Politics & Power Quote by Tom Ford

There’s a deliberate possessiveness in “L.A. is my American city” that feels less like tourism and more like brand alignment. Tom Ford isn’t merely praising Los Angeles; he’s staking a claim in a crowded national mythology, choosing one metropolis to stand in for “America” on his terms. The line works because it’s both intimate and strategic: the “my” suggests private attachment, while “American city” elevates that attachment into an argument about identity, taste, and power.

Coming from a designer, the quote reads like a mood board distilled into seven words. L.A. is a place where surface is infrastructure: image-making isn’t a side effect, it’s an industry. That dovetails with Ford’s aesthetic and career arc, built on immaculate control, erotic polish, and the belief that presentation is a form of authority. When he crowns L.A. as his America, he’s choosing a country defined less by heritage and more by reinvention, less by old institutions than by studios, markets, and self-invention.

The subtext is also quietly exclusionary. Ford’s America isn’t the civic, messy, democratic project; it’s the curated America, the one you can light, frame, and sell. L.A. offers the fantasy of freedom while running on gatekeeping: access, beauty, proximity to the machine. That tension is exactly why the line lands. It’s not a postcard; it’s a declaration that the “real” America is the one with the best styling.