mademoiselle privée

tom ford on family, fashion & film by rosemary feitelberg [women’s wear daily]

[may 9, 2012] new york — whether describing his briefcase-carrying, 7yr-old self, his overextended days at gucci group or why he likes to bathe four or five times a day, tom ford was unapologetic & entertaining tuesday night at the 92y [in new york].

when his interviewer fern mallis [creator of fashion week in new york & president of fern mallis llc.] ran through a checklist of virgo traits — precise, affectionate, everything is in order, sharp memory, attention to detail — ford offered, “anal retentive, but i don’t like that term. you know, the world might be a very scary place if it were only run by virgos. perfectionists — i don’t know if there are any psychologists in the room — are more prone to depression because perfection is not achievable. imperfection is perfection but that goes so against the grain. fashion has a lot of virgos — stella mccartney, karl lagerfeld, carine roitfeld — there are a lot of us. to really obsess about a millimeter on a shoe, it helps to be a virgo.”

[ford] was also quick to turn the tables when mallis asked him about being 50. “fern was born on march 26, 1948. she is on the cusp of an aries & she just turned 64. i google my interviewer right before i come on. then you have to disarm them.”

when [mallis] started in about aging, he said, “am i aging? you are freaking me out — i’m gay, i’m aging, what is this a roast? am i gaining weight?”

while the tom ford-isized gwyneth paltrow at this year’s oscars was one of his proudest fashion moments, he sounded even more excited describing how he bumped into two of the “downton abbey” actresses at monday’s met ball. & the fact that amazon’s jeff bezos wore a tom ford tuxedo was an added bonus — “[&] he paid retail.”

quick-witted as ford was, he broached more serious subjects, like the fallout at gucci group & yves saint laurent, how drinking was once an escape & why he does not carry a cell phone. judging from his rapid answers & insistence that you tell people repeatedly you love them, the texas-born, london-based ford appeared to be in a very good place. three films are in the works, but shooting won’t start anytime soon now that he is doing women’s ready-to-wear, has 20-plus fragrances & a thriving men’s business.

“in general, i am the most comfortable & happy that i have ever been in my entire life. i feel very satisfied. it doesn’t mean i want to die tomorrow or anything, but i feel very much myself,” he said.

here, a recap of some of the many opinions he shared w/mallis during a 100min conversation in front of a sell-out crowd.

bullied for carrying a briefcase as a kid
the big thing was to put rocks in a sock & swing it around — “whack!” & of course they slit my bike tires. i didn’t want to carry a bookbag. i thought it looked messy. & it was a real man’s briefcase. when you’re 7yrs old, a real briefcase is like luggage.…i am working w/brett ratner, judging some anti-bullying films. individuality is key. we should all be able to be who we are.

whether he recognized he was gay as a child
no, am i gay? first of all, i hate that word. of course i’m gay, but i don’t like these labels. it’s not how i define myself. yes, i’m gay, but i’m also known to be anal retentive, a pain in the ass.  

on making it
you never make it, especially in this industry where you constantly churn out stuff, things. you never finish. in the last year, i’ve had a comeback, i’ve been finished, i’ve come back again. you can’t rest.…i bought a house & then another house & another house. i bought great art & a lot of material things which did not make me happy. sometimes you have to be lucky enough to be given all those things to realize that.

dawn mello’s words of wisdom
dawn taught me one of the great, great lessons in life: “only hire people you want to have dinner with.”

this is your final answer
as a designer, design director or any creative person, you have to hire great people, support them & make them feel comfortable so they can contribute & give you their best. you have to have a vision, inspire them & lead them slowly towards your vision. but in the end, this is not a democracy & you may say, “that is a great thing but i don’t want to do that.”

adding stella mccartney, alexander mcqueen & nicolas ghesquière to the gucci group
i took my job very seriously. i was a good corporate soldier. when françois pinault invested $3.3 billion in our company, i was the only creative designer & i thought it was very important that i was not the only creative designer sitting in this company. so i thought, “all right, who do i admire, who has potential & who doesn’t conflict?”

how domenico de sole & the inner circle dealt w/the prospective takeover
we were like the cast of “friends;” you couldn’t separate us. we stuck together. we spent a good part of every morning talking about what happened the night before, what should we do & then we would try to design. it was very, very stressful & it was tough. but we stuck together & the company stuck together.

