Alberta Ferretti Steps Down From Her Eponymous Brand

Alberta Ferretti is stepping down as creative director of the eponymous brand she founded in 1981, the designer announced this morning.

“On September 17th, you attended my last fashion show,” wrote the designer in a letter sent out this morning via email. “It was a difficult, complicated, but a very thoughtful choice. But today, with serenity and awareness, I inform you of my decision to leave the creative direction of the brand I founded, which bears and will continue to bear my name,” said the designer. In it, she name checks key collaborators Peter Lindbergh, Steven Meisel, Franca Sozzani and Paolo Roversi.

The show was, in hindsight, an homage to Ferretti’s signatures, with a focus on flowing chiffon gowns alongside modern daywear, presented under the colonnade of the Leonardo da Vinci Museum of Science and Technology.

Ferretti grew up in her family’s dressmaking shop before opening her own boutique as a teenager, where she began to create her own clothes to be sold alongside other Italian designers. She launched her label in 1981 and has remained true to its signature gentle feminine silhouettes ever since. As relevant today as she was back then, Ferretti has gone viral recently as the outfitter of the Folklore era in Taylor Swift’s eras tour.

The 74-year-old designer will remain in her role as vice president of her family business, Aeffe Group, which operates her eponymous brand alongside Moschino, Philosophy di Lorenzo Serafini and Pollini. In her open letter, she thanks her brother Massimo Ferretti, the group chairman. Aeffe doesn’t break out individual brands, but group sales dropped nine per cent to €319 million in 2023, following the changeover of creative directors at the Moschino brand. While changes at Ferretti may cause further challenges in the short term, the designer says she will name her successor “soon”.

Hodakova’s Ellen Hodakova Larsson Wins The LVMH Prize

The 2024 LVMH Prize marked its spot on the calendar between the end of the Olympic and Paralympic Games that transformed Paris into a city of athleticism and exuberance, and the seasonal cycle of fashion weeks. No matter that clothes-making and brand-building are not considered sports; this competition has come to represent the apex of awards for young, international designers.

The equivalent of a gold medal went to Ellen Hodakova Larsson for her label, Hodakova, whose genuine commitment to sustainability and repurposed materials has yielded tops covered in metal spoons and skirts woven from belt buckles.

“Wow,” she said, overcome with emotion after Natalie Portman, who was an exceptional member of the jury this year, presented the award, which comes with a €400,000 (£340,000) endowment and a year-long mentorship provided by a team of LVMH experts. “I’ll do my best. I am so honoured.”

Robert Pattison showed up to announce Duran Lantink as the winner of the Karl Lagerfeld Prize, one year after receiving the ANDAM Special Prize. Often experimenting with dimension and shape, his garments feel at once kinky, kooky and non-conformist.

The big news to come out of this 11th edition: a new, dedicated Savoir-Faire Prize, which was presented by Ana De Armas and awarded to Michael Stewart of Standing Ground. The Irish designer, who graduated from the Royal Academy of Art in 2017 and launched his label just two years ago, creates remarkable jersey silhouettes that redefine the body through embedded beadwork and volumes.

Earlier in the day, the eight finalists – Marie-Adam Leenaerdt, Paolo Carzana, Pauline Dujancourt, Julian Louie of Aubero, and Niccolò Pasqualetti, along with Larsson, Lantink, and Stewart – presented themselves to a heavyweight jury in a closed session. Just imagine fielding a wide range of questions from eight directors of LVMH houses: Nicolas Ghesquière, Maria Grazia Chiuri, Jonathan Anderson, Silvia Venturini Fendi, Nigo, Marc Jacobs, Pharrell, and Phoebe Philo making a rare appearance. Rounding off the group were Delphine Arnault, and Jean-Paul Claverie and Sidney Toledano, both advisors to Bernard Arnault. Over lunch, they deliberated and arrived at the winner by majority.

A who’s who of industry guests, meanwhile, gathered in the soaring auditorium of the Fondation Louis Vuitton where a selection of creations from each finalist hung from two parallel white bars suspended at eye level. Up close, it was possible to get a better sense of how an Aubero jacket is composed of vintage material fragments held together under tulle or the sumptuous feel of a camel coat from Pasqualetti.

Before the winners were announced, there were short films that were captivating for their unvarnished aesthetics and sensitive voice-overs. There was a distinct sense of wanting to bring us closer into the designers’ worlds beyond displaying their clothes.

