How Tom Ford Keeps His Company's Equity (With Cash!)

Fellow Tom Ford enthusiasts will of course need to read the Vogue piece regarding his latest women’s collection. But they should be warned, of course, that the story of How Tom Ford Keeps His Equity is a ludicrous one. (Spoiler: he expanded his stores recently by selling a Warhol. Why didn’t I think of that?) It’s a delightful read but it’s also just bad business journalism. The word “Zegna” does not crop up (Ford did a huge licensing deal with them) and neither does “Marcolin” (Ford recently extended his licensed sunglasses to them for another five years). That’s where the big money is. But at least they do talk about his Botox!

And you know, God bless him!

It is, of course, quite sobering when a person wakes up and has to dip into his own bank account rather than the fortunes of a giant corporation. But that independent responsibility is precisely what drives Ford now. In May, he made news by selling an Andy Warhol self-portrait for $32.6 million (more than double what it was expected to fetch), spending the profit on stores in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. He had met with — and rejected — outside investors. “What I want is the freedom to say, I really like fashion and I’m going to come back my way and never have some corporate person say, ‘But you can’t do it that way.’ My goal,” he enunciates with dead seriousness, “is to be like Armani and Chanel.”