For fashion designer-turned-film director Tom Ford, beauty and death are best friends, especially when it comes to his directorial debut, A Single Man.

“Everything in life is bittersweet for me, because when I see something beautiful, I also see it aging, old, dead, gone. I was very aware of mortality. I was very aware of my time on the planet,” Ford said, describing his alluring/morbid fascination.

This connection translated into his film, which stars Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, and Matthew Goode: “Everyone keeps saying to me, ‘Everyone is so beautiful. Everything is so beautiful.’ I didn’t even notice that! That’s just the way I see. That’s the way I think.”

Could anyone expect anything less from a man who redesigned the Gucci house?

While Ford has an inherent ability for making things exquisite, he also assures his fans and movie-goers that the film has serious content and feeling:

“I want to make movies that I feel about. I’ve never been anybody who cared if they died in a plane crash or not. While I was working on A Single Man, it just killed me to think that somehow I might die before I could finish it.”

The film is due out in limited release this Friday, December 11.