A PRESTIGE HONG KONG EXCLUSIVE
THE MAN IN FULL - TOM FORD
by Jessica Michault and Stephen Short

Not only that, they have a bold approach to luxury.
It’s very bold, but not bold in a crass way. It’s bold in an appreciative way of understanding beauty and well-made things.

Words like “exclusive” and “limited edition” are used for everything now in fashion. For you, what’s authentic luxury?
First of all, the product has to be made of the highest quality. Attention to detail – the way the buttonholes work, the way the back of the lapels are rolled back – and the best quality product.

On top of that you have to layer great service, because luxury for me is getting someone on the phone instead of an answering machine when I call. And it’s being able to get help when I walk into the store, and someone who calls me when something comes in that I might like, and sends it to my apartment and will pick it up if I don’t like it, and really takes care of the customer in a way that once upon a time people were able to receive that kind of service. That is a huge part of what luxury is for me right now – to be taken care of.

You’ve said you think the future of menswear and the future of fashion in general is China. Why?
I think that all Americans specifically and perhaps all Europeans should go to Shanghai and stand on the banks of the Bund and look across at the cityscape, which was not there 15 years ago, and you feel the 21st century, you see it being built before your eyes. It’s very humbling. It’s a very humbling thing to realise that Europe was the centre of the world in the 19th century, and America had the 20th century, and for me the 21st century is not just China but emerging markets.

Are many women coming into your New York store and trying to buy a Tom Ford menswear suit?
Yes they are.

And are you serving them?
No. I haven’t made a suit for a woman. I may one day, but the reason I haven’t is . . . and I know this from working at Saint Laurent. A Saint Laurent suit may look like a men’s suit but it’s not a men’s suit. It’s not made like a men’s suit. Even though the details may look like a men’s suit, it really has got to be cut to a woman’s body. It’s a completely different way of manufacturing. I’m not currently set up to be able to do that and I’m not sure I want to open that door yet.

I’m sure a lot of women are waiting for that door to open.
I really may some day, but I’ve got a good three years more work to get this company really set up properly. We’re set up properly for menswear, but if I were to try to tackle women’s I’d be expected to compete at the level of Miuccia [Prada] and Karl [Lagerfeld]. I would have to have an atelier with 40 women sewing, I would have to have the factories and everything set up to produce the collection, I would have to have different store locations from the ones I have because those are men’s stores. I would have to have a completely different design team – everything. I just couldn’t layer it on what I’m doing now. I just couldn’t do it physically.

You have a film production company, Fade to Black. What’s happening with that?
I’ve been working on a project for a couple of years. It’s a Christopher Isherwood book that I bought the rights to. Christopher is a writer I love and who I knew a little bit in the ’80s before he died. I adapted the screenplay myself and we were set to go, we had cast the film, when the writer’s strike threw everything off and actors started accepting things that gave them more money.

So I’m trying to make it now later in the summer, but I’m almost hesitant to talk about it because I think it takes so long and people are very quick to say, “Oh, he tried that and it didn’t work.” So I sort of made up my mind that I wasn’t going to talk about it until the movie was done. It’s something I’m very passionate about. God knows I have enough going on, but I still want to make it work.

What’s the last book you read?
Well, this is perfect . . . it’s the Christopher Isherwood diaries, because I’m having a little problem in Act Two of my screenplay and I was trying to find something in Christopher’s life or his thoughts about something. Because all of his books are autobiographical, so I was trying to find a clue as to what to do with the second act of my screenplay.

I also read the Dana Thomas book [Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Lustre]. She went out on a limb with that. She said what she thought. I thought it was a great book, especially for anyone who’s not in our business, to understand what we do. I’ve given that book to a few friends, saying, “If you want to know what our business is like, read this book.”

Do you have a defining suit from your past, say for a graduation?
I do have one. It was a green suit. It was fabulous. I have a portrait that was painted of me in that suit. I was nine. It was green, double breasted with gold buttons, and I wore it with a shirt of a paler shade of green. I thought that suit was really hot!