Tom Ford is admirable not just for his design acumen and longevity, but also because he never fails to entertain and educate in interviews. He is a veritable quote machine. He sat down recently with style.com to discuss his upcoming CFDA Lifetime Achievement Award (his sixth from CFDA!) and as always had lots to say. Check out some of his best quotes below.
“When Diane von Furstenberg whispered it into my ear at the Oscars, I was almost offended. ‘What do you mean, Lifetime Achievement Award? Does that mean I’m not going to do anything anymore, that it’s all behind me?'”
“After leaving Gucci Group, there was a dramatic sense of loss and of not being worthy, so rebuilding my life professionally and personally was an enormous struggle.”
“The football jerseys I did this year that are a knockoff of a knockoff of the Jay Z sweaters that say ‘Tom Ford 61’ are also an obvious homage to Mr. [Geoffrey] Beene in the late sixties, when he did three floor-length sequined football jerseys with numbers and stripes.”
“I’ve probably only recently begun really adjusting to today’s [fashion] world. It’s horrible. What is expected of fashion designers today is unsustainable.”
“The fact that cruise is now shown with these giant productions means it’s no longer what it was supposed to be, which was clothes that were maybe not strong enough to show but were your real bread and butter, the clothes that women wanted to wear. But now that they’re being shown, they’ll have to be amped up, and women won’t want to wear them anymore.”
“Customers don’t care any more about reviews or hard-copy publications. They care what picture Rihanna just instagrammed while she’s naked in bed, what new shoes she has on, how she’s talking about them.”
“No matter how much people tell me I’m great or I’m good, I never actually believe it. Flattery makes me really nervous.”
See the complete interview here.
