at six every morning, gives Jack his bottle, changes him, washes him, plays with him, gets him dressed for the day."
"I didn't quite know what to expect," Ford says of Jack's arrival. "I remember the day before he was born, I was up at like 5 a.m., frantically going to the supermarket in L.A. making sure I had miniature versions of sanitary hand wipes for his diaper bag. I didn't know what the other side of that cliff was like."
It is the cliché of clichés to say that parenthood changes everyone, but Ford says it's true in his case, too. "Spending time with [Jack] is meditative," he says. "You forget about everything. You forget about yourself.
"I view the future differently," he says. "You see yourself as a link in the chain as opposed to some sort of isolated link. I see my grandparents, great grandparents, great-great grandparents. I've continued the chain."
Of course, the arrival of a child is an often dramatic life adjustment, accompanied by an inevitable surrender of control. Babies do not adjust their schedules around your meetings or upcoming shows. Babies have different agendas and priorities. This means keeping it loose. This means flexibility. This means change in the life of Ford.
"Spontaneity was not a word in his vocabulary until now," says Eisner. "You can't go, 'Okay, listen baby, you're going to be on this schedule, and you're going to do all this.' You can try, but that rug is going to be pulled out from under you all the time." It's a familiar parental experience. The loss of control can be unsettling, but also inspiring—a chance to live in a world that's become a little harder to predict. "I think Tom really wanted that," Eisner says. "Secretly, deep down, I think he sort of likes it."
SITTING HERE, in this office just so, with the flowers just so and the temperature perfectly controlled, Ford says he is happy. "I'm generally happier than I've ever been," Ford says. "I'm really happy when I see my son in the morning. I'm also happy to walk in here to my office and see everyone working. I'm happy to have certain meetings. Then I'm not happy to have other ones."
When I ask Ford if he is the man he thought he would be at his age, more than a half-century in, he says he is, and then goes on to joke about back pain and feeling wistful "for the texture of my skin when I was 28—stretched across my tight stomach." He admits that some youth culture puzzles him. Tom Ford the company may be expanding online, but Tom Ford the man has no current plans to be on Twitter. "I'm walking out of a restaurant right now, and I just got gum on my shoe," Ford says, imagining a fake tweet. "It's amazing."
He sees the humor of it all, how he left this business once before and is now back in it, working as much as ever, in a volatile economy, with all its attendant criticisms, pettiness, insanity and risk-taking—a man who escaped the craziness, now grabbing a ladder and climbing back in. This time Ford is in charge of his own destiny, but it's still challenging, not without headaches and fear. "It's harder," Ford says. "There's more at stake."
But he likes it. This, too, makes him happy. A half-century in, Ford knows what drives him. "There's an adrenaline," Ford says. "I'm somebody who likes to jump through hoops. I realized that. I like to jump through hoops."
What about a hoop on fire?
"Has to be lit on fire," Ford says. "Absolutely. And then I want the hoop to get skinnier and narrower, to see if I can still jump through it."
Jonathan Anderson - Designer, Creative Director of J.W. Anderson & Loewe (6 Viewers)