When Haider Ackermann was appointed creative director of Tom Ford last September, the news was widely celebrated as a victory for the forces of originality and creativity in fashion. Ackermann is a real adventurer, and it shows in his raffish, worldly menswear. (Anyone who follows his work can see why it appeals to style mavericks like Timothée Chalamet and Tilda Swinton.
) He is also one of the most well-liked figures in the industry, and undeniably one of the best-dressed. So, before his debut, a sense of nervy anticipation hung in the air like a thick cloud of Oud Wood. Outside the Place de Vendôme venue, early-arriving guests paced around as if waiting for a hot date to show.
“I have butterflies in my stomach, which hasn’t happened before a show in a long time,” the model Suzi de Givenchy remarked. “I can’t remember the last time I was actually excited for a fashion show,” added the stylist Carlos Nazario . Almost everyone was observing the traditional house dress code of dark eveningwear, and there was a sense that the night could go in any direction.
A photographer instructed people to walk toward him rather than to pose, saying that Ackermann wanted it to feel like they were entering Studio 54. When the doors swung open, the crowd grabbed martinis served in impeccably thin flutes — one olive, just a little dirty — and sat on the grey couches arranged around the dark, nightclub-like room. The walls were painted to look like the drippy, smudged mirrors.
