Tom Ford 002

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That excitement fuels over and I feel more creative, but it is weird because it also makes you realise how fast it all goes. Instead of solely focusing on fragrance, cosmetics, and eyewear Ford saw a niche in the market for menswear, an empire was born and the rest is history. Looking back at it, why it was a great show, why the room worked, the vibe worked… You couldn’t walk away from it saying, ‘Tom Ford believes in this,’ because at the time I wanted to make clothes for all different kinds of individual women. Now, in a companion volume out this month, a sober and vegan Ford looks back on the many lives that he has lived since then: as a husband and a father, and as a creative visionary who brought his style to the world of the movies as a lauded director, and subsequently managed a powerful fashion and beauty comeback with his eponymous brand. But, he says, “I don’t regret any of it, by the way, because everything in my life has added up to who I am today.

The reason why I wanted to do that at the time was, yes, Gucci and Saint Laurent existed way before I went there, but in the case of Gucci, there really were not runway shows before I went. But ultimately what you ended up with was a room full of a lot of different clothes that didn’t have one precise message of, ‘I believe in this kind of pant shape and that kind of jacket shape and these kinds of colours.But honestly I’m seeing it through the lens of having just lost Richard, and now it takes on a different meaning.

I did want to be an actor when I was young, but I didn’t like putting myself out in the world like that.From left: Lauren Ridloff in the brand’s silk georgette dress by the designer at the Eternals premiere in London; Timothée Chalamet in an indigo denim Tom Ford tuxedo at the Dune premiere in Paris; and Jennifer Hudson in a purple ensemble by the designer at his runway show in September. Ford edited the images over the course of a year, starting with “thousands and thousands” of photos gathered from his com­pany’s public relations departments around the world. But soon “realized very quickly that I was missing having a voice in contemporary culture but I didn’t feel I was ready to jump back in,” he says. I think I’m often the best when I’m working on multiple things at the same time because I’m excited about one thing that I’m doing and that spills over into everything else because I’m happy.

He preferred looking at printed images versus digital, he says, laying everything he liked on the floor to discern favorites and determine what worked together. Ford released his first book, Tom Ford, 17 years ago (Rizzoli, 2004), which explored his time as creative director of Gucci. As most fashion designers will tell you, they tend to focus on what’s next, whether it be a forthcoming collection or looking for inspiration, a concept that Ford reflects on across 416 pages.That feeling translates so easily to social media: I think Instagram, for all its evils, may actually save fashion. Looking back at that phase of your career and your first book, how do you see that and contemplate that now at this distance? Los Angeles is built around life at friends’ houses, around swimming pools, and when you’re raising a 9-year-old, it’s wonderful,” he tells THR. This volume, printed with Forest Stewardship Council approved materials and edited by Ford personally, reflects his exceptional taste and unapologetic sensual aesthetic and is a true collector’s item for his devotees and connoisseurs of fashion, style, and design.

Tom Ford 002 takes the reader through a glamour-filled journey of all things Tom Ford, featuring previously unpublished images ranging from 2005 to the present day.So I’ve always wanted to make films and I bought our house in Los Angeles in the mid ’90s, because I realised, well I’ve always liked LA and I have a certain history here, but I also knew that I was going to do this one day, and I didn’t want people to think it was completely ludicrous, which, as I also say in the book, they did, which I didn’t realise, until I’d already made a movie and everyone said, “Oh my god, we thought you were ridiculous. Now more than a decade after his best-selling debut book Tom Ford was released, highlighting his time as Creative Director of Gucci (a position now held by Alessandro Michele), Ford is back with Tom Ford 002 to showcase and celebrate his life’s work.