Haider Ackermann dances, brilliantly, with the ghost of Tom Ford

Haider Ackermann ‘s show for Tom Ford Fall/Winter 2025 was no ordinary fashion show. It was about taking the legacy of the man who made porno chic a global uniform and filtering it through someone who always played with sensuality as a double-edged sword. Haider sums it up in his letter: “Tom is the nightlife, I am the morning after.” And therein lies the key.

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The show began as if we were entering a private room after a never-ending party: fogged mirrors, velvet sofas, traces of desire in the air. There was no dance floor, but there were clothes that seemed designed to turn heads and leave a mark. Electric blue satin suits, acid green patent leather coats, dresses cut to perfection that make the skin the star of the show. It’s the Ford universe, but seen through Haider’s lens: less excessive lust, more of a noble attitude, though always daring.

The collection speaks volumes about seduction itself as a powerful process, not as something superfluous. Jet black coexists with unexpected pastel shades in pantsuits and blazers, cashmere is paired with shiny vinyl pieces, and the straight lines of Ackermann’s silhouette are pure architectural sensuality when you see the models walking on that mirrored floor.

Because if Ford was the luxury of excess, Haider rewrites his story from a purer, more minimalist perspective: taking away rather than adding, letting a belt function as architecture, letting a gesture while walking do the rest. “Nobility is not a crest, but a way to carry oneself, believing in beauty as a means of resistance, and using it as such,” he wrote in his collection letter. That idea runs through every look, every hairstyle, every step on that mirrored floor.

And yes, there are ghosts on this runway. Tom’s, inevitably, reverberating in the lustfulness of the fabrics and in that club magnetism that you never enter through the front door. Haider Ackerman dances with him in an outstanding way, but there was also the ghost of a time when fashion could turn desire into a political weapon.

Haider sums up his new season with Bowie in his ear: “If just for one day, we can be heroes.”

At Tom Ford, he has been.