Back to the Drawing Board
Review of Thom Browne Fall 2024 Couture Fashion Show
By Mark Wittmer
THE COLLECTION
THE VIBE
THE THEME
Thom Browne’s second couture show was an homage to the artistic process told through the key ingredient in his own artistic process: tailoring. Across an almost entirely white and beige palette replete with muslin, the building block of sartorial creation, the designer recast hidden aspects of the suit making process into final masterpieces, pushing the concept of deconstruction in fashion to glorious new heights.
In keeping with Browne’s flair for incorporating elements of experimental theater, the show began with a mock tug-of-war set to a rather plodding version of “God Bless America.” Whether this was an opaque political allegory or a metaphor for the push and pull that is being a successful artist, the show really got going as the looks stepped down the runway on shoes the soles of which were studded with the eraser ends of pencils – a nod to sketching, the first stage of the design process.
From here his signature design elements were thrown into a ballet of controlled chaos; each look an asymmetrical amalgamation of fabrics – predominantly muslin – and tailoring techniques that nonetheless came together in a way that was completely harmonious. In addition to the suiting, Victorian dressmaking techniques also ran throughout the collection, with their structures reconsidered or inverted. Each model held an embroidery hoop on a stick with partially beaded faces – another theatrical nod to that idea of the work in progress.
THE BUZZWORDS
Deconstructionist. Theatrical. Self-referential. Layered.
THE SHOWSTOPPER
Look #44
In a collection that was almost ostentatious in its awareness of its own cleverness and beauty, this look was the most ostentatiously clever and beautiful: dramatic, majestic, even magical.
THE DIRECTION
THE WRAP UP
Thom Browne has always had a playfully self-aware side, and that’s what makes the seemingly disparate combination of sober, high-powered suiting and theatrical whimsicality in his work come together in a successful way. Expanding his command of tailoring into the craft of the couture atelier, his latest collection is one of the most spectacular and technically stunning examples of that vision yet.
