On Tuesday the designer and filmmaker Tom Ford was the second-highest trending topic on Twitter for a reason that had nothing to do with the actual news he was making.

He was trending because of a quote that had been attributed to him stating Melania Trump was a “glorified escort” and that he was refusing to dress her. His office, however, was quick to point out that he had never said any such thing. Rather, in a 2016 interview on “The View,” he said that (at one pre-campaign time) he had been approached to dress Mrs. Trump, but he declined because she wasn’t “really his image” and besides, he believed the first lady should wear American and wear affordable — and his clothes were neither of those things.

This matters not so much because it is yet another example of the nefarious ways false information spreads over the internet (though it is that) but because on Tuesday Mr. Ford also became chairman of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, the industry lobbying group, watchdog and, occasionally, scapegoat.

That makes him the effective face of the industry. And that means that what he says, or what he is said to have said, and what he stands for, will become even more fraught, because he no longer simply speaks for himself, but for American fashion. He succeeds Diane von Furstenberg, who held the post for 13 years, making her the second longest-serving leader in the group’s history (her predecessor, Stan Herman, lasted 16 years).