The fashion industry creates an atmosphere that is chaotic, competitive and where only the strong survive. Tom Ford is a rare character that took the fashion world by storm and stops at nothing until he reaches his goal. With his keen since for business and his clean cut, well educated appearance he is defiantly a sight for sore eyes. Ford's innovative and trendy ideas created a new marketing strategy for Gucci that put them back on the map and caused sales to increasing by the millions. His story to success is revealed in this paper and shows how anyone can achieve a goal if they are willing to put all efforts into action.
Ford was born in Austin Texas, but spent most of his adolescent years in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He then moved to New York, and later attended New York University where he majored in art history. While at NYU he discovered the ever famous Studio 54 nightclub, where he met artist Andy Warhol for the first time. From then on school failed to make his priority list. Ford would stay up all night at the celebrity hangout, and then resort to a nearby café to write his essays on napkins. This time period would later have a large influence on his own designs (Nash). He soon redirected his studies and decided to study architecture at Parson School of Design in New York. From there he moved to Paris, France were he finished his education (Swanson).
With degree in hand, Ford returned to New York where he began his professional training. In 1986 he was picked up by the famous American Designer, Cathy Hardwick and joined her creative staff. Two years later in 1988 he was hired by Perry Ellis where he took the position of Design Director. But Ford grew restless and in 1990, he moved once again to Europe and joined the team at Gucci as Womenswear Designer. Maurizio Gucci wanted to fire Ford in the early 90's because he thought he was too trendy. But Ford was able to stick around and his First collection was a commercial and critical success that turned the company around with a huge jump in profits (Nellis).
