In Tom Ford’s latest interview with Womens Wear Daily, the design icon reflects on his lengthy career following his receipt of the Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award at the CFDA ceremony Monday night.
An award that Ford is overdue to deserve, as put simply: Ford changed fashion. In the early Nineties designers thought to have a head for business ahead of sheer creativity were considered second-class. Then along came Tom Ford, who resurrected Gucci to become to fashion powerhouse it is now.
Though the Ford-Gucci Group era is long over, reflecting on his time at Gucci, Ford said:
“At Gucci, they’re clearly looking at my archives,” he said. “I’ll look and say, ‘Oh, I remember that, I remember that.’ But I don’t feel attached to it anymore; it feels less personal. I don’t feel a strong personality in that brand.”
For Ford, a big life-changer and new inspiration has been having his son Jack, which has admits to now focusing more on than sometimes his career and his appearance. Ford, 52 admits: “Since we’ve had Jack I haven’t had a Botox injection or a filler. I haven’t had time.”
Along with his son, he also says that this award further reminds him of his age. Here, he recalls when he realised he was ‘old’ in the world of Fashion. “
I was on a set with two models, a male model and a female. I thought in my head, ‘These are people I could probably sleep with.’ And then I heard one of them refer to me as old — I was 38 years old. It was one of those little milestones that made me think, ‘OK, I’m this age. I am old enough to be their father.'”
He also spoke about his reluctance to give in to web-based media, something he tried to avoid by keeping his shows super exclusive in attempt to prevent photos from being posted online before the clothes we released in stores. But in today’s world, where everyone at Fashion Week seems to watch the show through their phone, even the mogul that is Tom Ford couldn’t have stopped this.
“I failed. I tried to change that. I wasn’t anti-Internet. I was anti-seeing something six months in advance. If you can make it available immediately, then yes, yes, of course it makes total sense. I was just looking through a retail magazine and I saw something I loved when it came out [on the runway]. Now it feels old, and it’s only now being shipped to the store. The look feels photographed and worn. But I failed. It’s a part of popular culture I can’t not participate in. Once I reached a certain scale, I had to go along with it.”
Read the full interview here at WWD.
