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.
Tom Ford has become one of fashion's great icons. In the past decade, he transformed Gucci from a moribund accessories label into one of the sexiest fashion brands in the world. His designs have increased sales at Gucci tenfold and have helped build the Gucci brand into the luxury goods conglomerate that it is today. Ford brought a hard-edged style synonymous with 21st century glamour to his clothes, and Hollywood sat up and took note. This book is a complete catalogue of Ford's design work for both Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent from 1994 to 2004. It chronicles not only Ford's clothing and accessories designs for both houses, but also explores Ford's grand vision for the complete design of a brand, including architecture, store design, and advertising. Tom Ford features more than 200 photographs by Richard Avedon, Mario Testino, Steven Meisel, Helmut Newton, Herb Ritts, Terry Richardson, Craig McDean, Todd Eberle, and numerous other photographers including many previously unpublished images. Published to coincide with his departure from Gucci, this book has been created with Ford's full cooperation and every page reflects his exceptional taste. It is Ford's testament to a career of singular moments reinventing the boundaries of style and sensuality in clothing.
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