Photographed by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, the ads could easily have been ripped out of a 70s fashion mag, which is precisely the aesthetic Ford was going for with his collection. Informed and heavily inspired by the 70s and Studio 54, Stone looks like a latter day Jerry Hall so temptingly close to Ford’s bearded bravado.

Ford explained his propensity for placing himself in his ads to WWD:

“I’m not in the ads because I’m vain. A lot of people still don’t know who I am, and the product sells better with me in the ads. The old designers — Yves [Saint Laurent], Giorgio [Armani] and Ralph [Lauren] — occasionally used to do it.”

Yves, however, probably wouldn’t approve.

Photos: Image Amplified

The contents of someone’s bag tells a lot about them. And here at FashionIndie, our bags can’t keep their goddamn mouths shut.

Sam – Louis Vuitton backpack

My favorite moment was about 4 hours into our Blogger Break Room when we had like 80 people simultaneously getting spa services, drinking champagne, being fabulous and magically nothing went wrong!

Rebecca Minkoff mini wallet
Camera
Grey matte nail Polish
Keys
Gucci aviator sunglasses
Fashion GPS front row seat and after party drink tickets to L.A.M.B. and Ivana Helsinki
Taxi receipts
A fat pile of business cards
NYFW credential badge
Dollar bill from the VMAN Magazine party
Louise Manna body wrap jewelry
3 pens
Moleskine mini notebook
Liquid black eyeliner
Maybelline lipgloss from the Tents
Lotion
Vitamins

Amanda – Bag made from recycled plastic bottles from Love Brigade

- These are my favorite sunglasses of ALL TIME. I bought them at my favorite old lady consignment store like 6 years ago. The case is from Topshop.
- My wallet is full of maxed out credit cards and a $5 bill, so sad.
- I keep vitamins with me in case I start to feel under the weather during fashion week.
- There’s nothing worse than when a nail breaks, so obvi a nail file is necessary.
- iPod, headphones, self-explanatory.
- Notebook and pen for notes and doodles.
- My Canon EOS 20D camera – I’ve been snapping photos all over town.
- My many keys
- Deck of cards from the Malan Breton show yesterday.
- My everyday beauty essentials – hairbrush, makeup brushes, Make Up For Ever Powder, Sephora eye shadow palette, Smith’s Rosebud Salve, Burt’s Bees, Benefit Bad Gal Liner, MAC Satin Lipstick in Rebel, Sephora lip gloss and Maybelline Falsies mascara
- Hand sanitizer for public transportation horrors.
- The collection description sheet from the Son Jung Wan fall/winter 2011 show.
- Business cards from Fashion Week that must be filed away!

Lester – H&M tote

While typing up my list I realized I’m basically a woman. And am fine with that.

Sequined clutch — I don’t care for man wallets
Interview mag with Tom Ford
Nail polish remover — for the 2 bottles of nail polish I got from Blogger Break Room
Headphones
Hand sanitizer
Notebook
2 pens
Duane Reade Cold & Sinus Relief — I crawled over the fashion finish line with a fever and god knows what else
T-Mobile crap since I “lost” my phone and had to get a replacement
Carmex
Programs from various fashion shows, including Richie Rich and Kimberly Ovitz
Box o’ biz cards
Trial size deodorant, baby powder and lotion, should I spend yet another night on someone’s couch
Stain remover pen (LIFESAVER)
The Socializer under eye treatment
Orbit gum
The First Wives Club– one of my fave movies so I decided to check out the book
Body oils (red Egyptian musk and Sandalwood)
Lanvin perfume, Arpege
Lollipop from Cocktails and Couture
Press pass from Diesel
Cough and eye drops
Mirabella eyeliner lip and cheek ink and
Compact — I got so much free make-up even though I don’t wear any of it. Now I have a reason to start.
Gloves
Christian Siriano Payless pump Polaroid
Swiss Army knife should I ever need to cut a bitch

Jess – Faux fur bodybag from LF

1. My brand spankin’ new Macbook pro, that I would have died without. Frequented that AOL StyleList blogger’s haven with it on the regs.

