Thank you, Haider: Throwing a show in which the audience can see your clothes, look by look and in full evening sunshine, is a transformative improvement on the terrible old presentation format. Now let's move on. The uncharitable could argue—and indeed do—that this designer's oeuvre is a one-trick deal. But what a trick it is. Snortingly masculine of shoulder, Hedi-enragingly etiolated of leg, Astaire-ishly trim of waist, Cuban of heel, and damned sexy altogether: You could almost hear the estrogen (and, actually, plenty of testosterone too) flooding the balcony as Scott Barnhill clenched his way past us in gold Lurex Chelsea boots, monochrome pinstripe jeans, a complicatedly tiered cummerbund, and a multi-collared, sleeves-pulled-up, gold-on-black kimono top.
All his energetically stylized detail can be exhausting to process—imagine leopard-print slippers under zebra socks under pinstripe pants below a Breton shirt under a chalk-stripe jacket, and try and keep your head together—but this designer has total harmonic control of his ingredients. "It was my ideal road trip," Ackermann said backstage: "I always wanted to be a dancer. I want to go back to Japan, to travel through Persia … these are all my fantasies of escape." Judging by the whooping at his finale, it's a fantasy shared. A cracker of an Ackermann.
