{"id":34172,"date":"2021-09-09T14:19:22","date_gmt":"2021-09-09T14:19:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/?post_type=articles&p=34172"},"modified":"2021-09-09T14:19:22","modified_gmt":"2021-09-09T14:19:22","slug":"five-questions-tom-ford","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/five-questions-tom-ford\/","title":{"rendered":"FIVE QUESTIONS FOR \u2026. Tom Ford"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
US fashion designer Tom Ford arrives for the 2019 CFDA fashion awards (Photo credit: ANGELA WEISS\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Back in 2009, Tom Ford asked me to write the cover story on him for\u00a0<\/span>The Advocate\u00a0<\/span><\/i>to coincide with the opening of his first film,\u00a0<\/span>A Single Man,<\/span><\/i>\u00a0which was based on Christopher Isherwood\u2019s 1964 novel of the same name. The story is not available online. I wish it were because it was one of my best – not because of me but because of Tom. He has always been stunningly honest, steadfastly so. We have known each other since we were in our early 20s and he will always be that Tom to me, a sweet boy whose beauty and intelligence were so magnetic even then they served as his compass as he began to navigate his life toward manhood.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There is a timeless quality to Tom\u2019s sense of style and sense of honor – and his sense of duty which has been in evidence with his having led the American fashion industry through the COVID pandemic as the Chairman of the CFDA. He even imbued this interview with that\u00a0timelessness\u00a0 –\u00a0which is why I am with his approval reconfiguring it for my FIVE QUESTIONS FOR\u00a0\u2026\u00a0column during NYFW which culminates with his show on September 12th.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We have known each other for more than 40 years, Tom.\u00a0 You have always been openly gay.\u00a0 In fact, I think we met the week you basically came out of the closet when my friend Ian Falconer introduced you to me as his new boyfriend.\u00a0 You had just arrived in Manhattan.\u00a0 You now have had a loving relationship with Richard [Buckley] for decades.\u00a0 You and Richard have a son together.\u00a0\u00a0 The main seam in all your work whether on the runway or on the screen is an ethically sensual one, if that makes sense to you.\u00a0 I think you know what I mean by that.\u00a0\u00a0 You chose Christopher Isherwood\u2019s novel\u00a0<\/i>A Single Man\u00a0to adapt and direct as your first film.\u00a0\u00a0So\u00a0do you consider yourself a gay man today when considering yourself?<\/i>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think of myself as gay.\u202fThat doesn\u2019t mean that I\u2019m not gay.\u202f\u00a0I just don\u2019t define myself by my sexuality. The gay aspect of\u00a0<\/span>A Single Man<\/span><\/i>\u00a0certainly wasn\u2019t what drew me to make a film of the Christopher Isherwood book.\u202fIt was its human aspect, that unifying quality.\u00a0\u00a0If you said name ten things that define me, being gay wouldn\u2019t make the list.\u202fI think Christopher Isherwood was like that too.\u202f\u00a0There are many gay characters in his works because his work is so autobiographical but their gayness isn\u2019t the focus.\u202fThe one thing I liked about Isherwood\u2019s work\u00a0\u2013\u00a0especially when I was younger and grappling with my sexuality\u00a0\u2013\u00a0is that there was no issue about it in his writing.\u202fThat was quite a modern concept back during the time when he was writing.\u202fQuite honestly, I just don\u2019t think about my sexuality.\u202f\u00a0Do you?\u202f\u00a0But maybe this has to do with you and I being a part of the first generation to benefit from all the struggles of the gay men and lesbians that came before us.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