“I think we really selected people for their personality, not only for their work,” said Venturini Fendi, moments after the three awards were announced. How did these designers set themselves apart from winners in previous years? “I think they reflect the emotions that we want to see in clothes. That’s why it’s important to talk to them. You have to know who is behind the clothes. We don’t want to just buy clothes today; we want to support people who are sending a message to the world.

Chiuri, separately, made a similar point. “There’s the creativity but then the idea of what they want to build for the future, the perspective of their brand. They were all interesting, very different, but you feel that all the brands had a personal story.” She praised Stewart’s couture techniques and how Larsson is already scaling up her upcycled approach. “It’s the first time we have seen a project about sustainability that has numbers, that she sells. We want to recognise these important results.”

Having never participated in the jury, Portman was impressed by the extent to which there was a common goal towards positive impact. “I love how much [Ellen] thinks about the future and sustainability and repurposing materials. It’s really moving to see the thought that goes into these beautiful pieces.”

Both the Karl Lagerfeld Special Jury Prize and the Savoir-Faire Prize (amounting to €200,000 (£170,000 each plus mentorship) seemed like an official way to recognise two distinctive talents after two years of the Karl Lagerfeld Prize being shared by two designers. Plus, what better way to signal to future applicants that craftsmanship is not a dying pursuit.

For Delphine Arnault, who founded the Prize in 2013, this was an occasion to “represent craftsmanship, quality, sustainability and sustainable development,” she explained in an interview. “We believe that these are values that are increasingly important today and that reflect the expectations of today’s consumers. It’s also an integral part of our business. Know-how is essential, and know-how is passed down from generation to generation. So we thought it would be interesting to bring this dimension into the Prize, to reward this dimension in particular.”

About Hodakova’s winning vision, she added, “she showed us a lot of her creations around belts, for example, and she also told us all about her childhood, how she was brought up, how her mother introduced her to fashion. She told us all about the path that led her to create her brand in Stockholm. We thought she was a very interesting candidate with a lot of potential for development.”

With her father and stepmother nearby, Larsson, who is 32, sat down at a backstage table with a glass of champagne in one hand and her sculptural gold star award designed by Jean-Michel Othoniel in the other. “I think I had a feeling, but I didn’t want to trust it until it happened. I didn’t want to be disappointed, I guess,” she said. Can she now envision where she might be next year? “I’m very present and I’m moving my goals all the time, so it’s quite hard to just put a goal, but I want to see the brand develop in a way I imagine it – in a natural and good balance. I believe the infrastructure needs to have balance to sustain [itself],” she said.

Minutes later, she shared a poignant hug with Julian Louie of Aubero, while Stewart made a point of saying how this was an amazing group that supported each other. “We all wanted each other to do well.”

Here, it’s worth reminding how many finalists have gone on to thrive sans Prize; Demna and Virgil Abloh being two of the most famous examples. “It’s very nice to win a prize but it doesn’t mean the end of the world if you don’t,” said Marc Jacobs reassuringly. “So be true to thyself, to thine own self be true. Be passionate about what you do, and anything is possible. Prize or no prize, keep going.”

Anyway, they have made fans of the celebrity contingent, with Pattison, Portman, and de Armas practically placing requests. “I feel like I have a whole new list of people who I want to dress me now and want to be lucky enough to get to wear their designs. It is so fun to wear something that is completely fresh and that no one knows about yet,” said Portman, who will head from Paris to Calgary for a film.

Additional words of encouragement came from Pattinson, who admitted he was already nudging for one of the Aubero jackets. “It’s a pretty obvious thing to say but there are 2,500 people who applied for this and to be in the top eight – to see how distinctive all their identities are already. They can all talk so elegantly about their work and where it comes from.”

One interesting takeaway as the event wound down was that both Stewart and Lantink, who will soon have their runway shows in London and Paris respectively, expressed their willingness to join one of the fashion houses, and that the visibility and validation might kickstart the possibilities. “I mean, are you joking me? Of course!” Stewart said with a hearty laugh. “Then you can really, really do something. You can really put to use the teams, and I think that would be quite amazing.” Let the games begin.

