Tom Ford: The Renaissance Man Who Made Gucci
September 22, 2008
Not to Mention Being The Male Venus Himself
Tom Ford gained international fame for his turnaround of the Gucci fashion house and the creation of the Tom Ford label.
Ford dropped out of NYU after only a year, preferring to concentrate on acting in television commercials; at one time, he was in twelve national advertising campaigns simultaneously. Ford then began studying interior architecture at New York City’s Parsons School of Design. During his time in New York, Ford became a fixture at the legendary nightclub Studio 54. The club’s disco-era glamor would be a major influence on his later designs.
In 1988, Ford got a position at Perry Ellis, where he knew both the Robert McDonald, the company’s president, and Marc Jacobs, its designer, socially. He stayed at the company for two years, but grew tired of working in American fashion. In a later interview with the New York Times, he commented, “If I was ever going to become a good designer, I had to leave America. My own culture was inhibiting me. Too much style in America is tacky. It’s looked down upon to be too stylish. Europeans, however, appreciate style.”
Ford would soon have the opportunity to enter the world of European fashion: Gucci, a faltering luxury goods comapany, was seeking to strengthen its women’s ready-to-wear presence as a part of its brand overhaul. At the time, “no one would dream of wearing Gucci,” said Dawn Mello, then the company’s creative director. Mello hired Ford-then a near-unknown-as the brand’s chief women’s ready-to-wear designer in 1990. “I was talking to a lot of people, and most didn’t want the job,” Mello said. “For an American designer to move to Italy to join a company that was far from being a brand would have been pretty risky.” Ford and his longtime partner, fashion journalist Richard Buckley, relocated to Milan that September.
Ford’s role at Gucci rapidly expanded: he was designing menswear within six months, and shoes soon after that. When Richard Lambertson left as design director in 1992, Ford took over his position, heading the brand’s ready-to-wear, fragrances, image, advertising, and store design. In 1993, when he was in charge of designing eleven product lines, Ford worked eighteen-hour days.
During these years, there were creative tensions between Ford and Maurizio Gucci, the company’s chairman and 50% owner. According to Mello, “Maurizio always wanted everything to be round and brown, and Tom wanted to make it square and black.” Though Maurizio Gucci wanted to fire Ford, Domenico de Sole insisted that he remain. Nonetheless, Ford’s contributions to Gucci were overshadowed by those of Mello, who was the company’s public face.
In 1994, Ford was promoted to creative director. In his first year at the helm, he was credited with putting the glamor back into fashion introducing Halston-style velvet hipsters, skinny satin shirts and car-finish metallic patent boots. In 1995, he brought in French stylist Carine Roitfeld and photographer Mario Testino to create a series of new, modern ad campaigns for the company. Between 1995 and 1996, sales at Gucci increased by 90%.
By 1999, the house, which had been almost bankrupt when Ford joined, was valued at about $4.3 billion. When Gucci acquired the house of Yves Saint-Laurent, Ford was named the creative director of that label as well. During his time as Creative Director for YSL, Ford won numerous Council of Fashion Designers of America Awards.
His advertising campaigns for the YSL fragrances Opium (with a red-haired Sophie Dahl completely naked wearing only a necklace and stiletto heels in a sexually suggestive pose) and YSL M7 (with martial arts champion Samuel de Cubber in complete full-frontal nudity) pushed fragrance ads to a new level of creativity in artistic expression and commercial impact.
In April 2004, Ford parted company with the Gucci group after he and CEO Domenico de Sole, who is credited as Ford’s partner in the success story that is Gucci, failed to agree with PPR bosses over creative control of the Group.
Following his departure from Gucci (and YSL), Ford opened the fashion house, Tom Ford. Ford began with accessories; his line of eyewear was the first to become successful. The Tom Ford line now covers Menswear, Beauty, Eyewear, and both Men and Women’s Accessories. In 2006, he also established a fragrance line called Tom Ford Beauty. In early 2006, Ford attracted media attention for appearing fully clothed on the cover of Vanity Fair alongside Keira Knightley and Scarlett Johansson, both nude.
Ford’s first ‘Tom Ford’ flagship store opened on April 12, 2007 on New York City’s Madison Avenue.
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