Death Sex, and money: Tom Ford Exit Interview

He sold his company and has set his sights on new goals. As he walks away from the fashion world, Tom Ford talks candidly about all of it: the empire he built, the grief he's endured, and what he's planning for his third and final act.

- WILL WELCH

"ISN'T ONE OF YOUR first questions, like: What the hell are you doing in Palm Beach?" Here is Tom Ford, the King of Sex, looking still, at 62, very much like the King of Sex-if not terribly Palm Beachy. He's wearing heavily distressed blue jeans and a blue denim shirt with few enough pearl buttons fastened to reveal an impressively muscular chest gilded in hair, plus black Chelsea boots and a Texas Timex-a gold Rolex Oyster Perpetual watch that he bought on Place Vendôme in Paris during his 10-year reign at Gucci.

Ford has agreed to an exit interview capping his historic three-decades-long fashion and beauty career, saying he is willing to discuss anything and everything under the condition that I come to Palm Beach, where he is currently living with his 11-year-old son, Jack. Since stepping away from fashion earlier this year, Ford has largely declined interviews-until this one. As we talk, I find myself thinking that part of the reason he acquiesced is simply because he's lonely. "I'm not used to sitting around talking about myself anymore," Ford says. "It feels very bizarre. I have no mate, no partner, no adult in my life. I talk about, you know, Minecraft, YouTube, Messi. So just having an adult conversation at all is a bizarre thing for me."

In November 2022, Estée Lauder, Ford's partner in his juggernaut fragrance and beauty business going back to its launch in 2005, announced that it had agreed to buy the entirety of his namesake label for a total of $2.8 billion. The deal made him, personally, a billionaire. It also signaled the end of Ford's unprecedented run in the luxury business. Starting with his electric, star-making turn at a previously floundering Gucci, and continuing with the booming success under his own name, Ford's persona and very visage transcended the insular world of fashion and became culturally synonymous with swagger, sex, and luxury itself.