Quotes from Tom Ford

In my adult life I've understood that if I put an enormous amount of love and honesty into something, usually that shows in the end.

You can't fake anything. If you're honest and true and you love something, and you put that energy into it, people can usually feel it on the other side.

When I was a little kid, all I wanted to do was to escape what I thought was the country and get to a city. Probably film and television had influenced me so much, I really thought the key to happiness was living a very artificial life in a penthouse in New York with martini glasses.

I have a driver in London because I am slightly dyslexic and cannot drive in the U.K.; after all, the traffic runs the opposite way to that in the United States.

When you are having fun and creating something you love, it shows in the product. So when a woman is sifting through a rack of clothes, somehow that piece of clothing that you had so much fun designing speaks to her; she responds to it and buys it. I believe you can actually transfer that energy to material things as you're creating them.

In the early Seventies, I had shoulder-length hair, bell-bottom pants, love beads and shirts that laced up at the front. But then I smartened up.

I think people are sick of trends changing every six months - not because we're tired of them, but just for the sake of change. There is so much junk in the world: junk TV, junk movies, all those junk magazines with the same people on the cover.

I love to design. I am a commercial fashion designer. I always design jackets with two sleeves. I don't design jackets with three sleeves, or the layers and layers come off like little dolls from Russia. Fashion for me is a creative endeavor, but it is not art for me.

I enjoy the speed of fashion. I love doing different things and I think I still have something valid to say in fashion.

If you don't need to quit drinking, you shouldn't quit drinking. I used to really love to drink, and especially living in London, it's just built for drinking.

I hate tricky facial hair. If your facial hair is too spotty in places, shave. Just forget about it.

I worry constantly and obsess over things, but I just don't let fear stand in the way of doing something that I really want to do.

I am really a loner after all; I am really not a social person. Because of my job, people think I am out every night, but I really hate all that. I am somebody who likes to be alone and see some close friends. I am a shy and introspective person.

What works with your skin and eyes? Use that to zero in on your wardrobe.

If my parents had discouraged me, I would have turned out very differently. They raised me in an open-minded, liberal environment.

I'm living the exact life I planned on living when I was five. My life has taken some turns and changes that I didn't anticipate, and it has brought me different things. I thought material things would bring me happiness, which they didn't. But through this, I have learned what things are important and what aren't.

Tweeting? It's one of the silliest things ever.

The most important thing is to cleanse and moisturise your face twice a day. Use eye drops. If your eyes are white, you look healthy; you look fresh. Every man should have a magnifying mirror. If you look good magnified, you are set to go.

I like to just have fun and be silly and say pretty much whatever comes into my mind, do pretty much whatever I want.

I told myself that I would not come back to women's fashion until I felt I had something new to say. I feel that fashion has become too serious and that the actual customer's needs have not really been addressed. Fashion needs to make one happy. It is a luxury and should enhance one's quality of life.

I couldn't have cared less about Gucci when I first went there - but soon after I arrived, I cared a lot.

Banking types should take their cue from Gordon Gekko. Or pick the best-looking banker in their firm and copy him.

But as an adult working in the fashion industry, I struggle with materialism. And I'm one of the least materialistic people that exist, because material possessions don't mean much to me. They're beautiful, I enjoy them, they can enhance your life to a certain degree, but they're ultimately not important.

Do you know how rare it is in parts of America to actually see 'an outfit'? France? I don't want to be anti-French, but there isn't a more unattractive group of people on the streets.