As most fashion designers will tell you, they tend to focus on what’s next, whether it be a forthcoming collection or looking for inspiration, a concept that Ford reflects on across 416 pages. Women for some reason need to see things to kind of give them the confidence to wear it or let their eyes adjust to what the new silhouette is. I’ve been vegan for about four years, but lately I’ve been eating a little bit of fish every now and then.

I spoke to Ford about what Karl Lagerfeld taught him, how it feels being name-checked in a Jay Z song, and much more.I was under the misguided impression that the women I wanted to dress didn’t want their clothes seen in magazines five months before they could actually wear them. Now more than a decade after his best-selling debut book Tom Ford was released, highlighting his time as Creative Director of Gucci (a position now held by Alessandro Michele), Ford is back with Tom Ford 002 to showcase and celebrate his life’s work. Whether it’s creating clothing for the global marketplace, taking the beauty world by storm or writing and directing award-winning films, Ford’s legacy and influence are unmatched. That feeling translates so easily to social media: I think Instagram, for all its evils, may actually save fashion. Fashion shows tried all sorts of different ways [during the pandemic], but there’s nothing like the power of a live show,” says the designer, who debuted his own Spring 2022 collection at New York’s Lincoln Center as the finale of the week, with Julianne Moore, Dan Levy and Eiza González among the stars on the front row.

Tom Ford 002 will cover everything that’s happened in the designer’s life since he left the Milan-based brand, including launching his namesake label, building up his beauty and fragrance lines, his decision to become a director, and receiving Oscar nods. Looking back at that phase of your career and your first book, how do you see that and contemplate that now at this distance? The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. And being able to express that was the most fun I’ve ever had and the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.The reason why I wanted to do that at the time was, yes, Gucci and Saint Laurent existed way before I went there, but in the case of Gucci, there really were not runway shows before I went.