Tom Ford Has Gone Vegan, Using Less Fur in Collections

The designer's newfound veganism has changed his stance on using fur in his collections — just before his Fall 2018 womenswear show.

All it took was one angry PETA protester and a can of strewn tomato juice outside of an event for designer Tom Ford to seriously consider — and eventually commit — to going vegan. In fact, Ford has recently celebrated his veganniversary, telling WWD that he and the no-animal, no-byproduct diet have been going strong “for about the last year.”

In recent news, Ford has brought his lifestyle changes to work by gradually becoming fur-free. “I have started using much more fake fur. I’m not yet ready to say that I’m fur-free,” the designer has remarked on his in-house changes. Ford’s reservations about fully ditching fur are also due to environmental concerns, however. While real fur has the durability to last a family through generations, Ford notes, faux fur, a petroleum product, has less of a lifetime and does not biodegrade.

There does happen to be a solution: food by-product - or, the fur of animals who have already been slaughtered for their meat. Though the use of food by-product, in Ford’s words, “does not sound sexy,” it is a thoughtful attempt on the part of Ford to do something even sexier: keep animals snug in their natural coats.