BEAUTY: Clothing--Haider Ackermann

Although he has been designing women's fashion since 2001, Haider Ackermann just showed his first official menswear collection at Paris Fashion Week (he showed a one-off collection at Pitti Uomo in 2010). Here, his '14 Spring-Summer collection is at once classic Ackermann and not. Present is the simple, avant-garde cuts in luxurious fabrics like duchesse satin, jacquard, and silk. But enhancing this is a pretty forthright, potent, almost challenging masculine sexiness. Despite the luxe materials and fringed scarves, Ackermann's models are almost all uniformly--and heavily--tattooed. These louche rockers, Teddy Boys, and all-around dudes dripped an indolent attitude that indicated they could either fight you or have sex with you, it is all the same to them. Trousers are cut tight with a looser, dropped crotch (my favorite: the black silk pair embroidered with green dragons), and jackets and coats are sophisticated and slouchy at the same time--witness a sleeveless smoking jacket. The clothes created the attitude, and the attitude created the clothes. A decadent collection for rough bad boys...the contrast works perfectly.

http://www.haiderackermann.be/