Tom Ford On Gucci, Feminism, Nudity & Friend Julianne Moore

DesignTracker

Tom Ford at Gucci

Ford loved a deep V, writes NY Magazine. Linda Evangelista worked a ’70s take on the look for his spring 1996 collection.

Cathy Horn brings her in-depth knowledge of fashion’s past to The Cut’s ‘It’s Vintage’ series with Tom Ford Gets Candid About His Years At Gucci.

The Gucci brand was such a mess when Tom Ford took the helm of its design process after Dawn Mello returned to New York in the spring of 1994 to become president of Bergdorf Goodman that he had little to lose. As Investcorp weighed a sale of Gucci, Ford says he seriously considered leaving the company after his first lady milktoast show in the fall of 1994.

Continuing on, Ford studied the fabled, fabulous women who wore Gucci in its glory days and concluded that — unlike Chanel — their was no real look to the clothes. Rather the glamour came from the women themselves. Ford quickly moved to zero in on the models themselves, putting a spotlight on them as they came down the runway and killing all the VIPs in the front row. Ford also had a keen sense that people wanted to look sexy again.

It’s interesting to trace journalists’ reactions between 1994 and March of 1996, when Ford showed perhaps his most celebrated collection, the one with the slinky cutout gowns in white jersey, for which he received a standing ovation. Until the hip-hugger men’s show, Amy Spindler of the New York Times, who became one of his most ardent admirers, typically landed Ford’s men’s shows near the bottom of her reviews. But after Florence she called the show “the most directional for the magazines.” By July, she had upgraded Ford to “the most directional designer in Milan,” and in September of 1995, in an insightful column headlined “Flip-Flop: The Runway Leads the Street,” she elaborated on “the Gucci influence.” Fashion brands at all levels were suddenly turning out hip-huggers.

In short order, Gucci revenues in the first nine months of 1995 doubled to $342 million.  Enter now Carine Roitfeld and Mario Testino. Describing Roitfeld, Tom Ford said “This is my woman.”

Kiara Kabukuru Gucci Campaign 1007

Veronique Hyland picks up the Tom Ford story with Tom Ford’s Gucci Ads Took the ‘Sex Sells’ Tactic To New Heights.

1997 Gucci SS Campaign by Mario TestinoGucci Fall/Winter 1997 Campaign by Mario Testino

He understood more than anyone else that sex sells,” says Fern Mallis. And he assembled a dream team to help carry out his vision: photographer Mario Testino, stylist Carine Roitfeld, and creative director Doug Lloyd. In that era, Testino recalled in a 2008 interview with the Independent,  “advertising campaigns became more exciting than editorial. When I started doing Gucci with Tom Ford he pushed me to new heights. He was, like, ‘I’ve seen you do better than that. Don’t get worried because it’s a campaign.

Tom Ford’s sexy Gucci campaigns reached a new zenith in 2003 with Carmen Kass’ pubic hair controversy. The Daily Mail responded to the ad with the following headline: ‘The people behind this advert are no better than pimps and those who advertise sexual services in phone boxes.’ The columnist Bel Mooney went on to call the work ‘predictable, exploitative, upmarket sleaze.’ The newspaper went on to question British Vogue for accepting the ad with ‘Sleazy stunt’ from fashion leader.

Picking up the story, AOC notes that The Guardiansaid the British public wasn’t at all outraged with only 16 complaints made to the ASA. By contrast Yves Saint Laurent’s notorious Opium advert featuring a naked Sophie Dahl provoked 730 complaints to the ASA. This was mainly because it appeared on poster sites, where it could be seen by children.

Before leaving Kering, then called the Gucci Group, in 2004 Tom Ford also took creative control at Yves Saint Laurent. Most everything that Tom Ford touched became fashion gold during those years. After leaving Gucci, Ford developed his own brand Tom Ford. As Veronique Hyland wrote in March 2015: News to No One: Tom Ford Objectifies Everyone.

Tom Ford Feminist

Just this afternoon AOC got in a scuffle over Charlize Theron’s incredibly seductive May W Magazine images ‘Mad Beautiful’. A woman wrote: ‘I don’t like that all these pictures are sexual and nothing more …  is that all women are still today? She’s an Oscar-winning actress currently at the top of her field. She was named a United Nations messenger of peace; she created CTAOP to fight AIDS/HIV in the African youth population, but you’d never know it from this presentation of her.’

To women who hold such views about ‘Mad Beautiful’, explaining that Tom Ford is a feminist and lover of women is likely to be met with a roll of the eyes. We should say that Tom Ford is a Smart Sensuality Woman feminist: smart, sexy and a social activist.

One can’t deny that Tom Ford objectifies women and especially female sensuality. But he does so with a broad brush — one that challenges the Puritanical nature of cultures that see female sexuality has something pornographic and immoral. In this respect, Tom Ford challenges the hypocrisy of conventional morality on a wide range of topics. More importantly, Ford doesn’t maintain a double standard for men and women.

