Interview: Tom Ford Bares All!

Designer Tom Ford, who helped make a name for himself by pushing the limits of male nudity in advertising and who even posed semi-naked himself in a 2007 spread in Out, is quite comfortable with physical nudity.

Baring his soul? That’s another matter.

In the 1990s, Ford boldly saved both Gucci and Yves Saint-Laurent from possible ruin (and then later created his own Tom Ford label). But he says he’s actually quite shy.

It’s true, he says, that his famous work in fashion and photography has shown the world an important part of who he is. But it was a very incomplete part.

With last month’s release of the new movie, A Single Man, which Ford financed and directed himself, we can see a much more complete image of who he really is.

Based on the 1964 novel by Christopher Isherwood, the movie tells the story of George, a gay man in 1962, and the decisions he makes in a single day after the death of his long-time partner, Jim. There’s already strong Oscar buzz for its stars, Colin Firth and Julianne Moore, and for Abel Korzeniowski, who wrote the score. All three were nominated for Golden Globes.

Recently, I had a chance to chat with Ford about the movie, his already-famous advice to Colin Firth that he lose some weight, the film’s controversial de-gaying in advertising campaigns, and the fact that he has to pay his partner of more than 20 years to walk the dog!

For some reason, I expected Ford to be arrogant and aloof. In fact, he is exactly the opposite – down-to-earth and extremely personable.

AfterElton.com: A Single Man’s been out since December 11. It's been really well received. I don't think I've read a bad thing about it. How happy are you with the reception so far?
Tom Ford: Absolutely and completely happy, yeah. Couldn't be happier about the reception. I put more energy into this than anything I've ever done before. I surprised myself in a way. It was the most personal thing I ever did. I'm actually a very romantic person, kind of shy, believe it or not. What you saw on screen is very much who I am, what I'm about, so I was very, very pleased.

I believe if you put enough passion into something, it will be felt on the other side. And this was the ultimate test of that theory. It'll either go off base, or I'll create something that people will respond to, and I'm really happy to say that people have responded very well to the film.

AE: There's an idea out there that design isn't intellectual...
TF: That it's trivial?

Tom Ford with two models as boxers

AE: Yes, that it's something trivial, yet the movie was very sophisticated and very challenging in a good way. You're assuming that audience is not stupid, and that's becoming increasingly rare. There's been a lot of ink spilled about how this is such a departure for you, but it sounds like you're saying, "No, this is the real me. This has always been the real me.”
TF: No, I'm saying, with fashion you're able to show a side of yourself, but it's a superficial side, because it's about image. It's about the surface — what your clothes look like, what your hair looks like, what your body looks like, what your shoes look like. It's very hard in fashion to communicate what your soul looks like. That sort of thing is very hard to say through clothing. And I've probably, because I'm insecure like everybody is, I've only allowed certain parts of myself to be seen. Photographs and fashion is only the surface of who I am.

Now, it's very much about me. I love fashion. I've had a great career in fashion and I've enjoyed it, but there's only so much I could communicate in that medium. So this was a way for me to communicate things I'm not necessarily comfortable exposing in real life, meaning it's very hard for me to cry in front of anyone else. But when I was making this movie, I cried while I was writing the screenplay, I cried while I was filming it, I cried while I was watching the dailies, I cried while I was editing it, and every time I look at it I cry. I listen to the music and I cry.

But it was easier for me to put that on screen. To expose that to my five best friends in the world would be completely different, but as a public person, there's only so much that you can put out there, or that you choose to put out there. It's just different sides to my personality.