Technically, Haider Ackermann’s debut for Tom Ford already happened—twice, even.
The French designer’s first collection for the brand had its big runway moment in Paris on Wednesday night, but he’s been dropping custom looks on longtime pal and noted Haider stan Timothée Chalamet throughout the 2025 awards season—first at the Golden Globes and then at the Vanity Fair Oscars party. Alas, Timmy was not at the designer’s inaugural fashion show for the brand during Paris Fashion Week, but that didn’t temper the excitement for what was to come.
Ackermann was named Tom Ford’s creative director in September. Most recently, he’s been working at Canada Goose; before that, he was at Berluti, and had a much-lauded stint guest-designing haute couture at Jean-Paul Gaultier. (His beloved namesake label has been dormant since 2020.) He replaced Peter Hawkins, the founding designer’s direct successor, following his departure in 2023 when the company was acquired by Estée Lauder. Whereas Hawkins’s one-year tenure was about continuing the look created by the brand’s namesake (for whom he worked for over two decades), Ackermann has made clear he wants to take a different approach.
“If people are expecting hot sex, no, you will not see it from me. I don’t have that talent, to be very provocative or very avant-garde,” he told the New York Times. “I’m not there to continue exactly the past.” Instead, he said, he would work off his impression of the brand as an outsider, and use that to guide his interpretation of what the label is today.
Ackermann kept that promise by kicking off his fall 2025 collection with a leather series that was equal parts smart and alluring, looking as slick as it did relaxed: slim-fit moto jackets either zipped up all the way or left open to reveal a leather T-shirt underneath, paired with trousers; a structured embossed white T cropped at the waist with black pants; a slim-fit longline jacket worn with gloves over a T-shirt; an incredibly cool collarless coat belted at the waist. Even when he works in other fabrics and textures—like the white jacket pinned closed diagonally over the matching trousers with sweatpant-like ankle bands—the look is self-assured and strong. “Entering the house that Mr. Tom Ford built, I was drawn to the man himself, whose personality reverberates through everything he envisioned,” Ackermann explained in the show notes. “He is nightlife, I am the morning after: this is where our dance begins.”
There were a handful of direct references to Ford in the new collection. Ackermann teased polka dots, inspired by a Tom Ford suit that Ackermann bought to wear to the 2012 Met Gala (also seen in Chalamet’s Oscars after party look). There was a series of strong-shoulder tailored suits in an array of colors—Tom Ford to the bone—as well as certain dress silhouettes that drew from Ford’s work at Gucci, YSL, and his namesake brand. It was not so much an obligatory tribute as it was a show of respect to the man who will forever be connected to the brand, whose name is still on the door, and who reportedly played a major role in Ackermann’s hiring. (Mr. Ford was front row at Wednesday night’s show, and gave Ackermann a hug and a kiss when he took his final bow.)
Tom Ford has historically been labeled a “red carpet brand,” and that doesn’t seem to be changing under Ackermann. (Makes sense, given how much celebrities loved his Jean Paul Gaultier Haute Couture collection.) There was a duo of dusty-pastel dresses with up-to-the-hipbone slits, long-sleeve gowns in lilac beaded fringe and textural gray fabric, plus a pair of deconstructed smoking jackets transformed into women’s eveningwear, which are primed for movie premieres. (Someone get Tilda Swinton on the phone, stat!)
