As he prepares to receive the CFDA Lifetime Achievement Award, influential designer Tom Ford sat down with WWD’s Bridget Foley to talk Botox, babies and social media. Ford spoke candidly about attempting to keep the Internet away from his first few shows and trying to keep them ultra exclusive and secretive so that photographs of the clothing would not be seen prior to the pieces being sold in stores.
“I failed. I tried to change that. I wasn’t anti-Internet. I was anti-seeing something six months in advance,” the designer, who recently said customers don’t care about critics’ reviews anymore, tells Foley. “If you can make it available immediately, then yes, yes of course it makes total sense. I was just looking through a retail magazine and I saw something I loved when it came out (on the runway). Now it feels old, and it’s only being shipped to the store. The look feels photographed and worn. But I failed. It’s a part of popular culture I can’t participate in. Once I reached a certain scale, I had to go along with it.”
Foley also talked Ford about his long career in fashion, getting nostalgic and whether he’d go back to being age 30 if he could to which he emphatically replied, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I’m very happy with where I am. I have a lot to be very happy about.” When Foley approached the subject of whether the designer is prepared to be old in fashion he says,”Yes. I’ve decided to age. Since we’ve had Jack I haven’t had a Botox injection or a filler. I haven’t had time.”
(Photo: Tom Ford | Photo from designer’s Facebook)