Tom Ford Quotes

People say I design architectural icons. If I design a building and it becomes an icon, that's ok.

Modern architecture does not mean the use of immature new materials; the main thing is to refine materials in a more human direction.

I realize that having a style would be very beneficial for my practice from a marketing standpoint, but I can't do it. I believe my responsibilities as an architect are to design the most appropriate building for the place. Each place has a distinct culture and function, which for me requires an appropriate answer.

Film is an incredible way to express yourself and your vision, as is fashion, but you have to make sure [to] be confident and honest and true to yourself and say something that means something, because that is really the point of any art.

There is a line from the Marina Tsvetaeva poem I'm so fond of: "In this most Christian of worlds/ All poets are Jews." What she means is that writers and artists are outside the normal flow of daily life, the normal flow of society in general.

Because it is a national landmark, there is only one way to judge the Kennedy Center - against the established standard of progressive and innovative excellence in architectural design that this country is known and admired for internationally. Unfortunately, the Kennedy Center not only does not achieve this standard of innovative excellence; it also did not seek it. The architect opted for something ambiguously called 'timelessness' and produced meaninglessness. It is to the Washington manner born. Too bad, since there is so much of it.

It isn't enough to have had an interesting or hilarious or tragic life. Art isn't anecdote. It's the consciousness we bring to bear on our lives. For what happened in the story to transcend the limits of the personal, it must be driven by the engine of what the story means.

Every fashion photographer is completely different; the fact that they are so different is what makes it fun. You don't want to get bored.

I always wanted to be a fashion designer and I learned costume illustration in high school. That was an incredible high school. It was more like a college. I'm moving more in that direction, just kind of merchandising my name.

There is no reason not to consider the world as one gigantic painting.

I think what I create is serious fashion, but I don't want to keep my focus on that. You have to look at a lot of different things. I mean, people are always surprised when they find out that my favorite show is RuPaul's Drag Race.

I think what I often see is that people are frightened about fashion. Because it scares them or makes them feel insecure, so they just put it down. On the whole people that may say the mean things about our world I think that’s usually because they feel, in some ways, excluded or, you know, not a part of ‘the cool group’ so as a result they just mock it.

When people condemn me for designing iconic buildings in cities and not having an idea what a city is, they haven't done their homework. I started in urban design and city planning. It's just that when I got out of school there wasn't much of a market for that. There still isn't.

People often ask me if I consider myself to be an architect, fashion designer, or artist. I'm an architect. The paintings I've done are very important to me, but they were part of a process of thinking and developing.

Architectural and product designs have a narrative capacity - you can start to tell a story about them and imagine a lot of things.

If you call painting dumb poetry, the painter may call poetry blind painting.

I think fashion is intensely personal. It should be. It should give a woman a creative outlet, it should give her a little bit of an escape, and it should give her a little bit of individuality that she can add to her life. I don't mean redoing your entire closet. I mean that a great shoe or a great handbag or a great top or a great coat or jacket can change everything.

I think the biggest problem with 'industrial' architecture is that it's lost its sense of humanity. Minimalist stuff drains all the humanity out of it. That idea works great for the money thing, but it doesn't work great for the feeling thing.

Literature takes reality and human experience as its starting point, transforms it by means of the imagination, and sends readers back to life with renewed understanding of it and zest for it because of their excursions into a purely imaginary realm.

To be an architect is to possess an individual voice speaking a generally understood language of form.

My mother worked in fashion design and she used to show me all of these looks. She tried to get me to wear fitted jeans in high school. This is when big jeans were popping.

An actor should take lessons from a painter and a sculptor.

Why talk about sculpture when I can photograph it?

A drawing should be a verdict on the model. Don't confuse a drawing with a map.

We hated Bauhaus. It was a bad time in architecture. They just didn’t have any talent. All they had were rules. Even for knives and forks they created rules. Picasso would never have accepted rules. The house is like a machine? No! The mechanical is ugly. The rule is the worst thing. You just want to break it.