Tom Ford has so much to say about so many things, not in the least his first namesake womenswear collection, which maybe, just maybe, you’ve read about. In championing for a mainstream rise in images of frontal male nudity, Ford so eloquently wrote, “Imagine if contemporary fashion demanded that you left your cock hanging outside your trousers, with perhaps just the head trussed up in a tiny pouch like a dick bra.” And then said of modern sex appeal, “Women have turned themselves into these bubble-butted, grapefruit-titted, bloated-mouthed cyberbitches. I’m just not into that.” He has lots of lovely and articulate things to say about love in the new issue of Out, on which he poses with his partner of 24 years, Richard Buckley. Both Ford and Buckley share the story of how they met: They first saw each other at a fashion show and then met for a second time at WWD, where Buckley worked then. Ford recalls that second meeting at WWD:
He was adorable, and he was a complete fool. He was sort of dancing around, flashing his eyes at me, and trying so hard to be charming. I decided in that elevator ride that I was going to marry him. I’m very pragmatic, and I was, like, OK, there’s some kind of connection here. He ticked every box, and — boom — by the time we got to the floor, I was like, OK, sold. He seemed so together. He was so handsome, he was so connected, he was so grown-up, so he was very intimidating. And he really chased me — not that he had to chase that hard. It excited me but it also scared me, because I knew he was different and that whatever it was I felt with him was very different from what I’d felt before.
