The autumn/winter 2015 collection from Haider Ackermann is now at Storm. The Colombian designer has through his career been the master of juxtaposition both in terms of materials as well as silhouettes. He skillfully combines a classic piece such as a hoodie with luxurious materials and intricate detailing which sets his collections apart. The A/W 2015 collection offers a variety of just that. An example would be oversized sweatshirts and hoodies with a street wear silhouette featuring lush velvet detailing, giving the overall look a luxurious and original feel and look.
A few years back, Rasmus Storm interviewed Haider Ackermann for VS Magazine, giving us an exclusive insight to the designer and his many sources of inspiration.
RS: Tell me about your background and how you became a fashion designer? HA: Okay, well are you ready for it...? How long time have you got? [laughs] No, the story is, I was born in Columbia in South America in ’71 by French parents who travelled a lot, so we ended up in Africa in different countries like Ethiopia, Chad and Algeria. Then, when I was twelve, we moved to Holland and eventually I went to Antwerp to study fashion design before finally coming here to Paris. RS: Am I right, when I say, that we can see some inspiration in your clothing from all your travelling? From Africa in particular? Last time I saw you, you wore a big scarf that looked very African… HA: Yes, that’s true. I lived there till I was twelve, so all those memories that I have, and that I like, are very vague but still very present. They keep coming back to me and influencing me. Africa is definitely a very big inspiration for me, it is such a rich country, culturally. You see all these very long and thin women with big hair and big heads... – it’s so beautiful when you are a young boy, you just can’t help getting blown away by this beauty. RS: Do you have a special woman in mind when designing your clothes? HA: No, I don’t like to define it like this because that would mean I am not open to anything else. People often ask me if I have a muse, but I always tell them no. I might be attracted to a certain kind of woman, a woman who is very discrete and doesn’t like to be in the middle of all the attention - this is the woman I would dream of seeing in a bar sitting at the corner – but I don’t want to design for her only. It would mean excluding all others.
