Beats a 100 gold sovereigns in your cod piece ( with thanks to Blackadder) 
Must have been those well cut pair of elegant chino shorts.
Which side do you dress sir? 
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Actually, his opening chat-up line was that he ‘liked my shirt’ (of course that might have been some gay euphemism…)
I’d never put my wallet in a front pocket…
One of, if not the, most important people in fashion in the last 30 years, particularly in menswear. Famously brought Gucci back from the brink and made it incredibly cool again in the ‘90’s and was at the centre of what became an infamous ‘luxury brand wars’ between richest man in France Bernard Arnault and his LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton conglomerate and François Pinault and his conglomerate Pinault-Printemps-Redoute, now called Kering. Ford’s gone on to continue to be incredibly influential in design and culture globally.
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So glad you got it back - I had a similar experience a few years ago when I dropped my wallet somewhere in the Millenia Mall in Orlando, Florida. I retraced by steps but of course no sign of it. Eventually I went to the Mall security office and lo and behold, someone had handed it in completely intact, including $400 in cash.
They didn’t have a record of the Good Samaritan which was a shame as I would have liked to reward them for their honesty.
Nowadays I don’t use a full sized wallet, instead I use a tiny one designed to hold a few credit cards, which just has room for a couple of notes as well. I almost always wear a jacket with a zipped front pocket so that’s where it goes - no chance of it falling out!
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Here’s a pair of Tom Ford shorts with a simple ‘floral viscose jaquard pleat’ -
Very understated and a snip at only $1350 (particularly if you want to look like a crack dealer on vacation…)
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Thanks, used to wear jackets in the UK, but for half the year it’s too warm for them down here (12)
Did he dress Jimmy Savile too?
It’s interesting to see what a wide variety of backgrounds make up the membership of SF. 
About fifteen years ago going out early evening in Florence, I saw a completely mauve gentleman (not a euphemism!) white hair dyed mauve, mauve silk shirt, mauve chinos and mauve Gucci snaffle loafers. Funnily enough it reminded me of the men who work in the souk des tinteuriers in Marrakech, who are permanent dyed the colour of their particular dye pit.
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So glad I don’t find any of those people important to my life. Practicality and comfort are all that matters.
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We have an interesting scenario where our recently employed office administrator who likes the big fashion brands and wears them daily. She found it hard to cope with a bunch of scientists who wore jeans, tees and even shorts (no sandals and socks though) including the R&D and facilities directors. In view of my age, I’m probably the only one outside the commercial and finance teams (not based on site) that wears a shirt regularly.
I think that sort of thing’s very nuanced and directly related to context. Front of house staff, or directors who represent the organisation externally need a dress cod that appropriately reflects the ethos. And of course what’s the norm in California differs from that in the UK.
When I worked in S Africa my staff could wear anything they liked, but I had to wear a jacket and trousers in the University Senate. That was OK because the Senate chamber was air-conditioned, though I do remember on occasion when it became insufferably hot and it became apparent that none of the science profs knew how to adjust the Senate chamber AC. *
The Vice-Chancellor, an international award winning biologist who was chairing the session observed that although he chamber contained some of the most powerful minds on the African continent ;we were going to need a technician (ie. African) if the session was to continue. The most junior Science HoD was duly despatched and returned with a grizzled black guy who punched a couple of buttons, bowed and left.
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They may not be important to your life, but they influence significant parts of it without you even knowing. There’s a famous scene in the movie The Devil Wears Prada where the lead character says something about ‘who cares what shade of blue it is?’ and Meryl Streep’s character (a fashion magazine editor) does a masterful job at explaining how the decisions made in high fashion, and publications like Vogue, end up affecting us all, as a singular Menswear designer can decide that cargo shorts are the worst thing in the world and in 18 months time you @David_Spardo will be desperately searching high and low in your usual places for Cargo shorts and won’t be able to find any virtually anywhere as the garment manufacturers will have just stopped making them, all because of one high fashion guy like Tom Ford deciding they’re the devil incarnate. If you had to switch to super skinny chino shorts because that’s all that are being made, your comfort may take a bit of a hit!
Not that I know if you even like cargo shorts, you may hate them 
Edit: I misremembered the scene a little but here it is in case anyone wants it
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'Tis a fishy business we’re up to.
But you’re right about locality affecting dress. Beckman Coulter Minneapolis in the mid-2000s had a senior staff uniform of polo shirts and Chinos except the division director who wore Armani suits. When we visited them the British dress code was Oxford stripe shirt, silk tie, grey trousers and suitable jacket or suit.
Science tends to blend a mix of conservative and rebellious attitudes, but in the end the people we talk with only really care if you can make the thing they want, because if we can’t then they won’t be able to get it somewhere else. And it’s not unusual to see quite senior staff of other businesses in tees too, across Europe and in the US.
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I think it’s time to start killing off the guys running the fashion world.
Joking aside, we’ve noticed how even ‘proper’ clothing for outdoors suffers the fripperies of fashion too, and super-practical designs like walking trousers with zip-off legs have suddenly become hard to find for women.
This thread is making me think of Zoolander.
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They may not be important to your life, but they influence significant parts of it without you even knowing.
Sorry, but many of the posters are older people who have either decided to differentiate between fashion and style, or just don’t care about either.
In my elderly world style trumps fashion!
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I was 15 when the punk thing happened, and at that point realised that fashion needed to curl up and die. A lot of people got badly screwed up in the name of a fashion rooted in abuse.
Tom Ford 2023 in brief (so to speak)
I’m not sure why (Barbie?!?) 2023 has to include the iffy neon pink but maybe it’s an LA-Miami thing best left to imagination.
The rest of his collection is sexy. To my eyes 
One of the (few) lovely things about growing older is having found your style and feeling comfortable in it.
Fashion and trends are for the young and the masses who need to feel ‘in the club’ for fear if being out if it. I expect it’s an evolutionary protective response.
Luckily, once we have managed ti survive into a venerable age, and found our own look, dressing is so much less stressful. Even if no one’s looking.
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Tom Ford is also an excellent film-maker. Colin Firth, who starred in A Single Man, won the BAFTA for leading actor that year. His acceptance speech is wonderful.
