Tom Ford is 47 today - Happy Birthday!  I cannot think of another man who is as iconic in contemporary men’s fashion as Tom Ford.  Right now no-one is making better clothes for adult men of style.

History

Tom Ford was born on August 27^th I961 in Austin, Texas.  At 17 he enrolled at New York University and studied art history.  He left after a year to study architecture at the Parsons School of Design.  When he left he worked first for Cathy Hardwick, an American sportwear brand and then in 1988 he joined Perry Ellis.  At that time Ellis was a premier brand and had a distinctive menswear line.  At a time when menswear was becoming gimmicky, Ellis had seen that menswear classics could be updated for the modern age and was producing handsome manly menswear.  It is interesting to speculate on the effect this had on Tom Ford.

Ford left Perry Ellis after two years and moved to Europe.  This was the key move of his career, he felt that if he were ever to become a great designer he had to leave America.  He felt that his own culture was inhibiting him and that style was looked down on America.  Interestingly he saw the difference between American and European luxury goods as being the craft tradition of European fashion, hand-tailoring, family firms and traditions.  He believed that Europeans had and respected style.  

His move to Europe in 1990 coincided with Gucci offering him the position of women’s ready-to-wear designer.  The truth was that no-one wanted the job.  Gucci had been badly mismanaged since its heyday in the seventies and in 1990 was a byword for overpriced tat.  Gucci had lost its reputation as a quality brand and was virtually bankrupt. 

Gucci

It was here that Tom Ford showed his true genius.  High fashion was falling over itself to create adolescent fashion, down-market brands like Tommy Hilfiger were dominating the market and other brands were falling over themselves to emulate them.  Tom Ford realized that America and Europe were becoming wealthier and that there were people who wanted clothes that were designed and made well, were attractive and wearable.  Ford’s designs were sexy and easy to wear and he referenced European high fashion of previous eras.  The Tom Ford woman was sexy and desirable and the clothes were a huge hit. 

The Ford Gucci man’s look was really important.  At that time (as now) many menswear designers were fixated on clothes for younger men, adolescent and boyish.  Tom Ford took the sexy menswear of the seventies and streamlined it.  His suits were long, tight over the hips, broad at the shoulders and very manly.  Suits were made of silky wools and mohairs, in sophisticated colours.  He presented adult contrasts, the dark suit with the white shirt, the light suit with the dark shirt.  The Ford look was confident, competent and predatory.  Adult, sexy men of the world.                        

Ford was his own model.  A good-looking man wearing his own clothes, he was the best advertisement for his own brand.  There must be a thousand pictures of him wearing a black suit with a white shirt unbuttoned to the chest.  He looks stylish in every one of them.  Though he is gay, he is truly stylish masculine man.   

And the punchline is that Ford is a superb businessman.  When he joined Gucci it was worth very little.  When he left it was worth more than 4 Billion dollars. 

Tom Ford now

So now he is even more interesting.  Starting in 2006, his Tom Ford menswear line is making a global impact.  As a brand Tom Ford is on the leading edge.  He saw, as some leading style analysts have seen, that the luxury brands were losing their status, as they market themselves across bigger and bigger territories.  His own menswear is exclusive, in his own words “aimed at the men who want the very best”.

Tom Ford is an admirer of Savile Row, the bespoke experience and the exclusivity of Savile Row clothes.  His menswear is exclusive, with the additional elements of being fun and a little more fashionable.  His clothes are manly, adult and beautifully made.  The suits are cut slim, the jackets have an open chest ( a la Savile Row) with wide lapels.  Like Savile Row suits they flatter men. 

For me his suits a are little eighties, beautifully proportioned and powerful-looking.  Only Tom Ford could bring back the double-breasted suit and make it look good.  Manly and powerful but with fine subtle tailoring rather than eighties excess.  Ford has talked about how fashion brands produce clothes for the very young and how they exclude older men with style and taste.  He is producing clothes for those adult worldly men.  The provocative advertising for his menswear tells us that clothes are all about good taste, sex and power, definitely not for kids.

Tom Ford is a great designer of original style.   Happy Birthday Tom Ford!  

More information:

www.tomford.com

 The latest issue of Paradis magazine (No 4) is out.  As usual it is a visually stunning mix of men’s clothes, erotic photography, modern art and meditations on manhood.  Paradis is a strange yet beguiling mix of French insouciance (they publish articles about whatever they like, as long as it appeals to them) and glossy magazine style.  This unpredictability makes it a great read. 

This is the biggest issue so far.  In this issue:

Sir Norman Foster, Britain’s most famous architect (The Gherkin, Hertz Tower New York) is interviewed in a searching, substantial and insightful article by Hans Ulrich Oberst.  Foster talks about the journey from being a working class boy of limited education to being the most sought after architect of modern times.  However the article is less personal than professional and lays bare the competence and power of Foster and Partners in great detail.  Read this to understand their design philosophy and ambitious goals.   

As always, erotic photography is at the centre of Paradis.  Jurgen Teller photographs  Italian model Mariacarla Boscono in an extended photoshoot that is by turns voyeuristic, aggressive and funny.  Some of the pictures, like one of the dirt smeared Mariacarla draped over a plush velvet sofa, contain too many clever contrasts, and do not work (for me). Some though, are heart-stoppingly erotic, exposing Mariacarla as intensely and explicitly sexual.  

English model Daisy Lowe is nude in a set of photographs by Max Farrago.  These are black and white shots of a soft, sexually available girl-woman.  This is the photographer-as-hunter and the pictures have a relentless quality about them, displaying Lowe to the world in sensual close-up.

What I like about Paradis is that they flaunt the eroticism of their magazine at every opportunity.  In this issue they illustrate an article about French shoemaker Patrick Hardy with some superb photographs of a truly beautiful girl, nude and flawless, skin like silk.  Conjoining erotic photography with style articles is becoming one of their trademarks.  Where on earth do they get these beautiful women? 

Clothes articles include a photoshoot of Jackets and Shirts (Brioni, Burberry) with Jude Law as the model.   Good shoot, clothes are clearly visible, which is (should be) the whole point of the photograph.  There is also a clever series of photographs of white shirts, blue ties and belts from recent collections. 

Other articles include a remarkably humble Brian Eno on singing, an article from Anthony Fawcett about working as John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s factotum in the “Give peace a chance” days and a Terry Richardson pictorial.

I enjoy Paradis because for me it reflects a certain manly style, cultured, aware and erotic.  I enjoy the quality of the writing, the photography and the beautiful construction of the magazine.  I am improved and entertained by reading it.

Paradis No 4, Summer 2008 is out now. 

Available from Magma, 8 Earlham, Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2H 9RY Tel: 44 (0)207 240 8498 

www.paradismagazine.com