You gave the character of George in the film version of\u00a0<\/i>A Single Man\u00a0Ian\u2019s last name\u00a0\u00a0 You named him George Falconer.\u00a0 I was touched by that.\u00a0 It spoke to the sweetness in you which is what I\u2019ve always liked – way before your talents spurred your worldwide fame.\u00a0\u00a0 You are 60 now but I was also touched by how you used the film of\u00a0<\/i>A Single Man\u00a0to speak to your own sense of your own mid-life crisis you went through back when you were around 40.\u00a0 Was I right to sense the connection there?<\/i>\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was going through, yes, a very similar thing to what George\u00a0went\u00a0through in the book\u00a0\u2013\u00a0a\u00a0very\u00a0 serious\u00a0midlife crisis.\u202f\u00a0I think back during that part of my life I wasn\u2019t in touch with my spiritual side.\u202f\u00a0I had neglected that and had become absorbed really in materialism.\u202f\u00a0I had a wealth\u00a0\u2013\u00a0both figuratively and literally\u00a0\u2013\u00a0of every kind of material success.\u00a0\u202f<\/span>Fame.<\/span>\u202f\u00a0A great boyfriend.\u202f\u00a0Plenty of houses.\u202f\u00a0Tons of money.\u202f\u00a0I could indulge in anything I wanted\u00a0\u2013\u00a0which\u00a0included\u202f\u00a0a\u00a0lot of cigarettes and vodka which I have now stopped.\u202f\u00a0But then I hit a point when I turned 40\u00a0\u2013\u00a0even though I was still at Gucci until I was around 43\u00a0\u2013\u00a0when I had a very severe midlife crisis.\u00a0I have always struggled throughout my life with depression.\u202f\u00a0I\u2019ve never made any of this public because\u00a0\u2026\u00a0well\u00a0\u2026.\u00a0You know me.\u202f\u00a0I\u2019m not one to wear any of this on my sleeve.\u202f\u00a0When someone would come into my office in the morning and ask me how I was I\u2019d always go, I\u2019m great!\u202f\u00a0Great!\u202f\u00a0But I wasn\u2019t great.\u202f\u00a0Yet I\u2019m not alone.\u202f\u00a0Lots of people struggle with this.\u202f\u00a0We are all suffering to some extent.\u202f\u00a0But my own emotional suffering led me to realize I had neglected this spiritual side of my life.\u202f\u00a0I had always depended on this inner voice to lead me along in life and I had shut it out.\u202f\u00a0I had silenced it.\u202f\u00a0I was raised a Presbyterian and went to a private Catholic school in Santa Fe but I guess I\u2019d describe myself now as perhaps closer to a Daoist.\u202f\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Fashion designer Tom Ford walks the runway at the Tom Ford Ready to Wear Autumn\/Winter 2019-2020 fashion show (Photo by Victor VIRGILE\/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Isherwood was a dedicated disciple of Swami\u00a0Prabhavananda.\u00a0\u00a0Isherwood\u00a0and\u00a0Prabhavananda\u00a0even\u00a0<\/i>translat<\/i>ed the\u00a0<\/i>Bhagavad Gita.\u00a0 There is a simple but staunchly\u00a0unfrayed\u00a0thread of such spirituality in so much of Isherwood\u2019s work.\u00a0 Is that why he speaks to you<\/i>?\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, that\u00a0is why that\u00a0book spoke to me so much\u00a0\u2013\u00a0this renewed need for spirituality in my life.\u00a0\u202f\u00a0I had originally read the book in\u00a0my\u202f\u00a020s when you and Ian (Falconer) and I were visiting David Hockney and he introduced us to Christopher Isherwood.\u00a0\u00a0I think I developed a taste for vodka and cigarettes because my first kiss with a guy was with Ian and he tasted like vodka and cigarettes back then.\u00a0I never knew I liked men sexually until Ian came into my life.\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the movie when George talks about shaving off his eyebrow after taking some mescaline\u00a0\u2013\u00a0that happened to Ian and me on that trip when we all were visiting David.\u202f\u00a0One night Ian and I took some mescaline to go to Studio One\u00a0\u2013\u00a0remember that?\u00a0\u2013\u00a0and I ended up shaving my own eyebrow off.\u202f\u00a0Back when I read that book in my 20s, I loved it and kind of had a crush on George as I read it.\u202f\u00a0I\u2019ve always had a thing for older smart guys.\u202f\u00a0And then I read everything I could find by Isherwood after we all met him.\u202f\u00a0I was in awe of him and became a bit obsessed with him really.\u202f\u00a0I found out that he was a Virgo\u00a0\u2013\u00a0his birthday was one day earlier than mine.\u202f\u00a0And in his\u00a0diaries\u00a0he was trying to quit smoking and drinking vodka tonics\u00a0\u2013\u00a0something else I could certainly identify with.\u202f\u00a0When I picked up the book again in my 40s it affected me on a much deeper level.\u202f\u00a0I realized this is a book about the false self.\u202f\u00a0The first line kind of stopped me in my tracks: Waking up begins with saying am and now.\u202f\u00a0To me the underlying theme of the book is letting go of the past and being able to live in the present\u00a0\u2013\u00a0which was what I was struggling to do at that point in my life.\u202f\u00a0I no longer had a crush on George but felt as if I had become George myself\u00a0\u2013\u00a0both mentally and spiritually.