page_title: Tom Ford
section_title: Creative Director of Gucci and Saint Laurent
hierarchical_section_title: Tom Ford / Fashion career / Creative Director of Gucci and Saint Laurent
caption_attribution_description: English: Evening gown in black satin with a Chinese dragon printed design. By Tom Ford for Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche. Chosen as the Dress of the Year for 2004.
context_page_description: Thomas Carlyle Ford is an American fashion designer and filmmaker. He launched his eponymous luxury brand in 2006, having previously served as the creative director at Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent. Ford directed the Academy Award–nominated films A Single Man and Nocturnal Animals. He currently serves as the Chairman of the Board of the Council of Fashion Designers of America.
context_section_description: In 1994, Ford was promoted to Creative Director of Gucci. In his first year at the helm, he introduced Halston-style velvet hipsters, skinny satin shirts and car-finish metallic patent boots. In 1995, he brought in French stylist Carine Roitfeld and photographer Mario Testino to create a series of new ad campaigns for the company. Between 1995 and 1996, sales at Gucci increased by 90%. At one point, Ford was the largest individual shareholder of Gucci stock and options. By 1999, the house, which had been almost bankrupt when Ford joined, was valued at more than $4 billion.
  When Gucci acquired the house of Yves Saint Laurent (YSL) in 1999, Ford was named Creative Director of that label as well. Saint Laurent did not hide his displeasure with Ford's designs, stating "The poor man does what he can." During his time as creative director for YSL, Ford nonetheless won numerous Council of Fashion Designers of America Awards. Like his work at Gucci, which included shaving the letter G in a model's pubic hair, Ford was able to pull the classic fashion house back into the mainstream. His advertising campaigns for the YSL fragrances Opium (with a red-haired Sophie Dahl naked wearing only a necklace and stiletto heels in a sexually suggestive pose) and YSL M7 (with martial arts champion Samuel de Cubber in complete full-frontal nudity) were controversial and provocative.
  In April 2004, Ford parted ways with the Gucci group after he and CEO Domenico de Sole, who is credited as Ford's partner in Gucci's success, failed to agree with Pinault Printemps Redoute's boss over control of the Group. He has since referred to this experience as "devastating" and as a "midlife crisis" because he had "put everything into that for fifteen years". When Ford left in 2004, Gucci Group was valued at $10 billion. Four people were hired to split the work Ford had done.
caption: Evening dress by Tom Ford for Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche. Selected as Dress of the Year for 2004
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "2048", "Image ImageLength": "1152", "Image Make": "SAMSUNG", "Image Model": "SM-N9005", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image Software": "Microsoft Windows Photo Gallery 6.0.6001.18000", "Image DateTime": "2015:08:29 21:23:53", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "2316", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "4992", "Image XPComment": "[10, 0, 0, 0]", "Image Padding": "[]", "Image OffsetSchema": "-2082", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/17", "EXIF FNumber": "11/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "1000", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2015:08:29 12:13:59", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2015:08:29 12:13:59", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "81/20", "EXIF ApertureValue": "227/100", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "-209/100", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "57/25", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "413/100", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "00", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1152", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2048", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "31", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "C13QSGJ02SB", "EXIF Padding": "[]", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "4192"}