Haider Ackermann entered the industry through Paris. In 1998, he began a five-month internship at John Galliano, building his portfolio over the next few years with designers such as Bernhard Willhelm, Patrick Van Ommeslaeghe and Mayerline.

His formation traces back to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, where he studied fashion design from 1994 until his expulsion in 1997. He then returned to assist his former teacher, the Belgian designer Wim Neels.

The language that emerged from those years runs on draped jersey and leather. Asymmetric cuts join contrasting materials in a single garment, and the palette tilts toward dusty pastels and gunmetal.

Ackermann launched his namesake label in Paris in 2002, self-financed, with a first women’s collection for fall-winter 2002 of woven mini bombers and knotted peplums that proved his hand at draping and leather. Suzy Menkes singled the work out as a rare hope for the future.

The clothes that followed leaned on smoking jackets sliced open at the shoulder, low-slung trousers, silk pajama lines and long leather coats cut close to the body. Tilda Swinton picked up the pieces early, wearing them on red carpets from the Golden Globes onward.

The label sat alongside Phoebe Philo’s Céline and the post-Helmut Lang school as a Paris reference for tailoring without hardware. A Swiss Textile Award and a Fashion Group International Award for Design followed the work.

In September 2016, Ackermann took on creative director at Berluti, succeeding Alessandro Sartori. He parted with the LVMH house in March 2018 after three seasons. His namesake label staged its final show in February 2020 and paused during the pandemic.

On September 4, 2024, Tom Ford announced Ackermann as creative director, effective immediately. He succeeded Peter Hawkings, who had the role for just under a year. The fashion business is licensed to the Ermenegildo Zegna Group under Estée Lauder’s ownership of the brand.

Chalamet debuted the first look by Ackermann at Tom Ford, a sequined black suit, on the red carpet of the 82nd Golden Globe Awards. The fall-winter 2025 show in Paris that March brought back smoked-glass evening, satin trousers and tuxedo shoulders, setting aside the harder Hollywood codes Hawkings had retained.

Alongside the parallel post at Canada Goose, also announced in 2024, the Tom Ford chapter places Ackermann inside two heritage vocabularies at once, parka and evening tailoring. It is the same draped, body-aware grammar he ran through his own house, now applied at corporate scale.