- Born
- 27 August 1961Austin, Texas, USA
Tom Ford
The designer who revived Gucci also made the film “A Single Man” – and was with his husband Richard Buckley for 35 years.
Tom Ford grew up in Texas and New Mexico. He studied in New York, among other places at the Parsons School of Design, and worked in fashion in New York and Paris.
In 1990 he joined Gucci, then a struggling Italian label. As creative director from 1994 he transformed it with sexy, glamorous collections into one of the most successful luxury brands in the world. He also took over Yves Saint Laurent. In 2005 he founded his own label, Tom Ford, which he sold in 2023.
Ford also became a film director. His debut, “A Single Man” (2009), based on the novel by Christopher Isherwood, tells of a gay professor in 1960s Los Angeles mourning the death of his partner; Colin Firth was nominated for an Academy Award for the role. His second film, “Nocturnal Animals” (2016), won the Grand Jury Prize in Venice.
In 1986 Ford met the fashion journalist Richard Buckley. They were together for 35 years, married in 2014 and had a son. Buckley died in 2021. Ford has spoken about how hard it was to grow up gay in Texas.