It's A Man's Man's Man's World.

"I wanted it to feel residential, like my home in London,"

said Tom Ford once I got past his name set in brass in front of his new menswear emporium at 845 Madison Avenue the day after Easter Sunday. The three-story flagship, conceived and designed by Ford's longtime collaborator William Sofield, is full of glamorous surfaces like the macassar-ebony faceted staircase that leads up to the custom-order area.

The store is, quite simply, dazzling. It is the new vision of an American original who lives his life as if he were a top-level movie star. What makes it a men's version of couture is Ford's personal and, frankly, Continental approach to style. The senses are totally heightened at every turn. As in his houses, beaver and fur throw rugs, Claude Lalanne vermeil crocodile furniture, Jean Arp sculptures, and Lucio Fontana paintings are mixed with Chippendale and Gustavian antiques. Ford's eclecticism makes magic out of what could have been a mundane exercise in stockpiling unnecessary objects. Yes, there are men who desire shaving brushes hinged on horn or solid-gold money clips with cowgirls (inspired by his Texas childhood, no doubt).

Ford reminds me of the French poet Charles Baudelaire, for whom luxury was at all times about sensory pleasure. He has approached this venture as a sartorial architect for men who want the surface perfection of Old School haberdashery meets New School special things they might not really need. But like a stunning Lamborghini or a new Bentley, it is just the thing to keep someone feeling that, as the late Godfather of Soul, James Brown, sang, it's a man's world.

Tennis shorts, white pinwale-corduroy jeans, walking sticks, knee-high polo boots that Argentinean polo players would order, and onyx-and-diamond shirt studs and cuff links are just some of the wonderful wares on offer. The coup de foudre: a set of golf clubs. Beautiful black-and-white monk-strap golf shoes may be something Tiger Woods passes on, but he surely will want a pair of those great Ford sunglasses. The designer has also created a dozen new men's fragrances in deep ombre apothecary-like bottles-displayed in a perfumerie at the rear of the ready-to-wear ground floor-with names like Noir de Noir, Velvet Gardenia, and a great scent he managed to dab on the back of my hand, Moss Breches.

Dressing gowns in extravagant silk brocades and bold patterns hung in personal ...