falling out of favor w/yves saint laurent
he was very friendly at first. we knew each other & he very much wanted me to design the collection.…as things started to go well & we started to get good reviews, he was no longer my friend. i actually have some wonderful handwritten letters, very beautiful handwriting. “in 13mins, you have destroyed what i have worked for for 40yrs.” i didn’t take it very well while he was alive. he was very pointed about me in the press. i haven’t seen or talked to pierre [bergé] since then but i have to say one of the reasons i wanted to work at yves saint laurent is that, like most people, i was an incredible fan. i was a little devastated that he felt that way, but then our sales were great, our reviews were great & more & more people were wearing our clothes.

the final bow at gucci in 2004
we were no longer a public company. we were not going to be able to run the company w/the autonomy we had. i flew to the oscars but i was not there very long. i got right back on a plane & flew to paris for my last yves saint laurent show. in a lot of ways, i feel i willed my departure from gucci. i knew in 2002 i couldn’t keep going. i had everything i wanted in my life. i had a wonderful person in my life. i had so much & yet i was not happy.

gone too far
i had been drinking always but i started drinking more. i was no longer drinking to relax & to be social. i was drinking to escape & that is a very different kind of drinking. i knew had to quit.…that rapid swing — trend after trend, season after season & the globalization, which we helped create in the world where all of a sudden everyone was buying the same thing — was draining. we were producing 16 collections a year as well as going to business meetings because i was on the board. it was too much. i really couldn’t take it anymore.

the easy life
i really thought i was going to retire & i was never ever going back to fashion. i hadn’t played golf in years. i bought some new golf clubs. can you imagine me golfing? i was pretty good as a kid. now golf shoes have changed. they don’t wear steel cleats any more so i had them custom made. i also insisted on still playing w/wooden clubs. i was bored out of my mind.

how film differs from fashion
it’s very, very different. the film industry is slow & i would lose my mind. you can really only make a movie every couple of years. i love to design. i am a commercial fashion designer. i always design jackets w/two sleeves. i don’t design jackets w/three sleeves or the layers & layers come off like little dolls from russia. fashion for me is a creative endeavor but it is not art for me.

making design your own
if you’re going to be a fashion designer & you’re going to be relevant, you have to be part of the time. you also have to have a sense of history & pick up the spirit of those who came before you & then make it your own. coco chanel once said, “creativity is the art of concealing your sources.” now we all suck up inspiration from everywhere. you can take a direct line from me to halston but you can take halston back to madeleine vionnet right back. open a vionnet book & you will see a lot of things that halston took.

the road not taken
in another life i would love to be a cosmetic surgeon because it’s architectural. you know, you are trying to figure out where the seams go. can i do it in one piece like halston? can you formaldehyde dna?

following other designers’ work
[i follow] every other designer’s work. i admire so many young designers. i met joseph altuzarra last night [at the met] & he sent me the sweetest e-mail this morning. it is so wonderful watching somebody’s career take off. & joseph is such a nice person. i admired him before i met him.

advice for aspiring designers
it might be the same thing that people used to tell me when i said i wanted to be an actor, which is, “if there is anything else in the world that you would be happy doing, do that.” i’m serious. this is the harshest industry. i have worked in the film industry w/people like harvey weinstein, who is a great man but he is also very tough. but, i’m telling you, that industry is easy compared to what we do.

on dropping out of nyu & acting in commercials
i was going to studio 54 a lot.…i had 12 national commercials running at the same time. half of them are under different names & you will never find them. there was a tom ford in sag when i joined. i didn’t really want to be an actor. i kind of wanted to be a movie star. but i was also very insecure. i was doing this prell shampoo commercial. this hairdresser was brushing my hair, i don’t want to do the lisp & then i will be the next stereotype, & he said, “you’re losing your hair.” i just panicked & started to obsess that my hair was starting to recede.

getting a b.a. in environmental design
it was a combination of interior design & architecture. i wanted to be an architect. i transferred back to parsons in new york. i took all of my electives in fashion. in 1984-85, i worked in the press office at chloé in paris. i packed up shoes, sent back clothes, organized the chloé sample closet — the same things everyone does when they start out.

deciding on fashion while sick in bed on a school trip to moscow
i was stuck in my room, it was two in the morning & i was thinking, ‘what am i going to do?’ i literally sat up in bed & thought, “fashion. i have always been obsessed w/fashion.” it was just, “ping,” which is how things happen w/me. i just think about things & then the answer comes.

landing the first job
i drew up a fashion portfolio. i wanted to get a job w/this lovely woman, cathy hardwick. i went outside 575 seventh avenue w/a bunch of quarters — this was before cell phones —& i just called & called & called every 10 minutes. she finally saw me. i showed her my portfolio. i had graduated from parsons & she assumed since i was showing her a fashion portfolio, i studied fashion. anyway, i got the job. she then said later it was because i had pretty hands. the first day on the job she said, “draw some circle skirts.” so i went downstairs to the double r train, went to bloomingdale’s, found a circle skirt, looked at how the seams were made, ran back to the office, sketched the circle skirts & put them on her desk. so i learned on the job.

