Haider Ackermann: polished and poetic

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Jan 17, 2018

Once Haider Ackermann was best known for being a magisterial draper – now his forte is cutting jackets with rare subtlety.

Every look had a jacket, coat, blouson or at least a dressing gown in his latest show in Paris Wednesday evening, which featured fall menswear and pre-collection women’s fashion in the same event.
 
The result was a cunning display of poetic fashion, the biggest single trend in Continental Europe this season. Highlighted by the Asian floral prints and embroideries in many of the passages. A chrysanthemum fabric that was Japanese influenced but Italian made; used in sleek suits; a bitter lemon colored leaf pattern silk for baggy trousers finished with boxing stripes; or a black and white cherry blossom silk that was made for a dazzling bat wing kimono.

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“I wanted the person to inhabit the clothes; normally the person wears the clothes, but I wanted the opposite. I wanted the clothes to be alive so that’s why I twisted and turned them around. To go back to the old codes to find myself,” explained the designer in the backstage of contemporary art museum Palais de Tokyo.
 
Ackermann rouched and tied up his looks with odd silk belts; dressed a half dozen models in bathroom robes and anchored them with hefty military boots. A sign that his night job as creative director of Berluti has helped ignite his own footwear fantasies.
 
Though, ultimately, these clothes were about soft hues - pale turquoise, gold, yellows and blue. A display of nonchalant fashion by the industry’s greatest contemporary poet; no wonder the place was packed with retailers – in search of dashing fashion for the discerning male.