Show Report
Ackermann's line was long and sinuous, with tailoring fitted to the torso and then twisted extravagantly about it.
Haider Ackermann isn't a designer prone to change - he evolves slowly, gradually, developing his look and dovetailing one season into the next. He's been under fashion's radar for the best part of a decade, but fashion now seems to have caught up with what he's been thinking for a good few seasons, and in one of those wonderful, perfectly synchronised moments, today he delivered exactly what we wanted.
Ackermann's line was long and sinuous, with tailoring fitted to the torso and then twisted extravagantly about it. It looks mightily complicated, and it probably is on the tailor's end, but there's a beautifully sure hand to it which makes every anti-gravitational, aerodynamic twist look utterly natural. It's also a look he's been pushing for two years - it now seems prophetic given the general consensus on tumbling hemlines, and has also allowed Ackermann the chance to perfect them.
There was a feel of meeting worlds, or opposites attracting - the man-woman vibe of those floor-length silk columns underneath man-tailored jackets, with an east-west vibe when the tailoring came as butch biker jackets in thick hide slung over colour-blocked, kimono-style gowns of silk crepe. Those colours bear our sole attention for a moment: harmonious but strong oriental clashes of celadon green, ebony, imperial purple, lacquer-red and electric blue. They were strong, even brash, but never overpowering.
There was often a feel of deshabille to those silk robes, tumbling simply off a shoulder or suspended from a single thin strap over a bared torso. It's another mark of Ackermann's skill that he can slice up slithery silk and truss it back up around the body without it looking like a cheap S&M gag (a rare feat these days). Cheap was the last word that came to mind when seeing these clothes. They were, quite simply, beautiful. And we so rarely get to say that with any genuine emotion anymore - which goes some way to explaining the roar of approval that justifiably closed Ackermann's stellar show.
