Like many great matches, this story began with a courtship.
“There’s always been this flirtation between Mr. Ford and I, workwise,” says Haider Ackermann , from his office in Paris. The designer, 55, is speaking of when, in 2024, he received a call from Tom Ford, the man , summoning him to lead Tom Ford, the house. Ackermann was surprised, he says, but he did not find it strange.
CONTROLLED CHAOS “The day’s insane. The week is insane. Everything is insane,” Ackermann says on set after his Paris Fashion Week show. “It’s a lot, but you won’t hear me complain.”
“I knew that he looked at my work and respected it,” he says. “He had written to me privately before, years before.”
But a pleasant, elegant note does not match the intimacy—the intentionality—of speaking.
“Getting a phone call from Mr. Ford and listening to his voice,” that deep, resonant baritone, “that is seduction,” Ackermann tells VF, leaning forward on his desk toward his screen. “If I want to take my role seriously, I have to embrace that and seduce us all.”
Born in Colombia and adopted by a French family, Ackermann spent his childhood across Ethiopia, Chad, Algeria, and France before landing in the Netherlands when he was 12. He attended the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp before being expelled in 1997 for falling behind with his academic assignments. His education continued by way of internships, one of which was with John Galliano.