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Designer Tom Ford's creative license
Gucci's former guru storms out of interview
By CLIFFORD PUGH
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle
DALLAS — Warning: Don't ask Tom Ford too many questions about fashion.
Of course, one might logically assume that the man who resuscitated Gucci with sensual, borderline-scandalous designs before leaving the Italian luxury fashion house in May would be eager to talk about the thing he knows best.
And, after all, he is sitting in the executive suite at the flagship Neiman Marcus store, wearing a crisp black suit, with a white shirt unbuttoned past his chest, oozing charm while promoting a big, glossy book with lots of sexy photos covering the decade he served as Gucci's creative director.
But suddenly his fabled seductiveness evaporates as his bedroom brown eyes morph into tiny slits.
The question that ticks him off seems so innocuous.
"Did you pay any attention to the spring (fashion) shows that were just completed?" Ford is asked.
"I did."
"What did you like?"
"Let's not talk about it."
"But you did pay attention to it?"
"Of course," he says, the smile gone from his face.
"In what way?"
"I watched them on the Internet."
"You did?"
"Let's not talk about this. I'm not in fashion anymore. ... I think we're finished with this interview."
He storms out of the room and disappears, leaving a hallway of stunned faces among his entourage and store publicists.
And, to think, up until then I thought the interview was going so well.
The 43-year-old designer had breezily discussed his links to Texas, how the state's women influenced his love of fashion, and what may be in store in his future.
Having conquered the fashion world, Ford now has set his sights on the movies. He wants to be a director and has opened a production office in Los Angeles.
He has two projects in the early stages of development, although he admits he's not sure he has the patience for Hollywood, where it can take five years or longer to bring an idea to the screen.
"That's probably the big question," he said. "I had dinner with one of my agents last night, and we were discussing that very point, because I like to work."
Architectural attraction
He also has a deep love of architecture. A little known fact about Ford is that his degree from the Parsons School of Design was in environmental design instead of fashion. He has commissioned famed architect Tadao Ando to design a house, a stable and a mausoleum on 24,000 acres he owns near Santa Fe, N.M.
He also is renovating a house in London and owns a modern home designed by Richard Neutra in Los Angeles, which he shares with his partner, journalist Richard Buckley.
But Ford doesn't plan to make architecture a new career.
"I have enough projects with architecture that I feel quite satisfied," he said. "But I love building houses. I'll probably build and buy and sell houses for the rest of my life."
If movies don't pan out, he doesn't rule out returning to fashion design.
"When I left Gucci six months ago, I would have said no, but now that I've been gone, I have to say I miss it," he said. "If I go back, I want to find a new way to go back.
"Going back in the same way wouldn't mean anything for me. I was very lucky. I had a great run. But I wouldn't want to go back to that grind."
Even though Ford and Gucci Group CEO Domenico De Sole left the Italian fashion house because they failed to agree on terms to renew their contracts with French parent company Pinault-Printemps-Redoute, Ford believes the timing was right for his exit.
"The work I was doing at Gucci was the best I had ever done," he said. "The reviews during the last two years leading up to my departure were the strongest reviews maybe of my career. But from a personal standpoint it was time for me to leave."
Some critics contend that Gucci needed a fresh start, maintaining that Ford's hedonistic take on fashion had grown tiresome. One review of his successor, Alessandra Facchinetti, noted that in Ford's last years, his collections had gone from "charming to naughty to appalling" with too much sex; too little romance in his designs.
"It's a shame you have to tear someone down to build someone else up," Ford responded during our interview.
His Dallas visit — one of only three U.S. cities where he made appearances to promote the book, called Tom Ford (Rizzoli International Publications, $125), and the only stop in Texas — was a homecoming of sorts for the designer, who was born in Austin.
He signed books at a lavish party at Neiman Marcus, which the Chronicle was scheduled to attend before a store representative rescinded the invitation after Ford's meltdown. (Ford later sent word that the Chronicle was welcome, but it arrived as I was boarding a plane to Houston.)
Big-hair heritage
"I come back to Texas all the time," Ford said during the interview. "I have a house in Austin. My mother lives in Austin. I have so many family members in Texas, but when I come in and out of Texas nobody knows about it.
"I come here to be quiet and just spend time with my family. I come just to hang out and go to movies. Believe it or not, I can fly under the radar screen quite easily in Austin."
Although he spent most of his childhood in New Mexico before moving to New York to pursue a fashion career, Ford said that Texas helped shape his unique fashion sense.
"My grandmother was the very classic Texan — big hair and big jewelry. She always had the latest Cadillac when I was a kid. She was very, very, very Texan.
"That kind of bold expression of fashion has stayed with me, and it is very much a part of what I do. I never do things in a quiet way with my clothes or with my look or anything. It's always quite bold. I love that about Texas."
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