Six looks into today’s Haider Ackermann show a model emerged in an ensemble first worn by Timothée Chalamet at the Venice Film Festival: a dove gray lapel-less suit in technical nylon with a flash of aqua blue at the hem. Later the actor wore a belted tuxedo in the same pale shade with a liquid silk top underneath. The outfits made headlines; Chalamet is among a new breed of rising male stars unafraid of red carpet experimenting, and in the case of that silvery tuxedo, real gender bendy stuff. Harry Styles and Ezra Miller are also in the club; together they’ve made watching the guys at award shows and premieres arguably more exciting than watching the girls. All this to say, it’s a good time to be Haider Ackermann, who was specializing in sensual androgyny long before he combined his men’s and women’s presentations last year.
Picking up on Chalamet’s much-talked about tuxedo, the waist was a big focus of this collection. Men and women both got midriff-spanning leather belts, and other times Ackermann knotted a jacket at the hips with a casual flourish, the way he used to do in his early days. It looked especially compelling in the case of a jacket lined in vintage kimono silk. But if anything, this was a less androgynous collection than usual, due to the work the designer did with plissé bands of color, wrapping and twisting them around female torsos in a style reminiscent of Madame Grès. Eighty or so years after Grès’s heyday, Ackermann leaves much more skin exposed. The tops—if you can call them that, they’re really more like ribbons of fabric—will be strictly for the daring. Same for the jumpsuits with the bumster-low cut-out detail in back. Bella Hadid and Adut Akech’s plissé bandeau dresses, though? Those are unquestionably red carpet bound.
