Saturday, September 22, 2018

Tom Ford Hardcover by Tom Ford (Author), Bridget Foley (Author), Graydon Carter (Introduction), Anna Wintour (Foreword) (Rizzoli)



Thomas Carlyle Ford (born August 27, 1961) is an American fashion designer, film director, screenwriter, and film producer. He launched his eponymous luxury brand in 2006, having previously served as the Creative Director at luxury fashion houses Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent. Ford also directed the Academy Award-nominated films A Single Man (2009) and Nocturnal Animals (2016).

Ford has been included in several best-dressed lists, such as International Best Dressed List, The Guardian's "The 50 best-dressed over-50s", and British GQ's "50 Best Dressed Men in Britain 2015". He was featured on the cover of the 2011 spring/summer issue of Another Man, giving his opinion on what makes the modern day gentleman. He has been called a "fashion icon" and a "style icon", and he was included in "All-TIME 100 Fashion Icons" list. He won many awards including several VH1/Vogue Fashion Awards and Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) Awards.In 2014, the CFDA awarded him the Geoffery Beene Lifetime Achievement Award.

While Ford has been in a monogamous relationship for many years, he "continues to promote himself with a youthful and sexually charged image." He is known for sexy clothes, making provocative statements, and creating racy advertisements. Ford's designs convey a "sophisticated sex appeal"[93] and he has been credited for "bringing sexy back". His advertisement campaigns have drawn controversy for use of nudity and "provocative sexual imagery". Ford is also known to pose with celebrities and models in his ad campaigns. He has been called the "King of Sex" and "the straightest gay man in the world".

Ford saved Gucci from near bankruptcy and transformed it into a fashion powerhouse. His decade as the creative director was a "golden era" for Gucci. He turned the brand around, replacing the "grunge look" with "sexy, yet sophisticated, clothes". He is known for his bold designs. The New York Magazine wrote "Every season, Ford created an 'It' piece, a must-have, a season-defining trend, photographed to death, knocked off ad nauseam." Ford says it is important for designers to be contemporary and current with the changing standard of beauty.

This enormous compendium may be Ford's swan song as a designer, as he recently announced that he was quitting fashion to direct movies. But for the last 10 years, as the creative director at Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, he took the brands in fresh directions. This huge, slipcased Festschrift checks in at 11"×14", and covers each of the Gucci years individually, compiling product shots, ads, runway candids, snippets of Ford wisdom ("I think you have to have personality at a brand—otherwise, it's just clothes"), Gucci-sporting celebrities and commercial stills. Vogue's Anna Wintour and Vanity Fair's Graydon Carter contribute a foreword and introduction respectively. The much-covered growth at Gucci and YSL are the real story behind the book, to the point where the press chat credits Ford with "carving out a new industry archetype: the businessman designer." But the 375 color and b&w photos, all culled from existing fashion archives, is more of a look back at how Ford's creations were presented (including year-by-year portraits of the photogenic Ford himself), rather than what led to their creation, how they were actually made or how they fit into the culture at large. As a 10-year time capsule of brand fashioning, the book succeeds perfectly.

This huge, slipcased Festschrift checks in at 11"×14", and covers each of the Gucci years individually, compiling product shots, ads, runway candids, snippets of Ford wisdom ("I think you have to have personality at a brand—otherwise, it's just clothes"), Gucci-sporting celebrities and commercial stills. Vogue 's Anna Wintour and Vanity Fair 's Graydon Carter contribute a foreword and introduction respectively. The much-covered growth at Gucci and YSL are the real story behind the book, to the point where the press chat credits Ford with "carving out a new industry archetype: the businessman designer." But the 375 color and b&w photos, all culled from existing fashion archives, is more of a look back at how Ford's creations were presented (including year-by-year portraits of the photogenic Ford himself), rather than what led to their creation, how they were actually made or how they fit into the culture at large. As a 10-year time capsule of brand fashioning, the book succeeds perfectly

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