“I’ve been criticized for objectifying women,” the designer told The Guardian. “But I’m an equal opportunity objectifier — I’m just as happy to objectify men. The thing is, you can’t show male nudity in our culture in the way you can show female nudity. We’re very comfortable as a culture exploiting women, but not men. But I don’t think of it as exploitation [either way].”

Asked by The Guardian if he considers feminism in his depiction of women, Ford replies: ‘I always think about feminism … my mother was ‘a real 1970s feminist.’

Let some women be horrified; AOC understands where Tom Ford is coming from.

There’s nothing stronger and more powerful than a beautiful woman. I don’t think expressing what nature intended you to be is anything but powerful. My women are not sitting there waiting for someone, they’re taking charge. Doesn’t matter whether they’re naked – they’re powerful, they’re smart, and you’re not going to get them if they don’t want you.

His muses and models tend to be strong, older women: 70s icon Lauren Hutton (71), socialite Daphne Guinness, actor Emmanuelle Seigner (both in their late 40s) and his close friend, the 54-year-old Oscar-winner Julianne Moore. Ford was the first to sign a then plus-sized Sophie Dahl to a major fragrance campaign, once again in the nude.

As a photographer Tom Ford and Carine Roitfeld cooked up controversial brews when Roitfeld was still at the helm of Vogue Paris. In a single issue of Vogue Paris, the duo presented:

Clarissa & Doug

Clarissa & Doug | Tom Ford & Carine Roitfeld | Vogue Paris December 2010-January 2011

F****** amazing!

Many will laugh and the jokes will fly fast and furiously, but other people will weep over these images and the wonderful reality that they represent. Who said that fashion is irrelevant, and that sexual desire is only for the young!

I KNOW this idea upsets younger people, because I wrote a piece once under another name for a big magazine. The responses about a 55 year-old woman having seriously sizzling sex were absolutely puerile. So what that same sophisticated New York audience would think of Clarissa & Doug is probably not suitable for publication.

I also love that if anything, Ford and Roitfeld accentuate age with lighting and coloring. And no Photoshop!

Thylane Lena Rose Blondeau

Tom Ford: Jeune Fille Innocente | Vogue Paris December 2010

Tom Ford’s December 2010 Vogue Paris guest editorship has created more than a few waves, with a series of provocative statements about fashion and global culture.  Ford probably confirmed to French readers that Americans just have no taste.

The rumours are flying that Bernard Arnault was so disgusted by the ‘Jeune Fille Innocente’ editorial above, that he threatened to pull an entire month of advertising for Vogue Paris. Was Carine Roitfeld actually fired over this issue? We doubt it. Read onCarine Roitfeld | Whispering ‘Insiders’ Fuel Rumour Mill | NSFW

Of all the Vogue Paris December 2010 Tom Ford editorials, ‘Jeune Fille Innocente’ could be the most offensive to the French, and I can understand why.

France isn’t known for dressing its children in rouge lipstick, before sending them off for a bikini wax. Unlike America, which considers women over the hill at 30, France celebrates older woman and the totality of a woman’s life cycle.

These images are an absolute reflection of youth culture in America. Tom Ford is a visionary and never one to ignore an opportunity for provocation. Is he false? I think not.

Crystal’s Nose Job

Crystal Renn | Tom Ford | Carine Roitfeld for Vogue Paris December 2010

With both the Clarissa & Doug editorial, as well as this one, the Ford-Roitfeld duo took a jackhammer to their topics. In the exaggeration there is ugliness and what we want to call distortion.

Unless my eyes are deceiving me, the young lover adores Renn even when she’s looking not so pretty. She is sexual to him even in her ‘ugliness’. This can be very true in real life.

Even when I don’t care for the editorial, I love that Roitfeld and Ford are tackling serious new territory in this issue of Vogue Paris, and executing it without glamour and airbrushing. Does American Vogue ever do anything remotely controversial?

Tom Ford on Julianna Moore TIME 100 2015

Tom Ford likes women who are natural, as revealed in this AOC article about breasts. We get insights into why Tom Ford and Julianne Moore are such good friends — and why she is Ford’s kind of woman — in the tribute he wrote for her recent inclusion in the TIME 100.

Fearless Star

Fearless. That is the first word that comes to mind when I think of Julianne Moore. Of course, the words beautiful, elegant, smart, loyal and steadfast can be used to describe her too.

I was fortunate enough to witness Julianne’s incredible skill as an actress firsthand when we worked together on a film that I directed called A Single Man. I remember looking through the camera lens before the first take and realizing that she projects something very rare: an actual luminosity that is dazzling in life and that can be captured on film. This is the difference between an actor and a star.

Julianne’s character off set is just as magnetic as her onscreen presence. She has an inner beauty that will never fade. She is down to earth and real. For my 50th birthday we went white-water rafting in Idaho, where we had no baths or toilets for five days. She seemed just as comfortable in the wilderness, stripped of the trappings of stardom, as she is in front of the camera.

Julianne is one of the greatest actresses working today, but she’s also a wonderful human being. I am honored to call her my friend.