Tom Ford Quotes

I grew up in New Mexico, and the older I get, I have less need for contemporary culture and big cities and all the stuff we are bombarded with. I am happier at my ranch in the middle of nowhere watching a bug carry leaves across the grass, listening to silence, riding my horse, and being in open space.

- Tom Ford

I probably do have an obsessive personality, but striving for perfection has served me well.

- Tom Ford

I am actually extremely casual in certain environments. But one of the reasons I like living in London, I like the formality of it, as compared to the formality of America - or informality. I like putting on a suit. I like putting on a tie.

- Tom Ford

Advertising is, of course, important because advertise is the final design. It's the last layer that speaks to the customer, that tells them what you have.

- Tom Ford

I'm actually very introverted. I'm very shy. I'm very emotional.

- Tom Ford

I don't do shows. I don't have reviews. I'm not putting the clothes on every celebrity so that by the time they reach the store the customers are sick of seeing them.

- Tom Ford

When you are having fun and creating something you love, it shows in the product. So when a woman is sifting through a rack of clothes, somehow that piece of clothing that you had so much fun designing speaks to her; she responds to it and buys it. I believe you can actually transfer that energy to material things as you're creating them.

- Tom Ford

I think we're very uptight in America. You have to remember that we're descended from Puritans. Whether or not the country is now composed of immigrants, our culture as American really begins with the landing of the Pilgrims and a puritanical view of things.

- Tom Ford

I'm living the exact life I planned on living when I was five. My life has taken some turns and changes that I didn't anticipate, and it has brought me different things. I thought material things would bring me happiness, which they didn't. But through this, I have learned what things are important and what aren't.

- Tom Ford

Part of fashion is newness. It's got to be a new combination of elements that's shocking-stunning-beautiful all at the same time. But it doesn't have any emotion.

- Tom Ford

I went to a fashion show, and this silver-haired guy was staring at me with these piercing water-blue eyes. It scared me because I absolutely saw and knew my entire future.

- Tom Ford

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.'

- Tom Ford

There's a different kind of comfort that comes from knowing that you are putting your best foot forward. It's called psychological comfort. Look at a picture of the Coney Island boardwalk in 1925. Men were in full-on three-piece suits, hats. They may have only had one suit. But they pressed it. They made it look as good as possible.

- Tom Ford

The most important thing is to cleanse and moisturise your face twice a day. Use eye drops. If your eyes are white, you look healthy; you look fresh. Every man should have a magnifying mirror. If you look good magnified, you are set to go.

- Tom Ford

If I'm sending emails, and I get all wound up and stressed and don't know what to do with myself for 20 minutes, I just go soak in hot water and lie there, thinking, 'What should I do?' So it's meditative.

- Tom Ford

I guess I'm just one of these people who, when I decide I'm going to do something, I just do it.

- Tom Ford

I hate going out for lunch during a workday because it slows down my pace and ruins my rhythm. I prefer to eat at my desk. Actually, I wander around the design studio with a plate in my hand as I dine on, for example, salmon sashimi and a salad of tomatoes and mozzarella. I often have a bit of dark chocolate after lunch.

- Tom Ford

If my parents had discouraged me, I would have turned out very differently. They raised me in an open-minded, liberal environment.

- Tom Ford

When I was a little kid, all I wanted to do was to escape what I thought was the country and get to a city. Probably film and television had influenced me so much, I really thought the key to happiness was living a very artificial life in a penthouse in New York with martini glasses.

- Tom Ford

But as an adult working in the fashion industry, I struggle with materialism. And I'm one of the least materialistic people that exist, because material possessions don't mean much to me. They're beautiful, I enjoy them, they can enhance your life to a certain degree, but they're ultimately not important.

- Tom Ford

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.

- Tom Ford

The dynamics of film directing and fashion design - in the ways that I've done it - were not dissimilar.

- Tom Ford

A lot of people think a high armhole is restrictive, but it gives you total movement because it's cut right up to your arm.

- Tom Ford

My own skin-care ritual is quite simple and straightforward; I don't like a lot of fuss, surprisingly. My products are designed to make you look and feel better. I think there are a lot of men out there who want and need the same products.

- Tom Ford

I am a spiritual person in an eastern religion kind of way. I learned that happiness for all of us is a switch that you flick in your brain. It doesn't have anything to do with getting a new house, a new car, a new girlfriend, or a new pair of shoes. Our culture is very much about that; we are never happy with what we have today.

- Tom Ford

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 dye their eyebrows, they dye their lashes - they know the tricks.

- Tom Ford

I am really a loner after all; I am really not a social person. Because of my job, people think I am out every night, but I really hate all that. I am somebody who likes to be alone and see some close friends. I am a shy and introspective person.

