OBJECTS OF DESIRE

Haider remembers quite clearly the moment he first came into contact with Jacques Marie Mage. Sitting at a café, he noticed a man wearing what he considered to be strong and eccentric sunglasses. “I kept on observing him,” Haider explained, “because wearing such sunglasses made me curious about other things: what is he doing with his hands, what is he reading? The glasses provoked a total story.”

Months later, they surfaced again. A friend at dinner, another pair of sunglasses, again too heavy for his taste yet unmistakable in their presence. When he asked, the answer was the same: Jacques Marie Mage.

“That name started to resonate many more times inside my head until one day I got a phone call from [VP of Brand] Steffy Lizi who proposed to me that we talk ,” says Haider. “And I thought, this is really bizarre; this is so strange and beautiful, because I don't remember names in general, but I did remember this one.” 

Ackermann’s own work has always operated in a similar register. Born in Bogotá and shaped by a life lived across Ethiopia, Chad, France, and Belgium, his sensibility resists easy classification. His collections balance sharp tailoring with fluid drapery, precision and discipline with instinct and a certain romantic disarray.

After founding his eponymous label in Paris, he quickly established himself as a designer’s designer, admired for a language that refused excess while never abandoning emotion. His tenure at Berluti expanded that vocabulary, bringing a sharper sensuality to the house. Today, as creative director of Tom Ford, he continues to extend his influence, refining a vision grounded in a deep understanding of desire. And yet, what drew him to this collaboration was not similarity.

“I find that there is something very immaculate about Jacques Marie Mage eyewear. Every line is very straight, very perfect, there's thought behind it. And when you see Mr. Jérôme himself, it's the same—everything is perfect, thought-through, and detailed,” says Haider, adding “Personally, I'm much more vagabond than this, much more laid back.”

The contrast was both the attraction, and the point. 

“I admire people who are the opposite of me, and to collaborate with someone who is my opposite, it's a challenge and it's immersive in this amazing way because it adds to your vocabulary and it makes you think. And in this time that we live in, anyone that can provoke your thoughts is interesting.”

The collection itself is both deliberate and daring, offering three core styles—the Melchior, Balthazar, and Gaspard—that each represent an exploration of line, proportion, and material. The silhouettes move between bold and minimal, translating Ackermann’s approach into objects that are at once composed and expressive.

“I was drawn to the eyewear's eccentricity, it's kind of madness,” he explains. “So I wanted to play more, more than I usually play. Jacques Marie Mage gave me that total freedom, which was really nice. So we pushed things further and it was just, playfulness—we were play companions in this joy of creating something: an object of desire.”

This underlying ethos of play, attraction, and seduction comes into direct convergence with the designer’s overarching philosophy of eyewear as protection—as a most vital ally in an individual’s defense against contemporary culture’s constant demand for visibility.

“That, for me, is the beauty of eyewear,” says Haider, “it protects your soul. And that sounds very strange. But I don’t put sunglasses on because of the sun. I put them on when I know that at a dinner or wherever I go, I need to protect myself; I need to protect my soul. That's why I wear them.”

It is truly a striking idea: that an object can serve simultaneously as both shield and signal; that it can project identity while simultaneously withholding it. This duality runs through the collection, with eyewear that asserts presence while offering refuge, the politics of desire shaping both how we present and protect ourselves.