Tom Ford (fashion designer)

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Tom Ford at the 66th Venice Film Festival 2009

Thomas Carlyle "Tom" Ford (born August 27, 1961 in Austin , Texas ) is an American fashion designer and film director .

Career

youth

Ford was born in Austin in 1961 and grew up in Santa Fe , New Mexico . After graduating from high school , he enrolled at Simon's Rock College in Great Barrington near Pittsfield (Massachusetts) at the age of 17, but dropped out after one semester. Ford moved from Massachusetts to New York City in 1979 and began studying art history at New York University , which he also dropped out after a year. Instead, he took modeling jobs , mostly for television commercials - for example Prell - shampoo , and moved to Los Angeles for it . Back in New York, Ford began studying architecture at the Parsons School of Design . He completed his year abroad in 1984/85 at the French branch of the Parsons School of Design in Paris , where he also received an internship at Chloé . For his final year in New York, he took all of his electives in fashion design , but graduated in 1986 with a BA in environmental design (combination of architecture and interior design ). Ford's goal, however, was to become a fashion designer, like his great role model Calvin Klein .

new York

After studying at Parsons, Ford applied to Calvin Klein several times, but was not hired. He finally found a job as a design assistant with Korean-American designer Cathy Hardwick in 1986 after calling her every day for a month. In 1988, Marc Jacobs , then creative director at Perry Ellis , hired Ford as a designer for the second line or jeans line Perry Ellis America .

Gucci and YSL

In 1990, Ford was recruited as a designer for Gucci women's fashion in Italy by Dawn Mello, the former Bergdorf Goodman head buyer, who has been the creative director at Gucci in Milan since 1989 . The Gucci brand had lost its reputation in the early 1980s and Mello had struggled to fill the then unprofitable position of women's fashion designer at Gucci. Ford's job at Gucci in Milan was to completely renew the financially ailing label. He sifted through the Gucci archives and reissued classics from the fashion house, among other things.

Ford was named design director in 1992 and creative director in 1994 when Mello returned to Bergdorf Goodman. Until Mello left, Ford had been working in her shadow in the background. His greatest adversary and opponent of any progress in the company had been the Gucci heir and then CEO Maurizio Gucci, who resigned in 1993. Maurizio Gucci had sold 50% of the company in 1988 and finally 100% in 1993 to Investcorp from Bahrain . The then new CEO of Gucci, Domenico de Sole, a lawyer and head of Gucci America business from 1984 to 1994, initiated extensive restructuring measures together with Ford from 1994 onwards. Ford's first fashion show as creative director in the fall of 1994 received moderate reviews. In 1995, however, he achieved his breakthrough. For his men's fashion show in January 1995 in Florence (hip-high velvet trousers and patent leather slippers in James Bond look) and his women's fashion show in September 1995 in Milan (pencil-style velvet trousers, colorful hippie dresses, narrow blouses, presented by the supermodels of 1990s) it received the highest praise from the press. The Council of Fashion Designers of America honored him with the 1995 International Award for his work at Gucci.

Investcorp listed Gucci on the stock exchange in 1995 and Ford received a considerable share of the shares, and was even considered a private person with the largest share of Gucci shares. Through the consistent modernization of the company and a daring advertising campaign staged by the Peruvian star photographer Mario Testino , Ford revitalized the company with new splendor. He expanded the Gucci portfolio to include evening wear and sportswear for women and men and expanded the accessories segment with glasses, bags and home textiles. Gucci sales doubled under Ford in the first nine months of 1995 compared to 1994. Between 1995 and 1996 sales rose again by 90%. In 1998 Gucci headquarters were relocated to London and Ford moved to the British capital.

As a result of Ford's shift in Gucci looks towards glamor, the luxury brand, which was badly run down in 1993, was worth approximately $ 4.3 billion in 1999. In 2004 it was $ 10 billion. Tom Ford had become a star designer par excellence from 1995, because he had succeeded in merging his person with the Gucci brand into one. Among other things, he created the perfume “Envy” for Gucci (women 1997, men 1998). In 1998 there were even considerations as to whether Ford and de Sole should buy the Gucci company together.

After LVMH began buying Gucci shares under Bernard Arnault in 1999, Domenico de Sole responded to a feared takeover by issuing new shares to dilute Arnault's stake in the company and by hiring Arnault's adversary François Pinault from PPR ( today Kering ) bought 40% of Gucci shares. Ultimately, Pinault won the court battle for Gucci in 2001. In 2000, the Gucci Group had already incorporated the Yves Saint Laurent (YSL) brand . Tom Ford took on the role of women's prêt-à-porter designer at YSL in Paris in addition to his position as Gucci chief designer in Milan . He sexualized the Gucci and YSL brands by increasingly showing naked or almost naked models in advertising campaigns, thereby sparking controversy. Ford did not have a good relationship with company founder Yves Saint Laurent, who headed the Haute Couture division at YSL until 2002 and saw his life's work being endangered by the American. Ford also planned some of the advertising campaigns for both fashion houses, and the design of the stores was also under his control. Only the moderate commercial success of the YSL brand dampened Ford's career. In the early 2000s, there were disagreements between Tom Ford and Domenico de Sole on the one hand and the management of Gucci and YSL majority owners PPR over the strategic direction of the Gucci brand, which resulted in Ford and de Sole Company as of April 30, 2004.

