Desire and seduction. Tom Ford and Haider Ackermann both know quite well a thing or two about it. Haider, now at the helm of Tom, has been exploring a new take on these words, taking his personal taste and filtering it through the vessel that is the legacy left by the man whose mere existence is already synonymous with allure. Fashion has historically been considered to be aspirational. I rather think of this as not necessarily unattainable in a monetary sense, but as witnessing an alternate reality happening in front of you filled with characters that possess an energy you would die to absorb, brought up, provoked or enhanced by what they are wearing and how it makes them feel. This new collection Ackermann presents to us is the embodiment of that, filled with bodies wandering and luring us into a world of shadows so attractive, in attires so provocative, that they seem to have jumped straight out of our darkest fantasies.
Starting with the ambiance, filled by a buzzing sort of electronic sound that for some reason reminds me of Gaspar Noé’s Enter the Void. A noise that starts as a hum in the back and that, as minutes pass, only becomes more and more loud and more and more piercing. It depends on how delicate our sense of hearing is, but at times such decibels could make you feel that if exposed to it for enough time, you could easily lose your mind—very enter-the-void-esque, I must say. The sound suddenly stops, and you feel the emptiness; you feel the release after the tension. There's a peaceful moment of silence, and then it starts all over again. Tom Ford has always been a brand that uses sex and the sensations involved in it to enhance the narrative of what he is presenting, and this sort of torturing, sort of edging our senses, felt like something he would do.
While this kept part of our brain occupied, the other part was fed with a display of the desire inherent to the house that decided to materialise as garments. The characters roamed around the runway with poise and calmness, scanning their surroundings, with a look in their eyes so full of a seductive power capable of making you apologise just for being in their presence. Walking in trios, duos or solo, the dark runway only lit by a dim light and the reflection of it in some mirrors placed around was only interrupted by the exquisite colour palette that played not only among itself but also among the skin of the wearer, lightening the lights and darkening the darks. The blacks and whites felt as piercing as the neons, helped by the qualities of the fabrics chosen and the way they played with light itself.
The silhouettes were provocative at all times. From the perverse man's white tuxedo jacket paired with ballet flats and no pants to the women's coats and trench coats buttoned to the top that, even in their complete coverage of the body, exuded a heavy sexual energy from them, like having the certainty there's nothing underneath them. This was not a collection where the bare skin was necessarily overexposed as it is, but even in the presence of fabric from head to toe, the feeling was much more sensual than if there were just naked bodies walking around. Silk dresses that hide no shape, barely there shorts so short and so transparent that they clearly were not there to serve a functional purpose, or nightgowns paired with leather briefcases that make us wonder what nature the business meeting they are attending is.
I'm not sure how it is possible to calibrate the scale in such a precise way that the vision of both the creator and the predecessor is summoned in equal parts, but what happened in this runway/sin city could be a textbook example of a perfect match. At one moment a man and a woman appeared, both wearing the exact same suit. Gucci by Tom Ford F/W 1996. The elongated shapes, the draped dresses, the colour linings in dark pieces. They had Haider written all over it. The outstanding casting, the thin fog at the end, the voyeuristic camera angles, the deep dark glossy lips and the seduction exuding from every pore and from every thread—no match has ever made more sense than Tom and Haider.
