Take a pinch of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (“Eat Me”). Add just a dash Animal Farm (Stephen Jones’s pig mask was especially intense) and maybe a soupçon of Eyes Wide Shut. Scatter as seasoning into a significant mixture of Thom Browne. Et voila!
Browne will present a coed runway show in Paris during womenswear week shortly. So to change things up a bit, for the first season since he started presenting shows (with menswear, of course) Browne stepped off the schedule and presented his collection via appointment instead. This meant a visit to his Paris studio on Avenue Montaigne, some dense but lower pressure conversation than is usually available post-show, some cake, and these “twisted and surreal” pictures.
To be clear, the collection shown alongside women’s will be “a totally different experience.” Here, said Browne, he had wanted “to tell a beautiful story of the animals coming together and celebrating, and celebrating by eating the Thom Browne man.” This story, he expanded po-faced (Browne would make a great poker player) stemmed from “his love and appreciation for the animals” and a desire to see them turn the tables on their rapacious human overlords. There was, he said, no metaphor and no subtext, just a desire to “make some really beautiful images.” Yeah, right.
To conjure them he, his team, and his cast had gathered the day before in the Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild with a beautiful old car hired for the occasion from a gentleman in Normandy. Stephen Jones made masks, fashioned from wool over papier-mâché, each emanating distinct personalities. The host, a Mr. Giraffe, was a flirt. Mr. Lion had dilated scarlet pupils; he was wild. Mr. Pig had a fixed, fierce stare: enraged. Mr. Rhino was grumpily endearing. Mr. Elephant was comfortable in his skin: happy. And so on. (At the invitation of Browne, I tried on Mr. Lion, it felt grrrr.)
The focal point of their animal debauch had been baked by a specialist in Belgium, Browne said. It was a vanilla-flavored layer cake dyed tricolor, and quite beautifully iced (especially the stitching on the cuffs). Although half-eaten it was now back in the studio, holding up nicely, and extremely sweet. As an aside Browne revealed himself to be a committed fan of the British baking show, as you call it, and lamented its latter lack of Mary Berry. For her to return, we agreed would be icing.
It was lovely to go through the rails with Browne and dig into his clothes along with his cake. He name-checked some of his favorite long-term suppliers—Harris Tweed, Corgi, Bonner, Golden Bear, Sanders—from which he sources the ingredients for his own classic-with-a-(twisted)-twist menswear recipes. Favorite pieces for me blended traditional fabrics with a more deconstructed sports-sourced shape: Particularly tasty was a streamlined poacher’s jacket that mixed houndstooth and Prince of Wales and a red-checked bomber. There was also a play of windowpane check over bluish Prince of Wales check in topcoats, skirts, and jackets. The tattered hems on some similarly patterned pieces brought bouclé and womenswear to mind.
Accessories included some sporty new striped down-filled bags and a new shoe featuring a leather upper insulated by a wing tip– shaped section of galvanized rubber: Totally waterproof, Browne said. Personally as someone who is used to watching Browne’s clothes perform rather than ever seeing myself inhabiting them, this one-off showroom experience brought home (in a way his shows rarely do) that once you strip down the theatrics and rationalize the silhouette, the offer is very appetizing indeed.
