We now know Haider Ackermann will not go to Chanel, for sure

Haider Ackermann after his presentation for Jean Paul Gaultier couture in January 2023. Screen shot: Jean Paul Gaultier/YouTube

It’s been a week of several fashion appointments. The latest is Haider Ackermann joining Tom Ford. This comes after Uniqlo announced that they have installed Claire Waight Keller as the brand’s creative director. It was just imparted by Tom Ford that Mr Ackermann would be joining the Estée Lauder-owned label, but that to observers is a somewhat surprising hire. Last May, the Colombian-born, Paris-based designer joined Canada Goose as the outerwear brand’s first creative director in the company’s 60-year history. It is not immediately clear what happened to his employment with Canada Goose. Mr Ackermann replaces former Tom Ford creative director Peter Hawkings who stepped down from his role unexpectedly last July after two decades with the house.

We can’t immediately say what this might mean. It’s definitely a good pick for Tom Ford. But the aesthetics of Tom Ford and Haider Ackermann are not exactly similar, or even close. A critically acclaimed designer, Mr Ackermann is much respected in the industry, to the extent that Karl Lagerfeld—in 2010, nine years before his death—told Vogue that, if he had to pass the creative reign at Chanel, “at the moment I’d say Haider Ackermann.” Fans had hoped he would join the maison. In January last year, he was invited by Jean Paul Gaultier as the guest designer of the former’s haute couture collection. It is not certain how Mr Ackermann’s sense of sharp tailoring, once a comfortable fit at Berluti, where he was creative director for a brief two years, will square with Tom Ford’s ’70s-inflected that always hinged on the overtly sexy and the compulsory high-octane glamour.

Mr Ackermann, whose eponymous label was shuttered in 2020 after a tussle with his former business partner Anne Chapelle, will remain in Paris and present his first Tom Ford collection at Paris Fashion Week in March 2025. In comments shared with the media, Mr Ackermann‘s somewhat stock statement revealed little of his reason for the move: “It is with tremendous pride that I will seek to honor the legacy of Tom Ford, a man I have long admired and have the utmost respect for. I am much looking forward to what lies ahead.” It is not certain if both men knew each other. Mr Ford did not suppress his delight at the new appointment, saying, “I have long been a great fan of Haider’s work… We share many of the same historical references…” They do? What, indeed, has Tom Ford discerned that we have not?