Mannequins with Killer Appeal at Haider Ackermann

PARIS, France — Bad boys. They're Haider Ackermann's default position for menswear. Aquiline assassins with an unpredictable edge. On Wednesday night, their hair was slicked into braids so sharp they looked like lethal weapons. But Ackermann insisted his bad boys are maturing, trying to stay on the straight and narrow. So he offered them a lesson, a graphic, linear collection in black and white, designed, he said, to move his wayward men "forwards and upwards." A corridor of neon tubing guided them into the light, a drumbeat, steadily increasing in tempo, provided the momentum.

Ackermann tempered his rigour with his fabrics, silk and linen, and his signature loucheness: sleeves pushed up, hems rolled, shirts knotted round waists, bare chests for days. And the footwear was ribbon-tied sandals. When his bad boys broke with the black and white, they opted for lilac and mint. They were poets at heart. Isn't that always the way with Haider's diamond dogs? Mannequins with kill appeal.