the man, the genius, the instigator of inspiration. TOM FORD

OWN: Tom Ford Visionary Documentary from Tuan Metta on Vimeo.

i strongly encourage everyone who can spare 3 minutes of their life to watch the first few minutes of this video.  With this video and my article, my end goal is to make u feel as awakened or as excited about ur life to come( if it has anything to do with fashion, EVEN BETTER) and what its going to be like when u have the drive and the passion for something,  And who better to base this story on that the man who changed the way i saw the sun and felt the wind brush my face. none other than 

Tom Ford.  

the king of fashion, now and  forever  ( this post is abit more serious, but it gets lighter as it progresses so please dont sleep :] )

There was a point in my life where I dreamed of a glamorous lifestyle, a life i wasn't a part of. A life far away from where i currently was .  Till this day, my idea of a glamorous life is of me putting on my cheeta print pony hair christian louboutin heels along with all my expensive jewelry and just prancing around in my personal garden in Paris or Beijing ( shopping paradise...... ) , maybe prance around topless just because i can ? 

she's wearing the esplanade on her wrists . diamond encrusted?

  I had no idea what this life was going to even be about but i knew the day I see it, I would know. As I grew SLIGHTLY older (cause You know, im STILL a young foxy mama), I had this profound moment of realization  Something I know not everyone gets, something that I should be very grateful for.  I picked up an issue of VOGUE's spring summer edition,  for I think February's issue , my mother had left on the front table and i started to curiously flip through the seemingly shiny "waxy pages"  that was covered in a prism of colors and figures of beautiful ornaments and accessories . The opulence of the jewels and how the light made the silk organza on the gown worn by one of the models look like it was a flowing stream of molten ivory. Grecian gowns made from the most luscious fabrics paired with mink crochet coats made my mouth drop in awe.

THE EXACT COPY I REMEMBER READING...... OMGBBQKFC !

By then,  I was completely emersed in reading the editorials & articles.  I never realized that i would enjoy reading soo much.  The articles in the magazine spoke of a dream where women were confident and beautiful, men were dressed dapper and little children were draped in clothes that made them look like muses.  Everything froze, i had a moment of sheer clarity, i had an epiphany, a realization that my life would now be devoted to this unique form of art i chanced upon: Fashion. It seemed to encompass everything !!!! : architecture, poetry, history, geography, philosophy, yada yada yada.    it was like a magnetic attraction, as natural as the eb and flow of the sea. 

And so i fell in love with fashion. But i had a problem. i related myself as a child who loved swimming but couldnt' swim and didn't know where to go for swimming lessons. i was drowning in my passion for something that slowly suffocated me and so I sat down and thought of someone i could maybe emulate and follow after to get better at what i loved,  but when i searched for a role model, non of them struck that cord in me that would make my heart race and my drive to succeed boom like the nuclear reactor in japan ( too soon..??)    non of them were relatable to me so it didnt seem to click

it was at the very staircase of gucci@paragon that i heard his name for the first time.... like an angel's whisper

This  was up until i started my part time job in the school holidays after O-levels at Gucci@paragon (waohhh im not kidding u, this job wasn't easy to get. i had to fight and claw my way to be interviewed but it was soooooo worth it !!!!! i highly recommend the experience ) thinking that working as a sales staff there would help me understand fashion better at ground level.  AND THEN,  I HEARD HIS NAME.    My colleagues would always mention the name "TOM FORD" to all the elite customers that ask about Gucci's history . Part of my job as an associate was telling the rich customers where Gucci originated and its brand history ,  all that jazzy stuff.      Quite fun because you get to meet alot of "taitais" (rich man's wife)  who are very friendly while others are downright snobbish. just because they carry a celine luggage tote doesn't make them queen of orchard. Come back when u have a crocodile skin Hermes Birkin and then we'll talk. 
( I was very judgmental of my customers but that's luxury fashion retail. Its superficial and materialistic) 

they honestly sometimes look like this when they walk around.  

SO i googled him and i finally found my muse.   THE SEARCH WAS FINALLY OVER!!  He was like me, someone who loved fashion but at the same time, loved many other things like movie making and architecture.      And ofcourse, one cannot deny my ovaries burst into a million tiny swooning pieces when i saw his angel kissed face. The phrase "he's hot" is the understatement of ALL TIME

What made this man a legend was when Tom ford  ,who, between 1990-1994 as the design director of Gucci, single handedly (not really but he was the driving factor) revolutionized Gucci when it was about to go bankrupt ( OMG I KNOW RIGHT, EVEN GUCCI needs $$$ to survive) .  He Made the word and vision of "sex" look good.  He, more importantly, made it soo appealing that people started buying Gucci again. He's like a tabboo shattering , sexually liberated playboy.  And at that time, sex really was a tabboo that was seen as being too provocative.  

thats right my darlings, he did this when i wasnt even born. this guy has serious balls.

the picture says it all.   i think sends a message that the clothes will release u from the constraint u feel?
or maybe its just about sex 

the plunging neckline, its so seductive.  she looks like a sleeping siren

at the time Tom Ford took charge, extravagant designs like mink coats we considered
insane ! and yet he embarrassed the opulence of seductive beauty.

Tom Ford grew up in texas and new mexico. as a child, he knew he wanted one thing and that was to GET out of texas/new mexico and venture off doing something amazing so at age 16, he left for new york where he tried his hand at acting but didn't like it. He then pursued architecture at  the Parsons new york school of design ( a school known more for its successful fashion alumni like Prabal Gurung)  Tom noticed that whatever he did, he had always tied it in with fashion. what really inspires me about this man was that he was In Bard's college at Simon's rock but dropped out AND then he went to New York University to study art history, where he AGAIN dropped out after a year because he wanted to concentrate on his acting career in advertising commercials.

 Ford then spend a year and a half in PARIS (my other birthplace besides NYC ) where he worked as an intern for Chloe's Press office.  ( i have always believed u dont necessarily need to study fashion indefinitely  to pursue fashion. Muicca Prada(creative director of Prada) has a Phd in Policial science but she's a designer, a really good one at that. Its about talent,HARD WORK, and most of all, passion. ) 

One of YSL's ads during the TOM FORD days. he apperently loves lush texture of velvet (and he sure knows how to make it look super BOOMZ) !!  

Though his work primarily involved sending clothes out on photo shoots, it triggered his love of fashion.He spent his final year at The New School studying fashion, but nonetheless graduated with a degree in architecture. When gucci hired him as the design director in 1990, gucci was facing a turn for the worst. It was then that Tom Ford had complete control over the creative aspect of gucci. he went against the gucci group's decision to not let he designer be the public face of gucci and went ahead by actually coming out on the runway at the end of his debut collection. HE felt like he did what he saw wasright . He soon went on to design 16 COLLECTIONS A YEAR for both Gucci and YvesSaintLaurent (OMG..!!!! mustbe tiring)   .  Now he has left the french fashion houses to pursue film making but still designs for his own brand . 

and so i had a sense of clarity. and like tom ford, i could feel rather than think. He really helped me understand my passion and helped me explore the many different ways of taking charge of my interest to the fullest. 

 QUOTE from SuperModel Karen Elson (in the video):

"   He was so brave, so bold to turn his back on fashion to pursue something else. He was the king of fashion.    "