Haider Ackermann Is Named Creative Director Of Tom Ford

Haider Ackermann is the new creative director of Tom Ford, effective today. “It is with tremendous pride that I will seek to honour the legacy of Tom Ford, a man I have long admired and have the utmost respect for,” said Ackermann in a statement released this morning as he was named in the role by Ford’s owner, The Estée Lauder Companies Inc (ELC).

“We are thrilled to welcome Haider Ackermann to Tom Ford,” William P Lauder, executive chairman of ELC, said in a statement to Vogue Business: “Haider’s appointment strengthens our ambitions for this enormously successful brand. His unique and insightful vision will further enhance the house’s global impact on fashion and culture.” Ford, who founded his eponymous brand in 2005, stepped down in 2023 following its $2.8 billion sale to ELC the previous year.

Ackermann, who was born in Bogotá, Colombia, and adopted by a French family, will be based in his home city of Paris, the brand said today. His role makes him responsible for shaping all of Tom Ford’s fashion output, including womenswear, menswear, accessories and eyewear. He will also “guide the creative vision for the overall brand”, the company’s statement added. The first full view of his interpretation of the codes established and refined by Ford will be revealed in Paris next March at a runway show during the autumn/winter 2025 edition of Paris Fashion Week.

One person already requesting his ticket for that show is Tom Ford himself, who greeted today’s news warmly. He said: “I have long been a great fan of Haider’s work. I find both his womenswear and menswear equally compelling. He is an incredible colourist, his tailoring is sharp, and above all, he is modern. We share many of the same historical references, and I could not be more excited to see what he does with the brand. I suspect that I will be the first on my feet to applaud after his show in March.”

Following Ford’s graceful exit, the brand was initially helmed by Peter Hawkings – a company veteran who had worked under the founder for nearly 25 years. He exited suddenly this past July.

In Ackermann, the brand has pivoted to a designer who is deeply au fait with fashion’s limelight. A seasoned creative leader, he operated his eponymous label for nearly two decades until 2020. Karl Lagerfeld famously once nominated Ackermann as a possible future candidate to replace him at Chanel. That didn’t happen – or at least it hasn’t yet – although Ackermann was appointed by Antoine Arnault to a critically acclaimed stint at the helm of the LVMH-owned masculine maison Berluti.

So what will Ackermann, as an established star designer in his own right, bring to Tom Ford? The merging of his design with the codes of its founder represents an intriguing fashion prospect: both designers have respectively developed their own aesthetic dialects that, while highly distinct, also overlap in their blending of profound sensuality with strict rigour. Furthermore, Ackermann’s chief métier has always been womenswear, a category which the brand’s fashion licensee, Ermenegildo Zegna Group, is especially keen to grow. Another Ackermann attribute that overlaps with Ford is their adjacency to Hollywood – the designer is especially close to Tilda Swinton and Timothée Chalamet.

In April 2023, the sale of the Tom Ford brand was completed in a deal that saw his existing partners in beauty, eyewear and ready-to-wear assume control. Tom Ford International, the company formerly responsible for the Tom Ford fashion business, was fully acquired by the Milan-based Ermenegildo Zegna Group. The acquisition was part of a joint operation led by ELC, Tom Ford’s existing beauty partner, and Marcolin, its eyewear partner.

In a statement shared with Vogue Business, Ermenegildo ‘Gildo’ Zegna, chairman and CEO of Ermenegildo Zegna Group, said: “The Tom Ford fashion business has long had tremendous growth potential. The appointment of Haider as the brand’s new creative director will further strengthen the team we are building and makes me even more confident in the future of Tom Ford Fashion.” It is understood that Zegna’s prime ambition for Tom Ford ready-to-wear is to expand its womenswear sales, which, in 2023, accounted for 30 per cent of Tom Ford Fashion revenues.

Ackermann appears powerfully qualified both to navigate and drive that growth. His own much-lamented eponymous line came to a sudden and surprising halt in 2020. Since then, the designer – who, as a child, lived with his family in countries including Ethiopia, Chad, Algeria and The Netherlands – has been in a second phase of creative wandering. Recent employment has included roles at Maison Ullens, Fila and Canada Goose, as well as a deservedly lauded cameo season at Jean Paul Gaultier couture.

Now from Paris, Ackermann will enjoy a newly stable environment in which to develop his aesthetic around the foundations established by Tom Ford. Reflecting the structure of the brand, he will report to both Guillaume Jesel, president and CEO of Tom Ford and luxury business development at ELC, as well as Lelio Gavazza, CEO of Tom Ford Fashion at Ermenegildo Zegna Group.