2. Multiple sparkly Milani nail polish. I did my nails everywhere, painting over layers to change up the colors constantly. There was a rotating slew of colors that cycled through the bag this week.

3. Lipsticks: Illamasqua: The Box (rouge), YSL fucsia, Iman (Pat Field‘s) Jaguar

4. Business cards. Gave out about 75, received at least as many.
5. Several WWDs and Daily Front Rows. I do admit I love reading the Daily.
6. Tickets. Many. Some I’ve disposed of, some made it. Some standing, some seats. None actually with my name on it.
7. Various runs of show. Ones that have lingered in my bag: Timo Weiland, Anna Sui, Dennis Basso, Alexandre Herchcovitch.
8. ESSENTIAL: Blackberry. Can’t believe it took me this long to talk about it. Maybe because I’ve done so much damage on it that it actually just broke. Fashion Week broke my phone…. now…. iPhone?
9. Because that’s not an iPhone, that’s an iPod touch and it’s been keeping me cat walking myself from place to place.
10. Biggie camera. I spent 3 years, that’s 6 seasons in the PIT with this guy. Not this year. Now I just got to use it on celebs backstage, at presentations and the like.
11. WIRES. OMG. My bag was like a radio shack. Heaven forbid I should be without a charge.
12. Small purse. Vintage. Used it when I stashed the big lady mama at the after party coat checks.
13. Wallet. Duh.
14. Deck of cards? The last free gift to remain in this bag. They’re usually the first to go when I get home.
15. Voice recorder, which I ditched for my Blackberry video camera.
16. Pashmina – much lighter than a laptop case. I didn’t wear it, my MacBook did.
17. Vintage Korean flower cardi I wore yesterday. I took it off when the world got mild.
18. Urban Zen literature – got my reikis healed (?) in the AmEx Skybox. Still confused about the process, but I felt great after.
19. My handy dandy notebook. All of my show notes are in this little thing.
20. Napkin from Timo Weiland’s after party on which Paul Steiger (as in Walter‘s son) drew shoes for me. I’m going to the press sample sale today!

That is all that remains. I’m surprised I didn’t find at least 3 Frappacinos and a slew of Fijis, but I lightened my load as I went along.

Mac – Faux croc tote from 21Men

I used the camera to take amazing photos all over NYC this Fashion Week.The Coke Zero is used solely for caffeine purposes but Lord knows I dont need any empty calories. I have two pairs of sunglasses to switch up my eyewear but maintain my air of mystery. The Marc Jacobs ones were gifted to me by stylist Robert Verdi as was the Kenneth Cole cologne, Reaction (the scent is fresh and young).  Finally the latest copy of VMAN for the train and cab rides all over the city. And yes I still have the dollar that was in his mouth.

Coke Zero
Powerade
VMAN
Sony Camera
DOTS Wooden Bracelts
Forever 21 Sunglasses
Marc By Marc Jacobs aviators
Notebook
The Daily
Brush
Chapstick
Fashion Indie Vol 2 mixtape
Biz cards
Cash
Metrocard
Pens
Hand Sanitizer
Ray Ban glasses case

Josh – Laptop bag

At the Richie Rich show I heard several people say, “Oh my god! That Rod Stewart impersonator looks so convincing!” I later learned that person was the real Rod Stewart.

Olive Leaf Extract Pills
Vitamin C
Shades
Icebreaker mints
3 $15 iTunes gift cards
Apple wireless mouse
Apple ear buds
GQ magazine
3 Random pens
1 Show invitation
Notepad
Small USB dog that humps computer
Sony voice recorder

“His real name is Tom, but I call him Tender.”

Hardwich referred to Ford as Tender to “distinguish between her two Tom turkeys…one was Tough (her husband) and the other (Ford) was Tender.”

Tom and Richard’s is a story that almost restores one’s faith in true love…almost.

They met by chance at a fashion show after which Tom — being, as he describes himself, “extremely, almost pathologically shy” — ran away from Buckley.

