Top 263 Quotes & Sayings by Tom Ford
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American designer Tom Ford.
Last updated on September 16, 2024.
My customer has her own sense of style and knows herself well. My goal is to help women become the best version of themselves.
In the early Seventies, I had shoulder-length hair, bell-bottom pants, love beads and shirts that laced up at the front. But then I smartened up.
I hate going out for lunch during a workday because it slows down my pace and ruins my rhythm. I prefer to eat at my desk. Actually, I wander around the design studio with a plate in my hand as I dine on, for example, salmon sashimi and a salad of tomatoes and mozzarella. I often have a bit of dark chocolate after lunch.
On the one hand, I want to go off and live in the desert with my dog and sculpt things out of adobe.
I am totally fearless! Well, of course, I'm not totally fearless. I worry constantly and obsess over things, but I just don't let fear stand in the way of doing something that I really want to do.
I guess I'm just one of these people who, when I decide I'm going to do something, I just do it.
I think that monogamy is artificial. I do not think it's something that comes naturally to us.
A man should never wear shorts in the city. Flip-flops and shorts in the city are never appropriate. Shorts should only be worn on the tennis court or on the beach.
I haven't had any plastic surgery - despite what people think, this is my nose. I have had Restylane and Botox, but I don't think of that as plastic surgery any more.
What works with your skin and eyes? Use that to zero in on your wardrobe.
I love to design. I am a commercial fashion designer. I always design jackets with two sleeves. I don't design jackets with three sleeves, or the layers and layers come off like little dolls from Russia. Fashion for me is a creative endeavor, but it is not art for me.
From the time we're born until we die, we're kept busy with artificial stuff that isn't important.
What is important is that we stop and realize, 'Okay. This is fine. I can enjoy that.' But what is really important, what I'm really going to take away with me from this life, is my connection with other people.
College campuses were once a hotbed of political activity.
The U.S. used to be perceived as the moral leader of the world, and we have absolutely lost that.
As a fashion designer, I was always aware that I was not an artist, because I was creating something that was made to be sold, marketed, used, and ultimately discarded.
A lot of people think a high armhole is restrictive, but it gives you total movement because it's cut right up to your arm.
Advertising is, of course, important because advertise is the final design. It's the last layer that speaks to the customer, that tells them what you have.
I don't want to find myself designing for the press.
Fashion is much more collaborative than one might think. You have to have an idea and vision, and you have to communicate that vision to a team of people, and you have to create an environment that allows those people to give the best that they can give.
I couldn't have cared less about Gucci when I first went there - but soon after I arrived, I cared a lot.
I don't do shows. I don't have reviews. I'm not putting the clothes on every celebrity so that by the time they reach the store the customers are sick of seeing them.
September 11th was a moment when America had the sympathy of the world.
I'm a believer in fate and in fulfilling your destiny. I've always had a kind of inner voice that I have learned to listen to.
I am a spiritual person in an eastern religion kind of way. I learned that happiness for all of us is a switch that you flick in your brain. It doesn't have anything to do with getting a new house, a new car, a new girlfriend, or a new pair of shoes. Our culture is very much about that; we are never happy with what we have today.
I probably do have an obsessive personality, but striving for perfection has served me well.
I hate tricky facial hair. If your facial hair is too spotty in places, shave. Just forget about it.
I am really a loner after all; I am really not a social person. Because of my job, people think I am out every night, but I really hate all that. I am somebody who likes to be alone and see some close friends. I am a shy and introspective person.
I find a bath meditative and usually prepare myself for the day in this manner.
I think the 1970s will always be the decade for me. Obviously, I grew up in that era, but the beauty standard was touchable, kissable.
The seventies is what I love. Soft, touchable beauty is what I love.
I love black dresses. I think everyone should own a lot, but black dresses don't sell online because on the computer they don't read like anything.
When I was a little kid, all I wanted to do was to escape what I thought was the country and get to a city. Probably film and television had influenced me so much, I really thought the key to happiness was living a very artificial life in a penthouse in New York with martini glasses.
We have the Terminator as governor, and we had an actor as president, so why shouldn't we have a fashion designer as a senator?
If I'm sending emails, and I get all wound up and stressed and don't know what to do with myself for 20 minutes, I just go soak in hot water and lie there, thinking, 'What should I do?' So it's meditative.
But as an adult working in the fashion industry, I struggle with materialism. And I'm one of the least materialistic people that exist, because material possessions don't mean much to me. They're beautiful, I enjoy them, they can enhance your life to a certain degree, but they're ultimately not important.
I am actually extremely casual in certain environments. But one of the reasons I like living in London, I like the formality of it, as compared to the formality of America - or informality. I like putting on a suit. I like putting on a tie.
The dynamics of film directing and fashion design - in the ways that I've done it - were not dissimilar.
If my parents had discouraged me, I would have turned out very differently. They raised me in an open-minded, liberal environment.
My grandmother was probably the first person who I thought was beautiful. She was incredibly stylish, she had big hair, big cars. I was probably 3 years old, but she was like a cartoon character. She'd swoop into our lives with presents and boxes, and she always smelled great and looked great.
Students in the '60s were responsible for great changes, politically and socially.
When I was a kid, I thought I was going to be an actor.
I'm a very serious person.
I believe in living life the way that you want to live it every day, and if you do that, you don't really need to have New Year's resolutions.
Your connections with other people are important, our connection to the earth.
I'm living the exact life I planned on living when I was five. My life has taken some turns and changes that I didn't anticipate, and it has brought me different things. I thought material things would bring me happiness, which they didn't. But through this, I have learned what things are important and what aren't.
I am a perfectionist. This job is a total ego thing in a way. To be a designer and say, 'This is the way they should dress; this is the way their homes should look; this is the way the world should be.' But then, that's the goal: world domination through style.
I think people who are compelled to achieve never really think they've achieved... I think the moment you get to a place when you think 'Oh I'm a fashion legend' then that's when you're no longer competitive in your field.
Most everyone now personally knows someone who is openly homosexual.
We live in a material world. I'm not saying that beautiful things don't enhance our lives. But, in our culture, we're never happy.
There aren't many strong or charismatic candidates today, because many people can't withstand the scrutiny.
When you are having fun and creating something you love, it shows in the product. So when a woman is sifting through a rack of clothes, somehow that piece of clothing that you had so much fun designing speaks to her; she responds to it and buys it. I believe you can actually transfer that energy to material things as you're creating them.
As a designer, design director or any creative person, you have to hire great people, support them and make them feel comfortable so they can contribute and give you their best.
You never make it, especially in this industry where you constantly churn out stuff, things. You never finish.
Once upon a time we did not focus on a president's private life.
When I am on my deathbed, I don't think I will be thinking about a nice pair of shoes I had or my beautiful house. I am going to be thinking about an evening I spent with somebody when I was twenty where I felt that I was just absolutely connected to them.
I'm actually very introverted. I'm very shy. I'm very emotional.
When the youth of America gets together, amazing things happen.
I grew up in New Mexico, and the older I get, I have less need for contemporary culture and big cities and all the stuff we are bombarded with. I am happier at my ranch in the middle of nowhere watching a bug carry leaves across the grass, listening to silence, riding my horse, and being in open space.
L.A. is my American city.
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