MAJOR TOM.(Tom Ford)(Interview)

"I get depressed

when I don't work. For a while I was going crazy," says Tom Ford,

the man who turned Gucci into the megabrand of the sexy go-go millennium, the man brave enough to step into the sacred shoes of Yves Saint Laurent. When Ford announced that he was stepping down as head designer of Gucci and YSL in 2004, it set off a media firestorm . . . but now, surprise, surprise, he's ba-a-ck.

Just in time for the holidays, Ford is launching his special version of Estee Lauder's legendary fragrance Youth Dew, which he is calling Youth Dew Amber Nude; there is also a limited edition of special Estee Lauder compacts, and all sorts of other projects in the works-from eyewear to movies to a men's line to maybe even a Tom Ford car. "I've realized that I really enjoy having meetings," the sometimes quixotic, charming, charismatic, prolific Mr. Ford joked to me over dinner at Sant Ambroeus, the Italian restaurant across Madison Avenue from the Hotel Carlyle.

Is anyone surprised he wasn't content to twiddle his golden thimbles back on his vast ranch on the Santa Fe plains?

"Those last two years, with all the fighting at Gucci, and living in London, I was miserable," he said between snips of caprese salad. "I would go out, then come home. Go to work. And I felt quite lonely. I never had time to enjoy the accolades."

Does he miss his more-than-fifteen minutes of glory? "Of course I do," he says. "I miss the expression. I miss the creativity. I miss being a forum, a voice for the culture of the times." He gave up one of the most powerful positions in fashion-but discovered he was still driven by "the desire to create beauty and the expression of it."