TOM FORD

TOM FORD is an American luxury fashion house founded in 2005 by designer Tom Ford and business executive Domenico De Sole, the former Gucci Group president. The brand launched after the two left Gucci Group in 2004, and it carried forward the sensual, high-shine aesthetic Ford had defined across a decade at Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent.

The brand built itself in deliberate stages. Beauty came first: a cosmetics line with Estée Lauder in 2005, then the Black Orchid fragrance in 2006, a dark floral built around black truffle, ylang-ylang, and orchid that helped define the modern oriental-gourmand luxury fragrance era. The first directly operated store opened on Madison Avenue in 2007 alongside the debut menswear collection, with the Private Blend fragrance line launching the same year. Womenswear followed in 2010.

Tom Ford led the house as designer and CEO from its 2005 founding until 2023, when The Estée Lauder Companies acquired the brand for a $2.8 billion enterprise value and took ownership of all its intellectual property. Ford stepped down at the closing and remained a creative consultant through the end of that year. Peter Hawkings, a 25-year Ford collaborator, served as Creative Director from 2023 to 2024.

Haider Ackermann was appointed Creative Director in 2024, overseeing menswear, womenswear, accessories, eyewear, and the overall brand vision. The Colombian-born French designer staged his debut, Fall/Winter 2025, on Place Vendôme in 2025, the first TOM FORD show ever held in Paris and the brand's most significant repositioning since its founding.

The house is known for sharp, body-skimming tailoring built in the Savile Row tradition, the peaked-lapel O'Connor and Windsor dinner suits worn by Daniel Craig as James Bond, velvet evening jackets, oversized sunglasses with a metal T temple insert, and the black orchid motif that runs through its fragrance and eveningwear. Store interiors trade in Macassar ebony, polished chrome, and a monochrome palette drawn from 1970s glamour.

The brand operates under an uncommon split structure: Estée Lauder owns the brand and runs TOM FORD BEAUTY, the Ermenegildo Zegna Group operates TOM FORD FASHION under a 20-year license, and Marcolin holds the eyewear license. TOM FORD FASHION reported revenue of €317.1 million for 2025 and operated 68 directly run stores by early 2026.