Haider Ackermann is jubilant, and it's infectious. Just home from work and dressed in a fresh white T-shirt, his Hollywood handsome face framed by a boyish new haircut, he is grinning from ear to ear. It's late January and less than a week has passed since the triumphant reveal of his first-ever haute couture collection at Paris Fashion Week, a one-off for the house of Jean Paul Gaultier and Ackermann's second only runway collection in nearly three years. If you have been following the couture beat, Gaultier stepped down from the brand in 2020 and has entrusted a new designer each season to create a collection. Colombian-born. Paris-based Ackermann. is the fourth and he has cleaned up in the reviews, with The New York Times calling it, "The best show in Paris.”
"Today is the first time I feel at ease and can embrace all that has happened in the past few days. It has been overwhelming, I didn't expect it," the 51-year-old says- that grin lighting up again. "I mean, I know that the team and I did all this work, but the triumph that followed still feels far away from me."
The show, which was set to the haunting protest song "Baraye" by Iranian singer, Shervin Hajipour, written following the death of Mahsa Amini, was intended to envelope the audience in a moment of calm and quiet- so all could be present to the moment, and the work. "There are ladies who have spent days pleating a dress, putting 11,000 pins in one garment," he says of the artistic prowess on display, adding, "I now have a complete love affair with all those women and men who listened to whatever I had to say and tried to translate it. We can have all these wild fantasies, but they do the real work."
Ackermann isn't an obvious fit with Gaultier's theatrical, oft-irreverent repertoire, but when he did find a common language - in their shared appreciation for subversion and pure tailoring - he created breathtaking magic. A tight edit of looks was drawn in pure lines and sculptured silhouettes, and what stood out was a near-erotic tension between the masculine and feminine. "I really understood the immaculate tailoring Gaultier did in the past. It was always a suit for women, but twisted somehow - something I flirt with, too," says Ackermann.
Seated front row were the designer's closest friends and consummate muses, the actors Tilda Swinton and Timothee Chalamet, who at every red-carpet moment seem to embody the seductive fluidity Ackermann has fine-tuned since he launched his eponymous label in 2004. On occasion, Swinton is equally as statuesque in his tailored, fishtail sequin dresses as she is lissom in a relaxed pants-suit, and in the six years since they started working together, Chalamet has blossomed into a style icon, climaxing with that backless crimson halter neck top at the 2022 Venice Film Festival.
"Timothee embraces his feminine side - but that doesn't make him at all feminine," says Ackermann, whose personal closeness with and innate understanding of the two actors visibly seems to empower their choices. "There's a fine line and if you can find this balance, it's very sensual. I have always borrowed clothes from my partners, and that is about pure emotion. There is the smell of them, it's nothing calculated about gender fluidity - it's exchanging with your loved one."
Born Haider (which means lion in Arabic) in Bogota, Colombia, Ackermann was adopted by a French couple as a baby. He never lived in France as his father's career as a cartographer took the family to live in far-flung places like Ethiopia, Chad and Algeria. As a young child living in Arab cultures, he was privy to intimate female gatherings - the moment when women remove their veils - and the swathes and layers of garments they wore made a lasting impression.
“There was always this explosion of fabrics and colours. I didn't know that fashion was a career, but I knew I had to play with fabric," he says of a formative memory, which might explain the suggestive nature of his designs and his talent as a colourist in which he employs a vivid hue - like the jewel-toned satin lining on a crepe suit- in the most seductive fashion.
Over 18 years, Ackermann built a robust and much admired small fashion business, first with a focus on womenswear, and then menswear from 2010. His name was often floated for potential appointment at both Dior and Martin Margiela, and the late Karl Lagerfeld once publicly named him as a worthy successor at Chanel. And vet, he has stayed his own path, briefly taking on the artistic director role at Berluti in 2016 for just three seasons. "There were houses that were so beautiful, but I felt I had nothing to say there, and I wanted to be faithful and truthful to what I felt," he says of the opportunities that came his way.
Perhaps unexpectedly, as someone so well established, this period now has been his most fertile. In addition to the Jean Paul Gautier outing, last November, Ackermann revealed a one-off collaboration with the Italian sportswear brand Fila, which will be arriving soon in store. The project allowed him his first foray into sportswear and saw him skilfully embracing tech fabrics and a playful, technicolour palette.
All of which was only possible because he broke free of a contract with former long-term business partner, Anne Chapelle, with whom he has been in a lengthy legal battle since 2020, the same year he last showed on the runway. He claims he was not free to do collaborations in that arrangement. "Berluti was a difficult matter with her, so to touch sportswear, which I have never done before, and to learn those techniques, to have a dialogue with haute couture — all of those things would not have been possible," he says.
During this difficult period, his eponymous line has been on hiatus, but concurrently, his profile and spirits were buoyed by Swinton and Chalamet who continued to seek out his collaboration at every possible moment. "Tilda is my closest friend, she knew what was going on and she said you are going to make a dress for me, and we are going to be everywhere because I want you to shine," he says, ading that his lawyers were able to green light these bespoke looks because they had no direct commercial value.
Now, he has his name back, Ackermann has also gained a certain freedom away from the seasonal cycle, which has allowed him time to meditate on his next move. "I questioned everything; will people still desire me, am I still relevant in this business?" he says candidly of the challenging period. If his recent output is anything to go by, then Ackermann is only getting started. "I want to do what makes my heart beat faster and I have so much more to say," he says. "The best is yet to come; no one can convince me otherwise."