Sex, style, gloss. Tom Ford knows how to tease us.
He is the native Texan (by way of Austin) who went on to rule the runway, first as the creative director for Gucci, then as the smoldering sire of his own namesake fashion empire. Along the way, he wooed Hollywood, too. His meticulous 2009 film, A Single Man, earned Colin Firth an Oscar nomination and Ford raves. Just a fluke? Hardly. It was followed by 2016′s arty thriller Nocturnal Animals (“which toggles between West Texas nightmare and Los Angeles ennui” described our former critic, Chris Vognar) and steamed the screen with Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal.
But Ford in print — that’s been a whole other obsession. And it’s about to get even more heated.
It started with Ford’s self-titled debut tome in 2004, originally issued in two editions — one with a black cloth cover, the other in white leather. Dallas swells turned out for a book launch party at Neiman Marcus downtown, complete with bare-chested waiters, where Ford signed copies. [His missive for KDFW-TV (Channel 4) news anchor Clarice Tinsley: “For Clarice (I’m drunk, Clarice) Tom Ford.”]
The book became such a ubiquitous status symbol among a certain Dallas crowd that The News’ former style magazine, FD, once published an interior design spread with photographs showing copies in 10 different owners’ living rooms.
Now, 17 years later, Ford, somehow age 60, is back with a second volume, Tom Ford 002 (Rizzoli, $135), which launches this week. No surprise, it’s a stunner: Slip-cased, 444 pages, foreword by Vogue’s Anna Wintour, intro by former Vanity Fair taste-maker Graydon Carter, conversation with fashion thinker Bridget Foley. And all of it mere high-minded foundation for the real draw, an orgy of Ford photos — for him, of him, even by him — chronicling his life post-Gucci, the launch of his brand and his adventures in Hollywood with some very good-looking friends.
Clear off space on your coffee table.
