The Texan fashion designer, filmmaker and aesthete-in-chief on how you should (and absolutely shouldn’t) be wearing your (OK, his...) timepiece in 2019

BY TEO VAN DEN BROEKE
7:00 AM


JEFF BURTON
If we could choose one man to have creative control over every element of our lives – from the shoes we wear on our feet and the shirts we sport on our back to the sofas we sit on and the saucepans we heat soup in – that man would be Mr Tom Ford. Over the past 30 years, both during his tenures at Saint Laurent and Gucci and, more recently, through the prism of his eponymous brand, Ford has helped define the way in which stylish men and women the world over want to dress.



Now, for 2019, the designer and award-winning filmmaker has turned his ever-so-discerning eye to watches. It all started last year, with the launch of the ultra-chic 001 tank, but now Ford is introducing his first automatic timepiece – a classic, round-case day-date – and it’s imbued with all the elegance you’d expect from a TF production. To celebrate the launch, and in a bid to absorb a little of his eternal style wisdom, we talked to Ford about the dos and don’ts of modern watch wearing. The first lesson? Don’t even think about strapping up without reading this first...

1. On matching a watch with your outfit
“Whatever you’re doing, you have to have a full-length mirror, even for your watch. You’ve got to stand there and see yourself completely, head to toe, and think, ‘Oh, this bracelet looks kind of sleazy with this outfit. I’d better take it off,’ or, ‘This red bracelet looks great because I’m wearing a new pair of trainers with a red stripe on the side.’ You have to look at yourself before you leave the house – head to toe.”

2. On wearing two watches
“Why would you wear two watches at once? It’s silly. What, you’ve got Paris time set on one and LA time on the other? It’s completely ridiculous. Why would someone do that unless they want to show off that they have two IWCs? I would look at someone like that and think, ‘Oh, you poor thing.’ It’s very, very affected. My son does it. He’s six and he wears two watches because he likes both his camo watch and his black scuba watch, so he wears them both to school. But, you know, he’s six.”