\u202f\u00a0Though I certainly love the book, through the process of making the film I grafted much of myself onto it.\u202f\u00a0It was cathartic.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s keep the catharsis going.\u00a0 I was living in Paris back in 2000 and was there for your first show at Yves Saint Laurent at the Rodin Museum. I remember the undisguised look of displeasure on Pierre Berge\u2019s face across the runway from me.\u00a0 I was appalled by a kind of performative rudeness on his part during that show which so poetically began at twilight and held such promise.\u00a0 I was so excited for you that night.\u00a0 So: Yves Saint Laurent?<\/i>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t even remember much about my time at Yves Saint Laurent though I do think some of my best collections were at Yves Saint Laurent\u00a0\u2013\u00a0other than that black-and-white initial one.\u202f\u00a0That one wasn\u2019t very successful and wasn\u2019t very good.\u202f\u00a0But being at Yves Saint Laurent was such a negative experience for me even though the business boomed while I was there.\u202f\u00a0Yves and his partner Pierre Berge were so difficult and so evil and made my life such misery.\u202f\u00a0I\u2019d lived in France off and on and had always loved it.\u202f\u00a0I went to college in France. It wasn\u2019t until I started working in France that I began to dislike it.\u202f\u00a0They would call the fiscal police and they would show up at our offices.\u202f\u00a0You are not able to work an employee more than 35 hours a week. They\u2019d come marching in and you had to let them in and\u00a0they\u2019d\u202f\u00a0interview\u00a0my secretary.\u202f\u00a0And they can fine you and shut you down.\u202f\u00a0Pierre was the one calling them.\u202f\u00a0I\u2019ve never talked about this on the record before but it was an awful time for me.\u202f\u00a0Pierre and Yves were just evil.\u202f\u00a0So\u00a0Yves Saint Laurent doesn\u2019t exist for me.\u00a0\u00a0I have letters from Yves Saint Laurent that are so mean you cannot even believe such vitriol is possible.\u202f\u00a0I don\u2019t think he was high when he wrote them either.\u202f\u00a0I just think he was jealous.\u202f\u00a0And Yves and I were friends before I took over the company.\u202f\u00a0But then we began to\u00a0move\u202f\u00a0the\u00a0company forward and were very successful.\u202f\u00a0And Betty\u00a0Catroux, his muse, was sitting in my front row wearing my clothes and he just became so insanely jealous.\u202f\u00a0As I said, I\u2019ve never talked about this before but you brought up Yves.\u202f\u00a0That phase in my life just doesn\u2019t exist anymore.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

You want to talk about Richard instead?\u00a0 Much nicer subject.\u00a0 You\u2019ve told me in the past that it was love at first sight.\u00a0\u00a0 What was it about him that made you fall so instantly?<\/i>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

H<\/span>is\u00a0soul<\/span>.\u00a0 Something clearly\u00a0spoke\u00a0to me.\u202f\u00a0It wasn\u2019t his beautiful blue eyes and his silvery hair and his slender\u00a0handsomenesss.\u202f\u00a0It was something that reached out to me through his false self\u00a0\u2013\u00a0his true self connecting with my true self\u00a0\u2013\u00a0and it was instant.\u202f\u00a0On our first date he took me to a southwestern restaurant in New York because he knew I was from New Mexico and we were poor and could eat for about five bucks each.\u202f\u00a0At the time one of Richard\u2019s best friends was dying of AIDS and one of my best friends was dying of AIDS too so we talked a lot about that as I\u2019m sure a lot of guys did on first dates back then.\u202f\u00a0We were both just so emotionally exhausted.\u202f\u00a0So\u00a0there was no sex on that first date.\u202f\u00a0I think it took about three dates before we had sex.\u00a0\u202f\u00a0He knew I had a fondness for sugary breakfast cereals so he had put a box of Fruit Loops under the bed hoping I would come home with him that night of our third date.\u202f\u00a0I did.\u202f\u00a0And the next morning he pulled out that box of Fruit Loops from under the bed.\u202f\u00a0It was so cute.\u202f\u00a0We moved in together a month after we met.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29575,"featured_media":34183,"template":"","format":"standard","categories":[38,16],"yoast_head":"\nFIVE QUESTIONS FOR \u2026. 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