Tom Ford

Tom Ford was born in Austin, Texas in 1961. Following a brief stint as an actor, he enrolled in Parsons School of Design from which he graduated with a degree in architecture. After various smaller jobs in the industry, he was hired as Gucci’s women’s ready-to-wear designer in 1990. This was during a time when luxury fashion houses were struggling, arguably due to the influence of designers like the Antwerp Six. By 1994, Ford was the creative director of Gucci, and was appointed the creative director of Yves Saint Laurent when Gucci acquired the brand in 1999. By the time he left Gucci in 2004, he had brought the brand from the edge of bankruptcy to a value of 10 billion dollars. He made Gucci sexy again, using very provocative and sexual imagery in advertising campaigns. He started his own eponymous brand in 2006, and has since dressed countless celebrities at A-list events. He was appointed the chairman of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) in 2019. 

Ford’s clothes have always exuded sensuality. His menswear is slim-cut, alternating between traditional and eye-catching colors. His womenswear is extraordinarily glamorous, but I personally do not know enough about women’s’ clothing to describe his influence in that realm with justice. In the world of fashion, he is the polar opposite of the aesthetic championed by the Antwerp Six and Raf Simons. His clothes never use images or wording, instead focusing on color and pattern. In addition to his clothes, he designs perfume, accessories, and grooming supplies (I own two bottles of his cologne and will wear it till I die.) Through it all, Ford designs a brilliantly high-class aesthetic. His two Oscar-nominated films, A Single Man (2009) and Nocturnal Animals (2016) for which he served as director and screenwriter, demonstrate his aesthetic well.