Designer Debuts at Tom Ford and Dries Van Noten

Attention all martini-swilling lounge lizards with a soulful side who have found themselves of late wandering, lost in a forest of athleisure and streetwear: You are about to be found. On Wednesday night in Paris, against a backdrop of gray silk and vodka, Haider Ackermann made his debut as creative director of Tom Ford and served up a recipe for the return of formality. Less dry; stirred, not shaken.

Guests milled around a room lined in low-slung banquettes, with mirrored walls — though not the sort of 1970s disco-mirrors that once characterized Mr. Ford’s own shows, but mirrors with their shine just slightly worn off; distressed mirrors. Black-clad waiters carried silver trays heavy with cut crystal lowball glasses. And there was Mr. Ford, who had sold his company in 2022, wearing all black and sandwiched between Jared Leto and Anna Wintour, waiting to see if his second hand-picked successor would be the right person to carry on his name. (The first, his longtime deputy, Peter Hawkings, had lasted only a year; no pressure.)

It felt like a private club without a name. The kind of place that if you knew, you knew. Though you didn’t quite know what would happen next.

Then came the black leather.

Leather pants and leather motorcycle jackets; leather shirts and leather ties; leather gloves and tailored leather car coats, all of it for both men and women. There was a lot of leather, but not a leather jock strap or thong in sight, which may seem like a random point (why should there be a leather jock strap?). But if you want to know the difference between Mr. Ford’s Tom Ford and Mr. Ackermann’s Tom Ford, that sort of sums it up: Mr. Ford liked a logo jock strap. The implicit proposition of skin on skin that was the foundation of Mr. Ford’s brand was there, but in a more discreet way.

And so it continued, both dutiful — Mr. Ackermann proved he understood the vocabulary of the brand, as it seems every new designer at an existing house must do these days — and promising. Nothing was too tight or cinched in. Which doesn’t mean it was casual. Many models, like Mr. Ford himself, were wearing black shades.

Brushed wool white trousers that had a sweatpant feel were slung low under a matching white wool jacket, the collar turned up, pinned to drape at the side. Long bias-cut silk skirts slipped off one hip only to be saved from slipping off entirely by the thinnest of belts, as were some loose black tie trousers. There were a lot of suits, especially for men, some of them seemingly directly inspired by Mr. Ford himself, who went through a double-breasted period in the early years of his brand. Indeed, a lot of Mr. Ackermann’s brand references seemed a throwback to early Ford, as opposed to late-stage trashy Ford. Though Mr. Ford never wore his pants quite this relaxed.

That was striking. It has been a while since we have seen proper suits — and men in ties — on a runway, but they skewed less last-century and more dreamer when suddenly doused in color: a woman’s trouser suit in dusty lilac worn with a neon green pussy-bow blouse, for example, the tie left loose, or highlighter yellow suit with a chocolate brown blouse; a pair of bright amethyst pants for a man paired with a black overcoat, or even a celadon green suit, worn with a matching ivory shirt and tie.

Occasionally, a white flower was tucked into a breast pocket or pinned to a lapel. Sometimes a thin tie-silk scarf was knotted around the neck. Toward the end, the tweeds had little sparkles. It was very poet dandy, especially a series of slick tuxedo looks, just slightly undone.

In an earlier interview, Mr. Ackermann had said he wanted the clothes to look rich, and they did. He said he wanted them to command attention, but without shouting, and most of them did. If they lacked some of the emotive longing that had always seemed woven into the fabrics of Mr. Ackermann’s previous work under his own name, if they seemed to have a cooler, more literally buttoned-up sense of their own allure, that was in line with the heritage of Mr. Ford. And the finale looks, a pair of dresses and a jacket in a silvery knit made to mimic alligator, the scales just slightly raised, combined both.

With a twist. And maybe a negroni or mint julep next time.

Meanwhile, at the Opera House …

The difficult balancing act of remaking a brand while under the watchful eye of a founder, even if the founder is theoretically no longer involved in the business, was also the challenge of Julian Klausner at Dries Van Noten. Mr. Klausner had the advantage — or disadvantage — of spending six years working with Mr. Van Noten (who was in the audience), so he is completely schooled in the codes of the brand. Maybe too schooled.

Cue the amalgamation of tie silks, brocade and men’s wear wools unveiled in his debut collection, which was held in the ornate, heavily gilded environs of the Opéra Garnier. There were big leather corset belts and tight, legging-like trousers; bags and shoes and even a coat covered in fronds of silk fringe; plaid mixed with paillettes. Also some great curtain-tasselled evening looks. In these, Mr. Klausner got the mix of materials and references that has been a Van Noten trademark, but he overcomplicated the combinations (and the draping, gathering and sometimes ruffling).

The end result missed the restraint that was the source of the tension between extreme fanciness and extreme ease that often made Mr. Van Noten’s clothes transcendent — and, for his legions of fans, addictive. Now that Mr. Klausner has gotten all that decoration out of his system, however, maybe he can start to whittle away the excess to see what might emerge. That would be a real second act.