meeting his life partner, richard buckley
i went to a fashion show & this silver-haired guy was staring at me w/these piercing water-blue eyes. it scared me because i absolutely saw & knew my entire future. at the end of the show, i just bolted. about 10 days later, cathy asked me to pick up some clothes at women’s wear daily. richard was…at women’s wear daily…he was standing on the roof — i’m telling this from richard’s vantage point now — & someone asked if he was seeing anyone. he said, “no, there was this guy i had seen at a fashion show” & at that moment the elevator door opened & there i was. richard jumps in the elevator & he’s practically tap dancing.…we had three dates. we were living together four weeks later; he gave me the keys to his apartment & we have lived together ever since.

love & marriage
i would absolutely get married to richard [buckley.] by the way, the federal government does not recognize same-sex marriages.…i have always wanted children, but i think i’d better get busy soon because i still want to be able to pick them up.

taking four or five baths a day
if i’m sending e-mails & i get all wound up & stressed & don’t know what to do w/myself for 20 minutes. i just go soak in hot water & lie there, thinking, “what should i do?” so it’s meditative.

walking around at home mostly naked
yes, don’t you walk around your house naked sometimes?

the digital world
i live on the internet, absolutely. i do not carry a cell phone but i am on the computer eight hours a day. i feel like if something really happens, somebody is going to get to me. i want to be looking & living & engaged. it’s just a personal thing & i can’t stand to talk to someone on a cell phone. if someone calls me on one, i will say, “let’s talk later when you are on a hard line.”

keeping up w/the news
i read the daily beast, cheat sheet & the international herald tribune. i live in london & it takes me exactly the time from my house to my office to read it. i am very much an american but i do miss the international take on the news when i am here — rather than “live at 5: five new ways to reduce cellulite.”

leaving new york
i loved new york when i was young. i used to hate to even go to the country for the weekend because i was afraid i would miss something. but at this stage in my life i feel as though…you probably notice maybe not that i close my eyes a lot when i talk because i get overstimulated. everything is so stimulating in new york. even when i was trying to sleep, i could feel the vibration.

on the influence of his many-times-married, liz taylor-inspired grandmother
she was one of these texas women — big hair, big makeup, big cadillac el dorado, she always had gifts & presents. she used to say one thing & i don’t know if she stole this from auntie mame: “you have one decision to make in life. you can either be happy or not be happy.”

anything on the bucket list?
just to have maybe 40 more years of this.

tom’s bon mots

maybe it has something to do w/his hollywood connection, but tom ford delivered his lines — one-liners to be precise — like a pro. so many people wanted to hear what he had to say that the event sold out four months ago & upstairs seating had to be added for live-stream viewing. (the only other luminary who required a second round of seats at the y was woody allen.) here, some of ford’s ad-libs:

“it’s funny because my family has been in texas since the 1840s or something. i put on a cowboy hat & i don’t look stupid. most people look stupid &, w/me, it’s like it just grew there. it’s very bizarre. i actually look surprisingly good in jeans & a plaid shirt on my horse in a cowboy hat.”

“i was one of those kids who was never comfortable being a child. i wanted to hang out w/adults. i wanted to listen to what they were saying. i wanted to go to cocktail parties. i ended up mixing a few too many in my time.”

“moving to santa fe coming from texas was very exotic. i mean, charles manson was living there. many of the roads were dirt. there were hippie communes.”

“azealia banks right now is amazing & lianne la havas is also great. but, c’mon, i grew up in the 60s & the 70s. put on the bee gees & immediately i’m ‘staying alive.’”

“we are on camera so, yeah, there is a little powder there. yes, of course, i do not come out fully made up every day but if i have a little pimple or something i am going to get a little concealer to cover it up.”

“a man can’t have a facelift very well because they cut here & then you have your sideburns in your ear. i quite like my beard. there is this little gap here. i am always looking to see whose got the hairs growing out of the side of the ears.”

“i relax by skiing, riding & playing tennis. & i figured out why. when you’re involved w/any of those things, & other sports as well, you can’t be thinking of anything else.”

“my grandmother was married six times. she liked husband number three the best. his name was hal. by the time she married the last time, she was 77 & she just called him hal & he didn’t seem to mind.”

“i want to hear everyone’s opinion, i want to digest all of it & then i make a decision. & i usually don’t waiver once it’s decided.”

view the article here.

watch a video montage of highlights that fern mallis shared here.