Today, Jesel hailed Ackermann as “one of the world’s most visionary and inspiring talents in fashion”, adding: “He draws on his deep affinity for global culture and the arts to create arresting fashion and memorable emotional connections.” Gavazza added of Ackermann: “His renowned experience in luxury will be instrumental in driving the fashion business forward during its next important phase of expansion.”

Clare Waight Keller Is Uniqlo’s New Creative Director

Clare Waight Keller’s debut Uniqlo: C collection launched last September, and it’s safe to say that the new sub-label has been a success. Today, she’s here in New York to show off the new autumn/winter season, and she comes with a new title: creative director, meaning she now oversees not just the Uniqlo: C line she was hired to develop last year, but also the brand’s core offerings, which so many of us know and love and wear so often.

You know which ones I mean: all the cashmere, the merino, basically anything under the LifeWear umbrella. “What you’ll start to notice,” Waight Keller says, “is that within some of those core programmes there’ll be new fashion shapes, and there’ll be new silhouettes that drop every other month, to really bring in the freshness.” Among the developments that will register, she explains, are updates to the overall colour palette. “I’ve got my hands all over that.” On the women’s side, look for more femininity, more prints, and more exploration in terms of pattern and cut, and younger, trending silhouettes. “Uniqlo appeals to such a big audience,” she says, “but a big chunk that they really capture is that younger age bracket. It’s a fast-moving market, so there’s a lot to learn there.”

Waight Keller hails from the salons of Paris; she was at Givenchy for three years and at Chloé for six before that, and she’s upfront about the learning curve at Uniqlo. “In the fashion industry, especially luxury, it’s all about change, change, change. What are the new proportions? The new silhouettes? That’s important to keep things moving, but the truth is, it’s the timeless pieces that people buy in a big, big way.”

One of the first categories she’s turned her eye to is denim. A new wide-leg style has become “one of the globally top-selling styles” since launching. In menswear, you can expect softer tailored jackets and “more interesting oversized shapes.” Then, as September edges into October her new Pufftech styles will start filtering into the stores, and she says it’s not just the palette that will be new, but also the proportions and “the way that they’re styled.”

Waight Keller has noticed her own style changing since starting to work full-time at Uniqlo. These days she’s pairing her tailored jackets with white tees and cargo pants or men’s parachute pants. “The Uniqlo customer has this sort of everyday casualness which is really quite appealing,” she says. “It’s a bit more active-sporty than the very refined, let’s say, wardrobe I had before. I’m enjoying the fact that everything’s cotton and fresh and washable.”

What about all those autumn/winter 2024 season headlines touting the return of dressing up? “I don’t see it myself,” she says. “I travel so much” – indeed, in between our conversation in late August, which she conducted from the English seaside, and her arrival in New York, she was in Japan for several days of work – “I’m observing people constantly and the big takeaways are that everyday style has evolved from Covid. There’s a relaxed sense of wanting to look smart-ish but actually feel super-comfortable. This is my mission at Uniqlo: to create that comfort with a strong sense of fashion, because I think that’s the sweet spot – something that feels great, makes you look good, but actually has a complete ease to it.”

There’s one more growth area she wants to talk about. “I’ve got a very good collection of flat shoes now. That’s always the go-to, on the run, with travel. But there’s still not a good selection in the market. That’s a category that’s going to expand [at Uniqlo], as well.”

Fashion East Reveals Its Expansive New Class Of 2024

There will be 70-something designers participating in London’s spring/summer 2025 season, and at least 13 of them will have debuted as part of Fashion East. The capital owes a great deal to this beloved incubation programme, which has for the past 24 years nurtured the careers of – deep breath, because it always bears repeating – Kim Jones, Stefan Cooke, Craig Green, Maximilian Davis, Charles Jeffrey, Grace Wales Bonner, Supriya Lele, Simone Rocha, Jonathan Anderson, Knwls, Mowalola and Martine Rose. Much has been made of these unique discoveries, but Fashion East is at heart a forward-looking institution, and its latest cohort builds on a new and expansive era.