The Tom Ford brand

On November 4, 2003, Ford announced that it would end its involvement with the Gucci Group on April 30, 2004 and took a year off. Together with Domenico de Sole as CEO, he founded his own fashion brand Tom Ford International, LLC in New York in April 2005 . The company initially offered sunglasses and prescription frames (produced under license from Marcolin) as well as perfume (license from Estée Lauder Companies ), both for women and men, with great success . The Tom Ford brand quickly became internationally known through the large-scale advertising campaigns of the licensees. Ford also used provocative advertising for his own brand, for which he worked with Terry Richardson , among others . In April 2007 Ford opened the first Tom Ford flagship store in Manhattan on the occasion of the launch of its men's fashion, which is produced in collaboration with Ermenegildo Zegna and is in the top price segment . In September 2010, women's fashion by Tom Ford was presented there for the first time. Ford has since presented its women's fashion collections at London Fashion Week . At the end of 2013, Ford was forecasting annual sales of $ 1 billion for its company. As of 2015, there were 110 Tom Ford stores, outlets and shops-in-shops in North America, Europe, Russia, the Middle East and Asia. In Germany, the company has a store in Munich, in Switzerland in Zurich and St. Moritz.

filmmakers

In 2009, Ford made his feature film debut as a filmmaker ( director , screenwriter and producer ) with the drama A Single Man . The film, starring Colin Firth and Julianne Moore in the lead roles was invited to the competition of the 66th Venice Film Festival and brought Firth a 2010 Oscar nomination (his first) in the category "Best Actor" one. Ford founded his production company Fade to Black for the film in 2005 .

The shooting of his second feature film Nocturnal Animals took place from October to December 2015 in Los Angeles. The film is based on the novel Tony & Susan by the American Austin Wright (1922–2003) and tells the story of an art gallery owner (played by Amy Adams ) who gets to read her ex-husband's debut novel. She then gets caught up in the violent thriller, which is about a man ( Jake Gyllenhaal ), whose wife and daughter are kidnapped and cruelly murdered while on vacation. Nocturnal Animals was invited to the competition at the 73rd Venice Film Festival in 2016 and earned him a Golden Globe nomination for directing.

In 2017 he was accepted into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), which awards the Oscars every year.

Private

Ford has lived with his partner Richard Buckley (* 1948) since 1987 . Buckley, then editor of the American fashion magazine Women's Wear Daily , first saw Ford in 1986 at a fashion show by American fashion designer David Cameron and met him through Ford's then employer, Cathy Hardwick. From 1999 to 2005 Buckley was editor-in-chief of Vogue Hommes International. However, after he contracted throat cancer in 2005 , commuting to Paris became too much, he gave up his post and moved to Italy with Ford for a few years.

On September 23, 2012, Ford and Buckley became parents for the first time. Their son Alexander John Buckley Ford was born in Los Angeles. The couple finally married in April 2014. Back in 2010, Ford said in the audio commentary on his first film, A Single Man, after the brief cameo of Buckley and Christopher Isherwood's widower Don Bachardy : “I actually hate the term ' boyfriend ' . After 23 years there should be a more binding term for it. "

Ford lives with his family alternately in New York, Los Angeles and London.

Filmography

Awards

Tom Ford has received numerous awards for his work, including:

  • CFDA : International Award (for Gucci, 1995), Womenswear (for Gucci, 2001), Accessories (for YSL, 2002), Board of Director's Tribute (2004), Menswear (for Tom Ford, 2008), Lifetime Award (2014)
  • International Designer of the Year - Fashion Editors Club Japan 1996;
  • Menswear and Womenswear Designer of the Year;
  • four VH-1 Fashion Music Awards and the Fashion's Future Best New Designer prize 1995.
  • Elle Style Icon Award in 1999
  • GLAAD Vito Russo Award in 2007
  • Prize of the Frankfurt Book Fair for the best international literary film adaptation 2016 for Nocturnal Animals