- Tom Ford

You always notice a facelift on a woman. It's a tightness around the ears, and the scar is usually inside the ears. If I suspect it's been done, I usually move around until I can see it. But with a man, it actually pulls your beard and your sideburns back, and that's what's so strange.

- Tom Ford

I think that they haven't been able to perfect a good facelift for a man.

- Tom Ford

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.

- Tom Ford

When the youth of America gets together, amazing things happen.

- Tom Ford

Banking types should take their cue from Gordon Gekko. Or pick the best-looking banker in their firm and copy him.

- Tom Ford

When I am on my deathbed, I don't think I will be thinking about a nice pair of shoes I had or my beautiful house. I am going to be thinking about an evening I spent with somebody when I was twenty where I felt that I was just absolutely connected to them.

- Tom Ford

There's nothing wrong with ankles. But only if you're playing football in the park.

- Tom Ford

Most everyone now personally knows someone who is openly homosexual.

- Tom Ford

Do you know how rare it is in parts of America to actually see 'an outfit'? France? I don't want to be anti-French, but there isn't a more unattractive group of people on the streets.

- Tom Ford

When I read about young designers selling 51 percent of their company to someone else, I cringe. I want to say, 'Don't do it - call me first.'

- Tom Ford

Fashion is harder than the film industry. You have to constantly be able to crank out hit after hit after hit on demand and on a very tight calendar. I've come back, I've lost it, I've come back again. It's really as good as your last collection.

- Tom Ford

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?

- Tom Ford

In the early Seventies, I had shoulder-length hair, bell-bottom pants, love beads and shirts that laced up at the front. But then I smartened up.

- Tom Ford

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.

- Tom Ford

I was not popular. I was the kid in school that was bullied.

- Tom Ford

I was bullied every day at school because I carried a briefcase. I could have left it at home. But I thought it looked great! I didn't understand why anyone else didn't think so.

- Tom Ford

There aren't many strong or charismatic candidates today, because many people can't withstand the scrutiny.

- Tom Ford

I think that monogamy is artificial. I do not think it's something that comes naturally to us.

- Tom Ford

I'm a believer in fate and in fulfilling your destiny. I've always had a kind of inner voice that I have learned to listen to.

- Tom Ford

I don't work for money any longer. I'm fortunate enough not to need to work for money, but I work for pride; I work because I love to work, and so the idea that one could lose control of one's own name and that things could be produced with your name on that you were not proud of scared me.

- Tom Ford

I enjoy the speed of fashion. I love doing different things and I think I still have something valid to say in fashion.

- Tom Ford

I love to design. I am a commercial fashion designer. I always design jackets with two sleeves. I don't design jackets with three sleeves, or the layers and layers come off like little dolls from Russia. Fashion for me is a creative endeavor, but it is not art for me.

- Tom Ford

As a fashion designer, I was always aware that I was not an artist, because I was creating something that was made to be sold, marketed, used, and ultimately discarded.

- Tom Ford

As a designer, design director or any creative person, you have to hire great people, support them and make them feel comfortable so they can contribute and give you their best.

- Tom Ford

I believe in living life the way that you want to live it every day, and if you do that, you don't really need to have New Year's resolutions.

- Tom Ford

I am not someone who likes cocktail parties or large dinner parties, but I have to attend them often. I much prefer very small dinners with close friends.

- Tom Ford

I am a perfectionist. This job is a total ego thing in a way. To be a designer and say, 'This is the way they should dress; this is the way their homes should look; this is the way the world should be.' But then, that's the goal: world domination through style.

- Tom Ford

I understand that I have a certain look that can be used to my advantage. I know the power of that when I walk into a room and talk to people, and I can use it as an advertising tool. Now I am actually selling me, my face, my thoughts. So I am my guy.

- Tom Ford

I think people are sick of trends changing every six months - not because we're tired of them, but just for the sake of change. There is so much junk in the world: junk TV, junk movies, all those junk magazines with the same people on the cover.

- Tom Ford

September 11th was a moment when America had the sympathy of the world.

- Tom Ford

My grandmother was probably the first person who I thought was beautiful. She was incredibly stylish, she had big hair, big cars. I was probably 3 years old, but she was like a cartoon character. She'd swoop into our lives with presents and boxes, and she always smelled great and looked great.

- Tom Ford

My grandmother was probably the first person who I thought was beautiful. She was incredibly stylish, she had big hair, big cars. I was probably 3 years old, but she was like a cartoon character.

- Tom Ford

My customer has her own sense of style and knows herself well. My goal is to help women become the best version of themselves.

- Tom Ford

What is important is that we stop and realize, 'Okay. This is fine. I can enjoy that.' But what is really important, what I'm really going to take away with me from this life, is my connection with other people.

- Tom Ford

I don't want to find myself designing for the press.

- Tom Ford

Beyonce in real life is actually quite quiet and very sweet.

