When you think about it, Haider Ackermann and Tom Ford are unlikely bedfellows. Take the fact that Ackermann is a virtuoso of colour, while Ford is so in love with black he even painted most of his London house that non-shade, with a study clad in Macassar ebony (also black). But, more fundamentally, when we’re talking about bedfellows, Ackermann is a sensualist and Ford sexuality – or, more blatantly, sex with Ackermann is implicit, while with Ford it’s censor-grating, public-baitingly explicit.
Yet, for his second outing for the house Ford built, Ackermann chose to embrace that identity, wholeheartedly. The thing everyone noticed? The thong – well, a thong, and a jockstrap or two, underwear revealed by transparent shorts or peeking seductively above the waistbands of loose, louche trousers. “Seduction is a dialogue,” Ackermann said in a written statement – here, that dialogue was Ackermann apparently exercising his inner f-word. Ford, that is.
There were plenty of plunging necklines, and x-rays of the rest of the body revealed through chiffon, and – honestly – a lot of erect nipples under clinging viscose jerseys. And was that a steel cock-ring wrapped into a sandal like Retifism run rife? Or maybe the collection was recontextualising even an innocent metal loop into something shady and salacious.
That said, the opening was an unmistakable vignette straight out of an Allen Jones canvas, of patent leather coloured in the same extraordinary hues: apple green, bruised lipstick-red, an oil slick of black. As the models moved, rifts in the material vented open to reveal slashes of the body beneath, skin under skin. That was a major focus, at Ford. Underpinnings and innards were a point of emphasis, whether actually exposed, or merely hinted at with the promise of revelation – you saw plenty of bras and pants, but also slivers of, say, a labia of celadon green or baby pink silk bubbling out of a column of black crêpe.
And the choreography of the show was something else: stolen come-to-bed glances in half light, the kind of cruise-y loitering discouraged by many a street sign, a heady promise of sex hanging in the air. The first male model appeared to be sans culottes, to borrow a French term, although actually he wore the briefest of leather shorts beneath an elegant white dinner jacket. Other figures were fully dressed, yet the sensuality of the clothes made you feel like you were watching a very, very expensive striptease.
Actually, striptease is all about looking, but not touching. These clothes were the opposite. “Grab Me” was worked in embroidery across a pair of velvet slippers – take from that what you will, but when you grabbed these clothes, they transformed. Ackermann transposed the hand of lingerie into soft suiting in extraordinary brushed satins and ottoman that melted at the touch; by contrast, underwear inspired slip dresses were given a strength with tissue-thin leather worked where silk satin or charmeuse would normally occur.
Ackermann has been in bed with Tom Ford for just over a year. He evidently feels accustomed to its face by now. His colours have now become Ford colours – he does a mean line in a brightly coloured trouser suit, a house signature. And, actually, it’s easy to read Ford into plenty that Ackermann does, if you look hard enough. The thongs, of course, are pure Ford. His cut-out dresses, some magically suspended around the form, harked back to Ford’s sliced-up Gucci numbers from 1996. And actually, to give Ford his dues, he used that acid green Ackermann loves so much in a sequin gown for his final Gucci hurrah in 2003 (the orange and turquoise and palest rose are all Ackermann though, and mixing them is no mean feat).
In essence, what Ackermann’s designs do is prove the depth and breadth of Ford’s back catalogue, his lasting impact on aesthetics across our culture, as well as his own mastery as a designer. There’s also something supremely satisfying about the melding of two divergent approaches to fashion into such a, well, glorious whole. No pun intended.
