Lessons from Tom Ford

ABDI OLOW

There are many things one can learn from the former fashion boy of Gucci and Yves Saint-Laurent.

During his 10 years at Gucci and YSL as Creative Director, Ford turned Gucci into one of the most profitable luxury brands in the world. He increased the brand’s sales in 1994 from 230 million to almost 3 billion in 2003. 

He completely revolutionized how woman dressed with his Gucci collections and added an element of sex appeal and sensuality to men and women’s clothes not seen prior to his reign.

How he did this lies in his philosophy on life, fashion, and business, and his impeccable intuition for knowing what sells and what people want. Tom Ford continues to amaze us everyday.

Since resigning from his post at Gucci in 2004, Ford has branched out to the beauty and fragrance markets. He recently established the TOM FORD brand and opened his first directly-owned flagship store in New York at 845 Madison Ave.. Today, the TOM FORD brand is expanding at a rapid pace in markets such as Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North America.

A few lessons from Ford:

• Provocative always sells if it’s done right. Tom Ford knows this, and he continues to do this in his own brand. Whether it’s in ad campaigns or in clothing one can push the limit on sexy if they know who they’re targeting. When he showed a full-frontal male nudity in his ad campaign for Yves Saint Lauren, many people were not shocked.
• Fashion is a business, and don’t you forget it. If it weren’t, there wouldn’t be so many luxury brands and affordable labels catering to the masses.
• “I am amused when people always ask me if fashion is compatible with business,” Ford said. “My goal as a fashion designer is to create something people can’t live without. When they have to have it, they buy it. When they buy it, we have sales. With sales we have business.”
• With fashion changing at a rapid pace, Ford reveals what’s lacking in fashion today to consumers
• “Fashion would be more appealing to consumers if it didn’t change so quickly. The demand for change has put an enormous strain on the business and caused artificial changes in styles, and that is why so many people have rejected fashion and walk around in t-shirts and comfortable pants.”

The False Lure of Today’s Luxury Brands

• “All the companies we think of as “luxury” companies today aren’t really luxury companies. They are so mass — so big — that they have a broad range of price points. They’re on billboards, in airports, everywhere. They all have wide distribution”
• The luxury world has in many ways lost it lustre.

Intuition

Tom Ford has attributed his success to part intuition and part smart designs.

“Figuring out what's right for now is… a combination of intuition and honestly… a design business is inherently dependent upon the intuition of its chief designer. Luckily I have a track record that if you show me five pairs of shoes I will almost always pick the one pair that will sell the best. It's just a gift I have for mass taste — a link with what people want in a certain moment in time.

On life starting life after being on top

"I do not have a single regret; I am very happy where I am now. But I think every day 'the clock is ticking, the clock is ticking."'

Tom Ford’s fashion rules

 “Be confident.”

“Know yourself and know what you like; that will be your signature.”

“Americans have grown too accustomed to being comfortable. I find a different kind of comfort when I look good.”

“You can’t wear trendy clothes forever. Everyone has to grow up sometime.”

 “When my clothes are getting tight, that’s not a sign to me that I need to go to another size—it’s a reminder that I have to stop eating, or suffer,”

Being in the fashion industry for 20 years, Ford has had a remarkable career. His impact on the cultural landscape of fashion is enormous. His accomplishments have been recognized by numerous organizations and print media (Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), Best Fashion Designer, TIME Magazine, British GQ International Man of the Year, and Cooper Hewitt Design Museum’s National Design Award). Many designers aspire to be him, but as many of his friends and admirers have revealed there can only be one Tom Ford.