Haider Ackermann acolytes, rejoice: The designer has today been named “creative consultant” for Belgian ready-to-wear label Maison Ullens. As per the press release hailing this “exceptional development” Ackermann, “will oversee the design of the collection and image for the House.” The release added that the designer’s first collection will be fall 2021 and hailed today’s announcement as “a turning point in the 10 year history of the House.”
The appointment does look like a win-win for both parties. Maison Ullens has indeed been operating for a decade since its foundation by Baroness Myriam Ullens de Schooten (also known as Mimi). Ullens at first worked with her granddaughter Laurence to put together a capsule collection of 20 pieces that would service her lifestyle traveling with her husband Guy between their various homes, the orphanages and schools they founded in Nepal, and the many duties related to their significant philanthropic activities in both medicine and art across the world. As the business expanded, its collections were designed by Veronique Leroy and later Kim Laursen. Maison Ullens has stores in Paris, Aspen, and New York (on Madison) and looks to have been ticking along fine despite scanty fanfare and an Instagram following of just 7,500-ish.
Enter Ackermann. He brings to the Ullens table significant blue-chip creative capital having produced several collections of high genius, along with some that were merely fantastic. The Colombian-French, Antwerp-trained designer comes with a hefty credit line in social capital, too: Tilda Swinton has long been his champion-in-chief, and she more recently recruited Timothée Chalamet to the cause. His appearance in the audience at Ackermann’s most recent show a year ago this month significantly raised both the collection’s profile and certain Vogue Runway editors’ heart-rates. And yet despite being to some “the closest thing to what an auteur is in fashion” (as Chalamet said of Ackermann at his last show for Berluti before that gig was cut short in the seismic post-Kim Jones to Dior LVMH menswear reshuffle of 2018), things have not all been great for his label of late. Financial woes last year forced its Antwerp-based owner Anne Chapelle to sell Ann Demeulemester, and she told the Belgian newspaper De Tijd shortly after that the Ackermann business outlook seemed bleak: currently, its website is closed.
Ackermann no doubt has designs on reversing that sad situation. In the meantime, his partnership with Myriam “Mimi” Ullens ensures that his distinct creative voice will have an outlet. And that you’d be wise to wager on seeing Swinton and Chalamet wearing the result.
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