THOMAS: Your new company, Tom Ford, is smaller than Gucci but your plan to roll out stores seems ambitious. FORD: The trick is maintaining exclusivity while being global. And we do that through quality and service. You want diamond cuff links? We have diamond cuff links. You want prescription eyewear? We’ll send you down the street and get your prescription done. You want shoes, slippers, golf clubs, ties, shirts, morning suits, a top hat? It’s everything as a man that you could want.
How did you come up with this idea? When I left Gucci, I really felt like I wasn’t coming back to fashion. It took me about six months to realize that there was a big hole in my life not being able to build things or make things. And I thought, I have to find a way to do this again, but I didn’t want to do it the same way.
And I literally could not find clothes to wear. If it was fashionable enough, the fabric wasn’t good enough, the buttonholes didn’t open, the quality wasn’t right. So I started having everything made on Savile Row. But I had to fight with my tailor—in a nice way—because I wanted my lapels like this. “Oh, no, Mr. Ford, we don’t do that.” “What do you mean, you don’t do that? I want it like this.” I thought, OK, there’s a big niche here.
So that was your concept: haute couture for men. Exactly. We’re open by appointment from 7 to 11 a.m., then open to the public from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., then by appointment from 5 to 7 p.m. We’ll bring in lunch or dinner for you. We’ll come to your house or office with the swatches. I don’t think men have that level of service anymore.
Are there enough customers in the world to sustain this? Oooo, yes. I read the projections of wealth in emerging markets—there are 300,000 millionaires already in China. These are materialistic cultures that have been denied materialism for a long time. And they’re still male-dominated, so when these men make money, they put it on themselves.
How do you see the luxury business today? The problem today, and we helped to create it, is the idea of democratized luxury. I don’t believe that democratized luxury is true luxury any longer. But it has opened the way for a real luxury service, a niche that I am trying to fill.
Do you feel there is a backlash to big luxury? Yes, absolutely. I think that trends have accelerated to such a pace—and again I helped cause these—there’s an emptiness in a lot of products. It’s just junk. And now that you have merchandisers running luxury companies instead of designers, the junk becomes junkier.
So you’re trying to restore integrity by going back to luxury’s roots? I hope so. Now how long I can keep those roots, that is the question. I’m going to try really hard to keep them. We’ll see if I can succeed.
