Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
PARIS, France — The Berluti invitation came as a thick paper card in a lovely shade of flesh, powdery pink. The show venue was velvety and powdery, in the same shade of pink. So were the last two looks, worn by a man and a woman: a slender coat and a faultless suit.
Haider Ackermann is by nature a colorist and Berluti is an ideal playground to prove so. Inside this French house, he can work with the finest materials and the most skilled artisans, delivering his idea of what a modern hyper-luxurious tailored wardrobe — for l'homme, but easily pour la femme — should look like. Actually the formula is very simple: Ackermann's take on Berluti is all about clean lines and colors, and a deft mix of formality and nonchalance. Contrary to his namesake label, Ackermann favors solid fabrics at Berluti, doing away with the brocades and the decadence. The opposition of his bohemian sensibility and the unquestionably bourgeois spirit of Berluti work well. It creates a slight tension. A poetic, charming one.