And so: Fashion East is announcing the names of its new cohort – Pia Schiele of the skate brand Loutre, Cameron Williams and Jebi Labembika of Nuba, and footwear designer Kitty Shukman – who will mount collections alongside returning artists Samara Scott and Tayah Leigh Barrs of Sos Skyn and designer Olly Shinder on 13 September at the Truman Brewery in Shoreditch. It’s the meatiest line-up in a while. “We couldn’t resist supporting five talents this season,” founder Lulu Kennedy and partner-in-crime Raphaelle Moore explain. “It’s a myriad of art, fantasy, queer club culture, elegance and luxury streetwear. But it’s best if we don't try and explain it. We’d rather you experience it, feel it and wear it.”

The golden ticket had been a longtime coming for each of Fashion East’s recruits. Kennedy and Moore had already spotted Loutre’s patchwork knits and hirsute jackets – cornerstones of the German-born Schiele’s deconstructed-reconstructed approach to upcycled design since having founded the brand in 2018 – on the content creator Deba Hekmat and Corteiz’s Clint. Nuba, too, had spent years roosting in their minds. Cameron started the label as a Central Saint Martins graduate in 2020, and his classmate Labembika joined as co-creative director in 2023 with the launch of an elegant and at times imposing collection of felted wool Melton coats, draped cloaks and nylon skirts. As for Shukman: “It’s impossible to miss her incredible creativity and footwear on Instagram,” the duo say of the former Yeezy designer’s strange experiments in 3D-printing. “We met IRL and loved her.”

This season will also mark Shinder’s final collection with Fashion East. His designs – wear them and you’ll feel wrong in a way that feels right – stick big, rubber-gloved fists into traditional working clothes, and have been some of the most impressive to have surfaced on the London catwalks in recent years. “I’m steering clear of reinvention,” he said of his previous collection. “It’s not a sustainable approach for me. My fascination lies in uniforms with an underlying theme of kink.” Shinder will be in good company alongside recent Fashion East alums Standing Ground, Johanna Parv and Karoline Vitto should he make the decision to go solo next season.

Eckhaus Latta Reinvents The NYFW Show With… A Fashion Show

My journey to attend Eckhaus Latta’s spring 2025 presentation – which was billed as a dinner in a privately owned Tribeca space – started a few days before the event. That’s when I arrived at a private suite in the East Village’s Standard Hotel for an appointment with founders Zoe Latta and Mike Eckhaus. “We’ve done a lot of runway shows and wanted to do something different this season,” Eckhaus says moments after I enter the suite. Latta adds with a grin: “It’ll be a beautiful dinner but with about seven minutes of interlude.”

The duo brings me into a room with the season’s lookbook papered up on the wall. There are also hanging racks filled with those very designs, and Latta has pulled aside a selection of the brand’s spring offerings, explaining that the uniform for the evening is the spring collection. Am I being styled by the designers for their event? I’m instantly nervous. “We’re asking everybody to style the pieces however they want,” Latta says. After a few rounds of dress up – a cream and grey pinstripe open-back dress, a soft olive knit mini with an octopus-like black edge creeping out from underneath – we settle upon the Twyla dress, a reversible knit number in chocolate brown and lilac. Eckhaus snaps a photo of me in the ‘fit. This should have been a hint at what was coming next.

Inside the party, fashion’s coolest – second daughter Ella Elmhoff, stylist and newly-Lichtenstein yellow Dara Allen, singer King Princess, comedian Kate Berlant – mix and mingle until we are ushered upstairs to the main event. The verdant tablescape has cold noodles from Momofuku waiting, and we’re encouraged to dig in. And after a word of thanks from our hosts, suddenly Berlant, almost in a guerilla-style coup (which she later tells me was a “performance interruption”), grabs the mic. “I can’t help but notice how this area between the tables looks like a runway…” she teases. Oh shit. “This is an improvised toast turned runway show!” Berlant declares, then gives us a walk, fluffing her Julia Roberts curls as she goes.

Immediately, the crowd starts to clap and scream. Real models, musicians, and more all take a spin at walking while a single lit cigarette – both modelling prop and mignardise – is passed hand to hand. Jemima Kirke takes a puff while going chair-to-chair asking “do you have a pair of sunglasses?” It was 9:30 pm, so I hadn’t packed a pair, but the sartorially prepared Julia Hobbs shares hers. Shirts are coming off, the crowd is screaming, Berlant is begging for more models – and I’m glued to my seat. As singer Loren Kramer freestyles R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion,” all I can think is I’m going to lose my dinner if I have to get up there.