Outspoken, outrageous, extravagant and sexy – there’s only one Tom Ford.
Fashion’s most dashing designer is an icon of our times and his famously audacious nature has meant he’s rarely stayed out of the headlines throughout his 28 year career. To honour his fabulous, we’ve picked 22 of our favourite Tom Ford quotes...
On his incredible morning routine... 'I get up [at 4:30am] and make myself a gigantic iced coffee. I then answer emails and work until about 6am. Then I will head upstairs and have a second giant iced coffee and lay in the bathtub. I don’t like warm drinks of any kind. I lay in my bathtub with a bendable straw in my coffee and no lights and only one candle lit. I love that time in the morning when no one else is awake, and I’m alone.'
On his political ambitions... 'We have the Terminator as governor, and we had an actor as president, so why shouldn’t we have a fashion designer as a senator?’
On his navigation skills... ‘I have a driver in London because I am slightly dyslexic and cannot drive in the U.K.; after all, the traffic runs the opposite way to that in the United States.’
On being naked... ‘When I come home I actually take off all my clothes, and I wear no clothes until I leave. I eat naked. I do everything completely naked.’
On eating in the office... 'My assistants think I don’t like people who eat. It’s true I don’t like to see or smell food in the office. But I don’t like the staff to leave the office, either. I’ve never actually seen anyone here eat. Perhaps they eat under their desks when I’m in here doing interviews.”'
On his colleagues... ‘I don't think I'm a megalomaniac, though you'd have to ask the people who work with me. Either we click or they don't last very long.’
On plastic surgery... ‘I haven't had any plastic surgery - despite what people think, this is my nose. I have had Restylane and Botox, but I don't think of that as plastic surgery any more. It's true I can't really frown, but I can move my eyebrows, so...’
On his advertising campaigns... ‘We shot [a Gucci ad campaign] with porn stars. Two men and two women. And we paid for them to have sex on set. You don’t see it in the shot, but you feel it.’
‘When I shaved G for Gucci into the model’s pubic hair it was meant to be tongue-in-cheek statement about branding – we had Gucci emblazoned on everything in those days – so I said, 'why not the pubic hair too?' It wasn’t just about sex.’
On men wearing make-up... ‘If you're at the Oscars, there's not a man on that red carpet who is not wearing make-up. Most straight actors I know get quite used to it. Even when they go out in real life they grab some sort of bronzer and they throw it on. They know the tricks.’
On his motivation... ‘I don't work for money any longer. I work for pride.’
On slutiness... ‘If sluttiness is what you like, what’s wrong with that? Why do we think being a slut’s bad? Sluttiness is just a lot of freedom.’
On his personal life... ‘My real life's not like the fantasy Tom Ford world - with naked girls pouring perfume everywhere. It's more staying in and watching Friends on television.’
On his favourite decade... ‘I think the 1970s will always be the decade for me. Obviously, I grew up in that era, but the beauty standard was touchable, kissable.’
On his husband... ‘Richard [Buckley, Ford’s partner] hardly ever has anything nice to say about my work. It’s my mother all over again.’
On being an artist... ‘In another life I would love to be a cosmetic surgeon because it's architectural. You know, you are trying to figure out where the seams go. Can I do it in one piece like Halston? Can you formaldehyde DNA?’
On astrology... ‘The world might be a very scary place if it were only run by Virgos.’
On Twitter... ‘Tweeting? It's one of the silliest things ever.’
On being a perfectionist... ‘I probably do have an obsessive personality, but striving for perfection has served me well.’
On his inspiration... ‘I was on the train from London to Paris, and all of a sudden it just popped into my head: I'm going to do the Don Loper fashion show from I Love Lucy.’
On his favourite artist... ‘Even today, I still start shaking when I hear Donna Summer because it's the music of my coming-of-age.’
On his legacy... ‘I know one day I'll be irrelevant. No matter how hard you try there is a cultural moment, but eventually that window's gone, your time on Earth is finished, and you might as well leave. I could absolutely die tomorrow - I would not care.’
