Soirée chez Browne

Call it bonkers.  Call it a vanity project.  Call it a flighty fancy.  Call it what you will but at the very least, gratitude must be expressed for figures like Thom Browne to exist within New York's somewhat rigid fashion infrastructure and to have the luxury to put on a presentation like the one I saw yesterday.  This was the sort of mise-en-scene that went beyond the call of duty with every detail of this vaguely 20s/30s cocktail party completely considered from the cocktail cabinet to the glass decanter.  This was a party that nodded to decades without playing out cliches, and that was largely down to Browne's actual clothes.  I do have a penchant for the theatrics but in this instance, it isn't what swayed this piccy post.

We entered with models standing still that looked half ready to dive into a synchronised swim formation with elegant swimcaps and goggles, except they'd be hampered by floor length pleated dresses and a silver sequinned fishtail hem.  I was thinking these still life beauties were like the party 'tricks', the pretty little things that would 'entertain' the 'guests'…

We then have our madcap hostess, a figure that is aged by a disappearing neck, caused by a jacket that is severely padded at the shoulder holding her Cruella de Vil cigarette holder in dramatic fashion.  Browne's layering tricks really comes alive, despite it being a S/S 12 collection (actually, should we be talking about the practicalities of seasons where Browne is involved…) and our hostess is stuffed to the brim with jackets, a circl skirt that is proportioned to flare out at mid-calf.  

Then the guests started to arrive one by one each sporting an ensemble that increased in levels of one-upmanship.  Underneath the 'Muah-muah' air kissing and faux conversation, you could tell there was meant to be an underlying hostility, something not so genteel and despite this all being role-play, there was something about it all that had you drawing parallels with modern day fashionable soir√©es. 

Whilst the mood of the party evoked The Great Gatsby, 1920s silver screen and characters in Evelyn Waugh novels, you couldn't exactly pin down a decade on the actual clothes precise because Browne's own distinctive signature overrides any historic references you had in mind.  Sure, there's a flapper fringed dress, a 40s' Joan Crawford-esque shoulder and plenty of dropped waists but when rendered in Thom Browne's language, each outfit is a feat to be admired for its sheer bravada, not for nostalgic reverb.  Browne's love of the leisurely pursuit (themes that he has explored in previous mens collections and for Moncler) is literally embedded here amongst luxurious brocades, beautiful suit fabrics and Prince of Wales check, sometimes for effect of comedy as a necklace of rubber ducks adorns a cocoon caped creature. 

Likewise, Browne's innovation comes in bending classic notions and turning them topsy turvy…. a button down skirt that is suspended until it practically touches the floor revealing more leg than the conventional stocking suspender, a masculine waistcoat elongated until it's almost like a dress, a striped oxford shirts spliced and placed as wide waistbands, heavy tennis skirt pleats hanging at the bottom of a delicately sheer black dress… the twists go on and on.  It's all proportionally and texturally wrong in so many ways yet there lies Browne's prowess that in womenswear which he has only been doing for a few seasons, he is able to have such a wide scope to play with.  Cynics might say that his lucrative collaborations with Brooks Brothers and Moncler give him the opportunity to put on such a show but even if that was the case, you have to applaud him for pushing the boat out to this degree, in a fashion week where the words 'Off-The-Chart' aren't actually used that often.  This particular week has also seen TRENDS emerge with capital letters, often in an overly obvious way that you do end up wanting to be surprised and Browne manages to do just that in his strangely familiar way.  

I've not seen it in a showroom situ but I'm sure like any other highly stylised show, when broken down, it most probably looks like an entirely different picture.  For now though, from the perspective of somebody that craves braveness with a striking point of view, Thom Browne hits that spot right on.