6 things we learned about Tom Ford after watching his Visionaries documentary

For those of you who missed it, Tom Ford was on television last night, speaking almost no stop for a whole hour. About things like baths, mid-life crises, and leaving Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent. Visionaries: Inside the Creative Mind, a series of OWN documentaries looking at the top creative minds, followed the designer for the past year or so, through the intimate launch of his womenswear collection last September to the opening of his store in Beverley Hills earlier this year. Throughout the hour, the designer/genius/demigod throws out so many quotables about fashion, branding, style, and art that we’ve lost count. Here though, are the top six most unexpected:

1. He considered acting before designing.

“I was taking acting classes on the side of my art history classes at NYU, and then I started working a lot in television commercials but I quickly realized that acting wasn’t for me. It drove me crazy. I realized I wasn’t in control and I didn’t like that.”

2. He bathes about three times a day, sometimes five.

“I take a bath first thing in the morning. The moment I walk through the door I’ll take off my clothes and get into the bathtub. And on a day when I’m particularly stressed every hour or two, just lay in the water and kind of think. Or not think. It’s intensified as I get older. I don’t think my mother would have ever let me take five baths a day.”

3. He watches trash television.

“You have to know about culture today to react to it and be contemporary. You have to watch every movie, read every magazine, even watch junk television.”

4. A Single Man was his mid-life crisis on screen. (In reference to Colin Firth’s dressing scene) “One of the things I do when I’m in a terrible deep depression, I put on a suit. It might be false, but I feel like if I shine my shoes, put on a tie, and make myself look as good as I can possibly look, that somehow its armour.”

5. He sometimes has mixed feelings about working in the fashion industry. “We convince people that they’re not perfect enough, we promote materialism, which ultimately is not the thing that brings you happiness in this world.”

6. He doesn’t wear ties because they give him a headache.

“You might see me wearing one, but only for a few hours. I turned [not wearing a tie] into my style.