Few people actually live up to all their hype, but after meeting him at his beauty launch and watching him get interviewed by Fern Mallis two years ago, we can confirm that Tom Ford is, in fact, a God. Despite his OCD, he’s actually very funny! Here’s a look at 10 other things you may not have known about the designer.
- There’s a reason that he was able to run both Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent at one point; Ford has said that he works non-stop. “If I’m awake, I’m working.” The one exception is when the designer is taking a bath, which he does at least three times a day. On days where he is particularly stressed, he admits to taking a bath every hour. No wonder he has such a fantastic bath and body line.
- He joined designers like Jean Paul Gaultier, Victoria Beckham and Donatella Versace by filming his own ALS Ice Bucket Challenge video.
- Ford, who admits to having a terrible low after leaving the Gucci Group, has said that he often finds himself struggling because while he’s attracted to beautiful things, he knows that inherently they are not valuable. Your connection to other people, the designer says, is what ultimately brings you happiness.
- On average, a customer leaving one of Ford’s boutiques will spend around $1,797.
- Ford wanted to be a cosmetic surgeon. “It’s like fashion; they’re architectural, you have to figure out where the seams go,” he has said. Ford has also admitted to secretly wanting to be an actor when he was at New York University.
- He is very involved in everything that he does, whether it’s beauty or fashion. John Demsey, group president at Estée Lauder, which owns his beauty range, explained that everything comes from Tom. “With someone like Tom, it comes from his point of view, and he is very, very involved. He knows a lot about the beauty business, more so than anybody quite honestly I’ve ever met.”
- Tom Ford was 25 when he met his now husband Richard Buckley and he admits to knowing he wanted to marry him after one elevator ride. “The first night I ever had drinks with Richard I felt I knew everything about him.” The two have been together for over a quarter century.
- The designer stopped getting Botox after having his son, telling WWD, “I’ve decided to age. Since we’ve had Jack I haven’t had a Botox injection or a filler. I haven’t had time.”
- Remember when he launched his first namesake ready-to-wear collection and had all the looks modeled by famous women? It turns out that while he has a slew of A-list friends, Ford doesn’t actually like dressing celebrities for the red carpet. “I don’t necessarily love the process. It’s not a creative process really usually, dressing actresses for the Oscars because, you know, when you’re designing you’re able to kind of figure out what you believe in and what you think the world needs right now or what women need right now. You’re literally a voice in contemporary culture with what you design,” he explained on Jimmy Kimmel Live! “What’s worn on the red carpet has nothing to do with what’s going on in contemporary fashion. It’s really a kind of bubble of 1950s Barbie clothes. It’s quite different than what real people are really wearing.”
- He may be a perfectionist, but he is level-headed and knows that fashion is not about needs, but rather desires. “Remember that our customers do not need our clothes. They don’t need another pair of shoes or a new jacket. We have to create that need by creating desire,” he remarked at a CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Awards dinner.
