Tom Ford Has Never Seen Anyone Eat Food in His Office

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Mr. Porter interviewed Tom Ford for the magazine's "Back to Work" issue, and while writer Jeremy Langmead begins the profile by saying Ford has said and done it all when it comes to interviews, Langmead still manages to uncover new insights about the designer. Ford gets serious, talking about fatherhood and his issues with alcohol early in his career. "I was a highly functioning alcoholic," he says. "I think I did a lot of things creatively that I probably wouldn’t have done had I been sober. In the end, they kind of all worked to my advantage." There are plenty of lighter moments too. Here are three revelations gleaned from the profile.

Tom Ford eats just sushi for lunch. His only indulgence is a gum called Colin the Caterpillar. "My assistants think I don’t like people who eat," he says. "It’s true I don’t like to see or smell food in the office. But I don’t like the staff to leave the office, either. I’ve never actually seen anyone here eat. Perhaps they eat under their desks when I’m in here doing interviews."

He dyes his facial stubble "ink-black." Tom Ford is not ready to go gray. "I used to plan what I was going to look like at 50 years old. Yeah, I was going to have some gray right here – which I have decided not to have for the moment – I was going to have more hair [he smiles], but other than that I am exactly what I thought I was going to be."

His morning routine consists of drinking gallons of iced coffee in the bathtub. He tells the magazine that he has trouble sleeping, and he wakes up most mornings at around 4:30am. "I get up and make myself a gigantic iced coffee," he says. "I then answer emails and work until about 6am. Then I will head upstairs and have a second giant iced coffee and lay in the bathtub. I don’t like warm drinks of any kind. I lay in my bathtub with a bendable straw in my coffee and no lights and only one candle lit. I love that time in the morning when no one else is awake, and I’m alone, and then I can slowly come to life."