You don’t often hear a designer use the word “perverted” to describe their clothes for a fashion house, particularly when they’re in the somewhat delicate position of being an incoming talent to an established name. Then again, few designers have the brazen confidence of Haider Ackermann at Tom Ford – nor such an intense, symbiotic relationship with a brand. It’s a love affair with a distinctly carnal edge, a borderline obsession. Look at how his Ford models habitually stalk the space, eyes hungry for each other. Last season, in a lacquered twilight, it got all cruisey. For Autumn/Winter 2026, it played out in blinding, near-clinical white. Maybe this time, his Ford men and women were so deep in love – or lust, or whatever you want to call it – that they were eyeing each other up across the operating theatre, their ardour so fervid they actually wanted to become each other. Under the knife, to transform into what you most desire. How perverted is that?
It chimes, of course, with the surgical cutting that Ackermann is known for. Ford, actually, not so much – his clothes were excellent, but his image-making capabilities were so strong he was never hurrahed, really, for the power of his tailoring, his choice of materials, nor his colour sense. He loved black, worshipped it really, but the rich, saturated Guy Bourdin crimson and evergreen, armagnac and pale blues that Ackermann chose to punctuate this otherwise Cruella de Vil-monochrome show threw attention onto Ford’s overlooked excellence in that arena. Ditto the slender lines of the suits, pin-neat with pencil skirts for women, and high-waisted trousers and abbreviated jackets for men. We don’t remember them enough.
Ackermann embraced more than a few clichés to describe his collection: opposites that attract, sharp and cocooning, a dialogue of seduction. Hard and soft is something we are hearing a whole bunch too, from different designers – sexual connotations obviously intended. Perverted was a great twist – but you can use trite verbiage if your clothes aren’t. Here, Ackermann’s Ford story expanded, intensified and diversified. It’s easy to seduce in lingerie or a jock-strap, way more difficult in a neat skirt suit or tailored tuxedo. That wasn’t to say sex was gone, or indeed under wraps. It’s part of Ford’s focus, and Ackermann’s language too. Sometimes, belts slipped off one hip, trousers skewing down too, to expose an iliac furrow, a new Ford erogenous zone under Ackermann. If Ford’s seemingly unerring eye for provocation would habitually get his ads pulled from billboards, Ackermann’s 2026 approach is slightly more softly-softly. It may still get you a shadow ban on Instagram, though.
Obsession was the idea that came through, again and again. Ford was an obsessive designer, and remains a perfectionist – in that pristine whiteness, Ackermann showed his own pursuit of that goal. Obsession can, of course, be lethal – you couldn’t help but think of American Psycho, film or book, as ideally shirt and tied banker bros passed through the space, a somewhat menacing presence, for all their attraction. The kinky see-through plastic semaphored that feeling too – Bateman donned that material, just once, before murdering a co-worker he envied with a hatchet to the jaw. He wanted to safeguard his suit against the gorefest. Here, it was crafted into coats, skirt overlays, even prissy rain-bonnets – again, as if fastidiously protecting, as well as seducing. Glove your love.
If we credit Ford as a cinematic auteur, that image-maker par excellence, it must be said that Ackermann isn’t just a dressmaker. He invents striking, memorable images too. In the grand brand tradition, his shows wind up like silent movies, the singular outfits that stick with you acting like a trailer for the collection. That kinky plastic skirt below a high-necked cashmere sweater, the streak of blood red suede seeping across the white shag-pile; a model in a men’s suit jacket, shirt and bomber, over bared legs in point d’esprit stockings and a filmy tulle skirt so transparent it looked like its border of lace was floating in mid-air. The bankers, a dishevelled black tuxedo, and two drop-dead evening gowns with fluted chiffon edges. Those were the half-dozen images that burned into your mind's eye – ones strong enough to propel, compel you into Tom Ford stores, to find more. Obsessive desire. It’s what fashion’s all about, really.
