Sunday, January 29, 2012

or I will be anyway.

I am a terribly uninteresting, hopelessly unattractive, blindly skeptic, incredibly mediocre, law school reject.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

"A few times in my life, I've had moments of clarity - where the silence drowns out the noise and I can feel rather than think."

I am very hard pressed to find someone, that I don't know personally, who has inspired me in as large a capacity as Tom Ford has. I could go on and on with the typical accolades - he's a creative genius, excelling in every field he graces with his toes, and is always on the forefront of fashion. Ford doesn't foresee trends; he creates them. You don't want what he's got because he created what you want; you want what he created because when you see what he's got, you discover that you need what you didn't even know before to want. Ford is globally recognized, revered by his peers, and worshiped by millions - myself included.

Tom Ford has influenced my life in ways that I often don't realize until later - sometimes much later. I remember the first time I saw Tom Ford for Yves Saint Laurent's print ad for their fragrance, Opium. I was about ten-years-old and flipping through one of my mom's copies of American Vogue, not really understanding fashion or really seeing what I was looking at (I pursued art as an all-encompassing entity, I hadn't yet comprehended it in application). My eyes glossed over page after page, flipping just fast enough to catch the gist of the images and never reading a word, until I stopped and stared at the page before me wide-eyed. Right there, sitting in my hands, was a picture of model Sophie Dahl lying down, pale as a sheet, wearing studded stilettos and an extravagant necklace - completely naked.

I remember thinking, "Can people do that?" Can people put naked pictures of girls in magazines? Can this girl really be paid for this? Is this okay? Is this an acceptable thing to be doing?

I'm unsure of the reason for my reaction. Maybe it was my age, but I'm more inclined to believe it was the time. What I think many people fail to realize about the genius of Tom Ford is that his success and his story is not just about aesthetics or his intuitiveness when it comes to style and fashion. Ford revolutionized fashion in this way that cannot be retracted. He pushed the envelope past the point of no return and fortunately received bountiful returns for his insight. Advertising was pushed to a whole new level now. And in typical Tom Ford fashion, Tom Ford doesn't just demand your attention. He captures it, bounds it, pleasures it, and has you screaming for more before you can even say Stockholm syndrome.

Tom Ford made me realize that things are possible beyond what you think are the limits of your imagination. He shows me that when you push as hard as you can, you can still push harder. There is always something new and enticing just lying in the wake to be created. Always created; never discovered. He taught me that when you have nothing, sometimes that's even better than having everything. You stand on the threshold of infinite possibilities, infinite building, and infinite growth.