Cancel culture has made me rethink everything I design, says Tom Ford

CFDA Fashion Awards - Winners Walk
“Zero tolerance policy”: Tom Ford with singer and actress Jennifer Lopez
Getty Images

Tom Ford thinks “cancel culture” has made it harder to be creative as designers are always worried about offending people with their work, but says a “shift needed to happen”.

In an interview with ES Magazine, the American fashion designer and filmmaker, 60, said a “zero-tolerance policy” is “great in many ways” but poses challenges for creatives.

“You really have to think and rethink everything you do. ‘Oh my God, will it offend anyone, is this going to be misinterpreted?’” he said.

“As a designer, of course we always appropriated things from a lot of different cultures, but it was seen as a form of celebration and honouring that particular culture... now you have to think twice because it can be called out as appropriation.”

Ford, whose creations are worn by stars including Kate Beckinsale and Jennifer Lopez, suggested many iconic collections from the past would not make it on to the catwalk today.

BAFTA, Grey Goose & Soho House After Party - Party
Richard Buckley and Tom Ford
Getty Images for Grey Goose

“Yves Saint Laurent would never have been able to do a Chinese collection, a peasant collection,” he said. “There are so many things that could never have been created, but at the same time, this shift needed to happen. There is a zero-tolerance policy, which is great in many ways but very difficult to manage if you are a public person or if you are running a company. You have to think about all of it.

“But it’s gotten tough to be creative. Actually it has gotten very hard to be spontaneous, I think, in today’s world because you have to rethink yourself.”

Ford also touched on a difficult 18 months with Covid and the deaths of his father and his partner of 35 years, fashion editor Richard Buckley.

Tom Ford - Runway - September 2021 - New York Fashion Week
Walking the runway at the end of his SS22 show at New York Fashion Week
Getty Images

He said: “I had to furlough an enormous number of employees and we had to close stores temporarily. My father died right at the beginning of Covid — not from Covid — and I cried but not in the way that I cried when I had to get on the phone and make the announcement that we were going to have to furlough employees.

“That was one of the most emotional things, up until Richard died, that I had gone through.”

Ford is releasing a book, Tom Ford 002, as a retrospective of his life and work.

He spoke about past struggles with drugs and alcohol — and how the book helped him move on.

“Forty was the most traumatic change for me and it threw me into a depression that lasted eight or nine years,” he said. “I’d achieved all these things that I thought I always wanted and then you think, ‘Okay, is this it?’ And so 40 threw me into a drug and alcohol problem that I was able to get over by the end of my forties.”

He added: “Putting this book together was great because it kind of tied that up in a nice little box and slipcovered it, now I can move on to the next chapter.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in