Web links

Commons : Tom Ford  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tom Ford on Family, Fashion and Film , wwd.com, May 9, 2012
  2. ^ Frock star , telegraph.co.uk, November 9, 2003
  3. ^ Tom Ford: 'I'm an equal opportunity objectifier' , theguardian.com March 21, 2015
  4. ↑ Tom Ford on Family, Fashion and Film , wwd.com, May 9, 2012
  5. ^ Frock star , telegraph.co.uk, November 9, 2003
  6. ^ Finding Fortune: Tom Ford , out.com, April 15, 2014
  7. ↑ Marc On ... Hiring Tom Ford , vogue.co.uk, May 20, 2008
  8. ^ President of Bergdorf Is Leaving for Gucci Job , nytimes.com, October 4, 1989
  9. ↑ From Great to Gone: Why FMCG Companies are Losing the Race for Customers , page 73 (via Google Books ), 2014
  10. ^ Gucci Gains Ground With Revival of Style; Belt-Tightening in the Work Force And Lavish Spending on Marketing , nytimes.com, December 14, 1995
  11. ↑ Gucci Spring 1996 Fashion Show (full pt.1) , youtube.com, accessed: August 21, 2015
  12. ^ The Road To Luxury: The Evolution, Markets and Strategies of Luxury Brand Management , via Google Books , page 186, 2015
  13. ^ Gucci Group to Make a Payout Of $ 1.59 Billion to Shareholders , wsj.com, May 29, 2003
  14. ↑ Tom Ford Gets Candid About His Years at Gucci , nymag.com, April 20, 2015
  15. ↑ Gucci And Goliath , vanityfair.com, July 1999
  16. ^ 10 Of The Most Controversial Fashion Adverts , independent.co.uk, accessed August 21, 2015
  17. ^ Naked Male Ads Stir Controversy in Europe , adage.com, October 28, 2008
  18. ↑ Design guru reveals Yves Saint-Laurent hate mail , cnn.com, June 1, 2011
  19. ↑ Tom Ford on his fall out with Yves Saint Laurent, dressing his celebrity friends and making another film , independent.co.uk, February 18, 2015
  20. ↑ Gucci's De Sole, Ford Will Leave Gucci, Dealing Blow to Pinault , bloomberg.com, November 4, 2003
  21. ^ The Business of Being Tom Ford, Part I , businessoffashion.com, September 26, 2013
  22. ↑ Tom Ford says ciao to Gucci, YSL , latimes.com, November 5, 2003
  23. ↑ Tom Ford's 20 Sexiest Ad Campaigns of All Time , fashionista.com, August 27, 2014
  24. ^ Fashion v censorship: a history of banned ads , dazeddigital.com, April 2015
  25. ^ The Business of Being Tom Ford, Part I , businessoffashion.com, September 26, 2013
  26. ↑ Domenico De Sole Interview: Tom Ford Chairman Gets Down To Business , billionaire.com, April 29, 2014
  27. ↑ "Class of 2017". Accessed June 30, 2017. http://www.app.oscars.org/class2017/ .
  28. ↑ Lynn Hirschberg, translated by Matthias Fienbork: Tom Ford - Fiat Luxus ( Memento of the original from June 12, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Die Weltwoche 7/2002, original publication in New York Times Magazine. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.weltwoche.ch
  29. ↑ a b Designer Tom Ford marries long-term partner , Die Welt from April 9, 2014
  30. ↑ Richard Buckley, Tom Ford's Husband: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know , heavy.com, April 8, 2014
  31. ↑ Tom Ford: He became a father , Bunte.de, October 5, 2012
  32. ↑ Tom Ford is a father! Fashion designer, 51, and partner Richard Buckley, 64, announce birth of baby son Alexander , dailymail.co.uk, October 5, 2012
  33. ↑ “This is my boyfriend of 23 years, Richard Buckley, sitting on a sofa, and Don Bachardy, Christopher Isherwood's boyfriend of more than 40 years. I thought since the story was very much Christopher Isherwood's autobiography mingled with my own autobiography, that it was kind of a nice idea to put both of them on a sofa together. I actually hate that term, 'boyfriend'. I think after twenty-three years there should be a more substantial term for that. " → UT : “Richard Buckley, my friend for 23 years, is sitting on the sofa. Next to it is Don Bachardy, who Isherwood was with for over 40 years. Since the story is a mix of Christopher Isherwood's biography and my own, I thought it would be a nice idea to put the two of them on the sofa together. I hate the term 'friend'. After 23 years there should be a more binding term for it. "
  34. ↑ GLAAD: Patti LaBelle, Tom Ford, Kate Clinton Honored at the 18th Annual GLAAD Media Awards in New York ( Memento of July 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) , March 27, 2007, accessed on March 13, 2015 (English).


personal data
SURNAME Ford, Tom
ALTERNATIVE NAMES King Cool
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American fashion designer
DATE OF BIRTH August 27, 1961
PLACE OF BIRTH Austin , Texas