Ford revs up
Fifteen minutes. It may not be much, but if you are one of the few fashion writers granted an audience with Tom Ford in the wake of his menswear debut for Yves Saint Laurent, it is akin to a gift from God ... or in this case, a polite but protective PR named Olivier. Months of negotiations, myriad restrictions and more than a few dramas have come down to a mere quarter of an hour, and I'm made to feel like a very lucky boy indeed.
Ford's dance card is full, after all. As creative director of Gucci group, he oversees, to varying degrees, the image and design direction of a growing stable of luxury labels, including Sergio Rossi, Boucheron, Bottega Veneta and, most recently, Alexander McQueen and Stella McCartney. He continues to design clothes for men and women and accessories for Gucci - which he famously resurrected from a duty-free death in 1995 - and now Yves Saint Laurent, which Gucci group acquired controversially in November 1999. But more on that later.
'It's your turn,' says Olivier, motioning to me urgently. We rush backstage at Ford's inaugural menswear show in the garden of the Musee Rodin, Paris, past adolescent male models and stone-faced security guards, to a specially designed inner sanctum that recalls a scene from The Wizard Of Oz. Drawing back a black curtain, he whispers 'Okay' and I walk in. Standing in the middle of the room, surrounded by orchids and bathed in soft, violet light, is Tom Ford - the most renowned and, I can confirm, most Hollywood-handsome designer in the world. He shakes my hand, smiles his half-smile and settles into a black satin chaise longue.
The first thing you notice about Ford - after the looks - is the modulated, almost measured, way in which he speaks. He is very American: a former aspiring actor with ambition, a strong sense of aesthetics and an even stronger sense of spin. His charm can be a bit much. When I ask the obligatory question about inspiration, for instance, I get more than I bargained for. 'I wanted to do a different kind of sexy - intelligent sexy,' he answers. 'You'll notice the guys were all wearing glasses, like you. You were the inspiration.' This, for those who have never met me, is like telling a fat girl she looks like Kate Moss.
Ford is the ideal Yves Saint Laurent customer. At 39, he falls exactly in the middle of the brands' target-market age range. He lives in several cities - London, Los Angeles, Milan, Paris and Santa Fe, where he grew up the son of property agents - and loves all those little lifestyle details such as Richard Neutra houses and Charles Eames chairs. 'I always think of myself,' he explains, 'or at least an idealised version of myself. For example, I don't wear beige or ivory suits, but in my ideal mind, if I were 25 years old, six centimetres taller and five kilos lighter, would I wear that suit? Yes? Then it works.'
An almost infallible ability to foresee what people like him will want to wear, season after season, is Ford's greatest asset as a designer. The secret, he says, is one part preparation and two parts intuition: 'Sales reports and what people tell you can only indicate where you are now and what's been sold in the past ... they can't tell you what's going to sell tomorrow. So you try to take in the mood of the world through music and film, and talking to friends and looking at people on the street,' he says. 'You look through magazines and see what you're tired of seeing. It's like a puzzle: all the answers are out there.' It also helps to have 'somewhat mass taste'. 'It sounds terrible, but if you give me 20 pairs of shoes I'll pick the one that sells.'
And sell they do. Gucci group racked up sales of more than US$2.25 billion (HK$17.5 billion) last year, and is estimated to be worth a whopping $8.7 billion. Along with luxury groups such as arch-rival LVMH (Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton) and Prada, it is snapping up top design talents and international brand names like a shopaholic during sale season.