Haider Ackermann belongs to an elite and shrinking class of women’s tailors. It’s a métier that has lost its luster with the young generation of designers who rely on streetwear and fan merch to burnish their images. Ackermann came by his own interest in the tailoring craft early, but his appointment at Berluti, LVMH’s sole menswear brand, has sharpened his skills.
A decade ago, when fashion began paying attention to Ackermann, his women’s tailoring was marked by wrapping and draping, and his shows came by their cool via styling: sleeves pushed up past the elbows, lots of romance at the neck and waist. Here, the interest was baked into his patternmaking, which is much harder to do. Take Mica Argañaraz’s white jacket, for example, with the revers in ruby red silk. Ackermann cut it asymmetrically left to right and left it lapel-less, exposing a slice of skin from collarbone to the tab closure at the waist. For the grown-up woman who doesn’t want to wear gowns to fancy occasions, an elegant piece like that holds a lot of allure. Another jacket was bisected horizontally with a cut-out at the midriff, and a third was scooped out in the back up to the shoulder blades, with an internal belt holding everything in place. “It’s linear and graphic,” Ackermann said of the collection, “but then you have this sensuality to make it less razor-cut, because life is like a razor cut.”
Undoubtedly. And so he added softness elsewhere with bare little knit sweaters that twisted and stretched around the torso, and for the customer less comfortable flashing her latissimus dorsi, blouson tops tucked into high-waisted trousers. The entire collection was whittled down to just a few shades: red, black, white, light yellow, and sky blue. The gold-dot jacquard he used on a tuxedo and a pair of skinny pants was an attractive outlier. If you looked closely, it appeared to be cracked like wallpaper. It was a technique of the weave, and it turned these particular Ackermann pieces into collectible treasures.
