the near and present future?

 

Last week’s quixotic presentation at Haider Ackermann was a thunder strike moment in the evolution of his namesake label.  With Leonard Cohen’s voiceover of A Thousand Kisses Deep wooing onlookers, the captivating sensuality of Ackermann achieved yet again another hypnotizing transportation of the audience into a past realm.  It went beyond the standardized notion of being forced to confront romance.  We were forced to examine our identities—something a designer, I can say with full confidence, has never been able to command of me since the hay-day of Lee McQueen.  One could even say it achieved a metaphysical status—but we won’t get into the ontological structures that some argue drive the image of the house.  I fear it would complicate Haider’s majestic offerings for next autumn-winter.  But something I can’t get out of my mind is the word that was on everybody’s lips after the supposed maison Chanel-heir took his bow at the finale:  ‘perfection.’

When you receive the level of praise, editorial exposure, and press coverage Haider has in the last months since the electrifyingly emotional, unmatched showmanship seen at his spring-summer collection, it may appear one would be so inclined to sell their soul to the commercial devils.  Or at least be pressured to.  Ever since Karl issued to the press a statement that Haider would be a more than worthy successor at Chanel, a media frenzy of speculation has ensued.  John Galliano’s shameful firing from Dior certainly did not serve to dispel the already complicated conjectures.  Neither has the rumor of Stefano Pilati’s impending abdication from the creative directorship of Yves Saint Laurent.

 

Focus must be shifted though—to the highest, most pertinent conjecture surrounding the future of Haider Ackermann:  Riccardo Tisci being transplanted from Givenchy to Dior and Ackermann respectfully taking up the reigns at maison Givenchy.  It’s a notion that some celebrate, some fear, and some outright detest.  While I see the shift as a pragmatic business decision that could transpire with haste and ease, I myself have problems with the meat and potatoes of the move.  Riccardo Tisci has invested nearly six years of re-establishing and honing a coherent, readily known brand identity at Givenchy.  In every area, be it haute couture or women’s and men’s ready-to-wear, Tisci’s consciousness pervades the Givenchy brand.  The brand is the man and the man is the brand.  Givenchy is structured, on point, and for once in the last 20 years of the brand’s existence, boasts a grounded and forthrightly redoubtable archive of work.  It is centered and buoyant.  It simply just delivers.

Despite the concerns of Givenchy’s recent commercial successes being maligned, an issue of fit must almost be considered.  Tisci is a fine tailor but the soul of his work, some fear, may not translate to Dior.  It is not a matter of league so much as it reflects a crisis of strain-of-thought.  Different elixirs—different schools.  Ackermann’s re-positioning to Givenchy bodes the same conflict.  His flowingly sublime woman may be at the brink of metamorphosis, but she has not fully revealed herself from the shadows.  She is at a point of extraction but the proceedings have not fully transpired.  To impede her growth with the commercialized expectations of furthering a religiously-steeped Givenchy might turn out to be a regrettable career decision, if not a total blunder.  He is the type of designer who is protean in thought but not in form, much like the never changing Demeulemeester, Giorgio Armani, et al.  Furthermore, would a poet fair well as a mechanic?  Givenchy rings of a higher complexity while the Ackermann label rests on a less composed, desensitized design approach.  If Haider steps up to the commercial plate under LVMH, would the corporate pressures to reinvigorate a histrionic French fashion house rebuff the true romance that has proven, at least twice now, to bring grown men to tears?  We will see what the future has to hold but I will maintain that Tisci and Haider’s staying put are paramount to not only their businesses but to their identities as designers.  Point in case?  The seeds that have been sewn are too precious to uproot.   

[ photos:  Interview, Style.com ]