“[W]hen the show was over I literally bolted out the door and down the street to avoid him.”

10 days later they met again at a photoshoot for WWD, got to talking, and on the elevator ride down Tom decided he was going to marry Richard. Through their 24 years together they’ve weathered illness and lowered expectations.

As Tom explains:

“One of the things that always amuses me – amuses isn’t even the right word, because it doesn’t amuse me — but often, I’m at dinner parties with very close friends, straight, and they realize that Richard and I have been together 24 years, and the response is often, ‘Wow, you guys have been together 24 years! That’s so amazing. I don’t think of gay men being together that long.’”

Honestly, I don’t think of gay men being together longer than one night, so I understand their shock. Unlike the lesbians, who mate for life, the gays seem to float aimlessly from one experience and one partner to another, guided, if by anything, their need for sexual gratification wrapped up in the guise of emotional fulfillment.

Tom and Richard are, sadly, the exception, rather than the rule. They’re lucky not only to have found one another, but to escape the height of the AIDS outbreak unscathed.

Richard describes getting throat cancer and how his supposed friends, assuming it was AIDS and terrified that they might catch it, refused to see him:

“Tom just cut them out — wouldn’t even speak to them if he ran into them on the street.”

Losing so many friends to the disease also affected Tom’s views on sex:

“[I]t damaged the way I think about sex forever. You just associated sex with death—or at least I did.”

This strikes me as particularly strange considering Tom Ford’s relationship with sex and sexual imagery over the years.

When one thinks Tom Ford, the next thought is usually sex; an exposed breast, bare buttocks, a jumpsuit cut down to there.  But when one thinks of Tom Ford they also don’t think of a pathologically shy man with a “good heart” who has been in love with the same man for 24 years.

Perhaps that’s the brilliance of Tom Ford: he’s an iconoclast, a provocateur and a helplessly old-fashioned romantic. Those elements are found in everything he does, whether it’s his collections, his first film (the heartbreaking A Single Man) or even a gig as a guest editor. He brings his own viewpoint, which never ceases to be interesting.

Link Love: Out

… who’s ready for Spring now?

(photo credit: WWD)

Both magazines have new editors and will debut this weekend under their new leadership. WSJ is being stewarded by Deborah Needleman while T has been taken over by Sally Singer after Stefano Tonchi’s departure to W.

And XYZ, here we are with a “war” over ad revenue and market share. However, Needleman doesn’t see the two magazines as being rivals:

“I’m interested in [T] because I’m interested in Sally. I think she’s interesting and talented. And I don’t mean this in a bullshit way, but I’m not doing [WSJ.] with an eye for them at all.”

Well, Singer’s issue of T is being kept on the QT, but there is a lot of talk about rock legend Mick Jagger covering their first issue. Meanwhile, Needleman has French actor, Vincent Cassel…

Right.

Seems like this war is over before it even began. Although, this issue of WSJ did log the most ad pages in the mag’s short history. Needleman’s still got a lot of work ahead of her, including hiring a new staff; luckily, her next issue isn’t until March.

As for T, let’s just hope it fares better than W. The idea of a rivalry is always good for sales, but will you be picking up either magazine this weekend?

LINK LOVE: WWD

• Women’s Wear Daily WWD is the largest fashion journalism site, even your most loved and known blogs lean on this site for first hand information on all things fashion and all the happenings in the industry.

• Lookbooks connects style icons, bloggers, and  new faces with the industry’s leading professionals.

• Style.com The number one source of everything fashion ten years in the making.

• Models.com its a model mania world, all latest fashion campaigns, covers, and editorials.

• Net-a-Porter The world’s online luxury fashion destination.

• Fashioncopious-  All the artistic events of fashion.

• Fashionising.com fashion trends, street style, and runways.

• The Fashion Spot is great for forums and all things trends and celebrities.

• Ford Models Blog The world’s most prestigious modeling agency.

• COACD- Confessions of A Casting Director

LINK LOVE