(Photo Credits: Screengrab @TOMFORD‘s Official Twitter Account)

Richard Buckley—American fashion journalist, editor, and husband of world-renowned designer and film director Tom Ford—passed away on Sunday, September 19, 2021 at the age of 72. 

The sad news was confirmed by Ford’s representatives through a statement posted on the designer’s official Twitter account. It reads:

It is with great sadness that Tom Ford announces the death of his beloved husband of 35 years, Richard Buckley. Richard passed away peacefully at their home in Los Angeles on Sunday night with Tom & their son Jack by his side. He died of natural causes after a prolonged illness.



Buckley wrote for several publications including Vogue Italia and New York Magazine. In addition, he also served as an editor for Women’s Wear Daily, Vanity Fair, and Vogue Hommes International where he served for six years, up until he stepped down in 2005, CNN reports.

According to Women’s Wear Daily, one of his former publications, Buckley was born in Binghamton, N.Y., in 1948. He was from a military family and they moved around in places like New York, France, and Germany while he was growing up. He started his career in journalism in 1979 at New York Magazine after he graduated from the University of Maryland in Munich, Germany.

Further, Buckley was described as “a man with ramrod straight posture and piercing blue eyes.” Women’s Wear Daily added that Buckley worked with a “quietly diligent, soft-spoken manner that endeared him to almost everyone he met.”


Ford said the beginning of his relationship with Buckley was a whirlwind romance. They first met in 1986 at an elevator after a common friend’s fashion show. Buckley was then a fashion editor for Women’s Wear Daily while Ford was a young fashion designer. 

Ford described their meeting to Jess Cagle as “love at first sight.” He said, “By the time that elevator landed on the ground floor I thought, ‘You’re the one.’ That’s it. Click. Sold.”

The couple had their son, Alexander John Buckley Ford, in September 2012. They got married in 2014. To know more about Richard Buckley, read here.

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