- Tom Ford

I find a bath meditative and usually prepare myself for the day in this manner.

- Tom Ford

Your connections with other people are important, our connection to the earth.

- Tom Ford

I told myself that I would not come back to women's fashion until I felt I had something new to say. I feel that fashion has become too serious and that the actual customer's needs have not really been addressed. Fashion needs to make one happy. It is a luxury and should enhance one's quality of life.

- Tom Ford

On the one hand, I want to go off and live in the desert with my dog and sculpt things out of adobe.

- Tom Ford

We've become a little spoiled with menswear in particular because, of course, we've come off a period in the '70s and '80s when Armani, which is very soft, dominated menswear. And we've become obsessed with comfort. I actually don't like that.

- Tom Ford

The seventies is what I love. Soft, touchable beauty is what I love.

- Tom Ford

I hate tricky facial hair. If your facial hair is too spotty in places, shave. Just forget about it.

- Tom Ford

There are many designers who have much greater talent as a designer than I do, but they may not have my drive, they may not work as hard, they may not have the focus, the desire... You have to have a talent because, at the end of the day, if the pants you design don't make someone's butt look great, they're not going to buy them.

- Tom Ford

A man should never wear shorts in the city. Flip-flops and shorts in the city are never appropriate. Shorts should only be worn on the tennis court or on the beach.

- Tom Ford

A lot of the things I did - it's not going to sound anything but egotistical - if I'm lucky and I did the right thing, they will be at Zara way before I can get them in the store, and I don't like that.

- Tom Ford

I think people who are compelled to achieve never really think they've achieved... I think the moment you get to a place when you think 'Oh I'm a fashion legend' then that's when you're no longer competitive in your field.

- Tom Ford

I couldn't have cared less about Gucci when I first went there - but soon after I arrived, I cared a lot.

- Tom Ford

I don't think fashion has to change every five minutes. I'd like these to be clothes you can wear for a long time - ten, 20 years; pass on to your daughter. Why buy vintage when you can open your own closet!

- Tom Ford

Tweeting? It's one of the silliest things ever.

- Tom Ford

College campuses were once a hotbed of political activity.

- Tom Ford

We live in a material world. I'm not saying that beautiful things don't enhance our lives. But, in our culture, we're never happy.

- Tom Ford

I just want to make beautiful, glamorous clothes.

- Tom Ford

I think you should suffer sometimes to be attractive and beautiful, so I cut the clothes very slim because I like to feel the clothes on my body.

- Tom Ford

Fashion is much more collaborative than one might think. You have to have an idea and vision, and you have to communicate that vision to a team of people, and you have to create an environment that allows those people to give the best that they can give.

- Tom Ford

You never make it, especially in this industry where you constantly churn out stuff, things. You never finish.

- Tom Ford

British men are peacocks. You see a lot more style on the streets here than you see anywhere else, on every level.

- Tom Ford

The U.S. used to be perceived as the moral leader of the world, and we have absolutely lost that.

- Tom Ford

Once upon a time we did not focus on a president's private life.

- Tom Ford

I love black dresses. I think everyone should own a lot, but black dresses don't sell online because on the computer they don't read like anything.

- Tom Ford

I'm a very serious person.

- Tom Ford

I live, I shop almost exclusively on the Internet. I've bought cars on the Internet. I watch television, I do everything on it. I even watch my son online.

- Tom Ford

Students in the '60s were responsible for great changes, politically and socially.

- Tom Ford

I was not good at team sports, I have to say. I'm quite good at individual sports, but I was not good at team sports, so I wasn't good at baseball and football.

- Tom Ford

I'm a pretty calm person. That came from living in Italy for a long time. Nothing works, nothing is on time. You have to learn to deal with it.

- Tom Ford

This sounds crazy, but I know so many famous people, I'm just not intimidated by anyone. I feel really comfortable with it.

- Tom Ford

Your name is a funny thing. It stands for what you're about, and everything I do is really about pride.

- Tom Ford

From the time we're born until we die, we're kept busy with artificial stuff that isn't important.

- Tom Ford

Certain directors are known for a certain kind of beauty; it becomes their signature.

- Tom Ford

The world might be a very scary place if it were only run by Virgos.

- Tom Ford

It's really never fair to judge people because none of us know what's going on inside anyone else's head.

- Tom Ford

I am totally fearless! Well, of course, I'm not totally fearless. I worry constantly and obsess over things, but I just don't let fear stand in the way of doing something that I really want to do.

- Tom Ford

What works with your skin and eyes? Use that to zero in on your wardrobe.

- Tom Ford

It's like everything in your life is wonderful, but you have so much wonderful - this is all going to sound horrible - but when you have so much wonderful, it isn't wonderful because you don't actually have time to enjoy it.

- Tom Ford