Don't Gentleman Me
BLOGIRADE
by James Killough
Never one to be terribly quick on the uptake, I needed time to think about Tom Ford’s “five easy lessons in how to be a modern gentleman” from Another Magazine, which went surprising viral, namely because of the silliness of the fifth lesson about flip-flops and shorts in the city. Ford is described in Another as a “fashion powerhouse, film mogul and old school romantic.” I have decided that the second descriptor, “film mogul,” is tongue-in-cheek, although knowing the fashion press as well as I do, whoever wrote that is either sucking up to Ford or actually believes that because Ford’s one and only film was so well styled and shot it has somehow propelled the designer to the top of the film business.
Too close to home: Colin Firth looks into the blue eyes of a dirty blonde half his age in "A Single Man." I wouldn't date a kid in a pink angora sweater, though. A lime-green hoodie, yes.
I was pleasantly surprised by A Single Man. No, pleasantly is too mild and a cliché. I was staggered by how good it was. Everyone in the Biz had been following Ford’s misadventures trying to get it made with not a small amount of schadenfreude. How dareth the designing fagelah wander into our rarified climes?
I know both the film business and the fashion world intimately, and there is no question as to which is the more difficult to succeed in. Fashion people are continuously astounded at how long it takes to make a feature film: nine years on average, no matter who you are. Even the humblest designer working in some storefront in Williamsburg would have churned out at least eighteen collections by then. What needs to be taken into account is production on one entire collection costs less than a single day’s shoot on an indie feature film.