Tom Ford Was Born An Adult

The gals at fashionista.com ranked up the top ten things we didn't know about Designer extraordinaire Tom Ford from his recent interview with Luxury department store Bergdorf Goodman. From his birth to his work schedule for next year Tom Ford talk's Tom Ford in this candid interview.

1. Tom Ford was born an adult.

I was born fifty. When I was five years old, I wanted to be fifty. I knew exactly what I was going to look like, exactly what I was going to be doing. Although when I was five, I had envisioned that I was going to have very distinguished gray at my temples, which I have decided to avoid. I always wanted to be fifty. I never felt like a little kid. I wanted to be at my parents’ cocktail parties. I wanted to live in a glamorous apartment—I thought in New York, but now I’d rather not live in New York.

2. Tom Ford will tell you when you look bad.

Some women who have a lot of style or think that they have a lot of style . . . sometimes I’m a little too bold in that way. I will just grab on to their collar, turn it up, push this there and pull that there, and say, “This will be great, but you need to take four inches off your hair.” They look at me like, “Who are you?” I push that a little too far.

3. Tom Ford has the solution to aging well–for men.

An eyelift on a man usually makes the eyes look extremely feminine. It’s something to avoid if you’re a man. The solution is a really beautifully tailored Tom Ford jacket. No one will be looking at your bad eyelift.

4. Tom Ford does not gain weight.

But if one does care about one’s looks, key number one is stay thin. I’m the same weight now that I was when I was thirty-three years old. I weigh myself every day. If I gain more than three pounds, I eat vegetables for two or three days until I get back down to my weight.

5. Tom Ford was well-dressed, even as a child.

I wore a little suit and carried a briefcase in the third grade. I was completely different.

6. Tom Ford is a man of nuance.

Today with the Internet, there’s not a lot of mystery. There’s not a lot of mystery with sex or with anything, and there’s not a lot of nuance. Because no one has time for nuance. I am trying to bring that back a little bit. That comes back to a certain formality and a certain reserve. I don’t know if I’ll succeed at it, but nuance is something that I think about. No one takes time to contemplate words and the meaning of words. When you send a text, sometimes they’re not even words, just letters and abbreviations. But there was a time when you really chose your words carefully, and almost everything had some sort of double meaning, and when you sent flowers to someone, certain flowers meant something . . .

7. Tom Ford is a philosopher.

Well, I think that we are all compartmentalized. Today, everyone only knows what they do. If all of our communication with each other was cut off…I mean, I don’t know how to grow things. I don’t even know how to start a fire. I certainly don’t know how to create a cell phone or a computer. We’ve become compartmentalized. So all of us together, being linked by computers and telephones, are creating one giant computer, and our civilization is becoming like a giant brain…it will be very interesting to see the jumps in technology that start to happen because we’re now acting as a whole as opposed to acting as individuals.

8. Tom Ford is naturally fantastic.

I just get out of bed and look the same every day.

9. Tom Ford is allergic to cucumbers.

I’ve always been serious about makeup and cosmetics going back to when I was fourteen, and my mother had to take me to the emergency room because I was lying in the bathtub with cucumber slices on my eyes. She had to explain to the guys in the emergency room why her fourteen-year-old son had a giant infection in his eyes. I was allergic to cucumbers, but I didn’t know it until I put them on my eyes and laid in the bathtub. At fourteen, I already thought I had bags under my eyes.

10. Tom Ford books up almost a year in advance.

I actually do [know what I will be doing next year]. It’s really pathetic. I’m looking at my calendar right now. I am not booked up quite a year from now. But I am pretty booked up all the way through February 2012.

For the full interview scoot on over to blog.bergdorfgoodman.com


Tom Ford on WhoSay