Tom Ford's Modest Return to Fashion Merchandising

Despite the controversy that surrounds him, Tom Ford remains one of America's most important fashion names. As the top designer for Gucci, Tom Ford became one of the most influential figures in fashion merchandising.

Fashion Merchandising Icon Returns

Not bad for a boy from Texas, but after a long spell of simmering tensions with his corporate overseers, Tom Ford left one of the most influential jobs in fashion merchandising to pursue a childhood dream of making his name in Hollywood.

The height of that pursuit was editing the latest Hollywood edition of Vanity Fair, an accomplishment due more to his fashion acumen than any directing accomplishments in Tinseltown.

Tom Ford Avoiding Women's Fashion

For now, Tom Ford is avoiding women's haute couture. His first foray will be in lower profile Men's fashion, with a special focus on men's custom-made suits.

"The clothes will reflect the way I dress, more than what I showed on the runway," said Ford in the New York Post. In another interview with the New York Times, Ford said he wanted the store to resemble "an old-fashioned men's haberdashery and tailor."

Vanity Fair Photo Spread

It's probably just as well that Tom Ford starts slowly and avoids the highly competitive (and vindictive) world of women's high fashion. Many fashion insiders complained that his Vanity Fair cover layout, featuring starlets such as Scarlett Johansen and Keira Knightly, naked, was just a tired retread of the sultriness that made him famous.

Fashion merchandising careers do well when led by strong iconoclasts like Tom Ford. Customers tend to fall for designs, as well as the characters behind them. What remains to be seen, however, is whether Tom Ford's fashion persona will endure for another decade.

Tom Ford Fashion Merchandising Jobs?

For now, strangely for a man who dressed millions of women, it's rich men buying suits who will answer that question.

Sources
New York Times
New York Post