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NEW YORK - In a business that's all about image, Tom Ford is ready for his beauty close-up - that is, provided you can keep up with him.
And given the range of products he's involved in these days, that can be a challenge. He's doing a men's wear line with Ermenegildo Zegna (he denies any imminent return to women's wear), erecting freestanding Tom Ford stores, creating a custom line of branded eyewear that will only be available in his stores and developing four Hollywood projects.
He's also launching his freestanding Tom Ford Beauty brand with the Este Lauder Cos. Inc., which kicks off this November with a fragrance called Black Orchid (industry sources say it could generate $40 million at retail, globally, in its first year). In spring 2007, Ford will launch 12 unisex scents simultaneously and install perfumery store-in-stores in his upcoming retail doors. A 125-stockkeeping-unit color cosmetics collection is slated for fall 2007, and a men's fragrance and a women's skin care line are also in the works for fall 2007. In spring 2008, men's grooming and an additional women's fragrance collection will be introduced. Ford even hinted that additional product licenses are on the way, although he coyly added, "Nothing that I can announce today."
"You have periods in your life - and I've been through quite a few of them - where you feel incredibly creative and that it's all kind of coming and flowing easily to you," said Ford. "I'm in one of those again, and that's exciting. So I can't say, 'No, I'm never going to design women's,' but right at the moment I'm concentrating on all these other things."
And he relishes the chance to put his own spin on it all. "[With Tom Ford Beauty and his other projects] I don't have to work around a given framework," he said. "It's more introspective in a way, because you have to look to yourself and ask yourself, 'What am I about? What do I believe in? What do I care about? What do I want my brand to say?' And, 'What is all of that now?' - because we're living in 2006 - not just 'What am I about,' but 'What am I about now?'"
Ford, after...