Forgive a bad joke: This season, Thom Browne turned over a new leaf. That was true in the most literal sense, as Browne introduced both leaf-shaped jewelry, made in collaboration with Sarah Jane Wilde, and a leaf-patterned jacquard that Browne said was his take on camouflage. (It was interesting to imagine the background a woman wearing Brownes snug, red-blue-and-white-leaf jacquard coat might be hoping to blend into, but anyway.) Moreover, you could say that Browne was turning over a new leaf metaphorically, as well, since this collection found him doing quite a bit of tinkering with his tailoring.
Many of the looks here featured curved seams or spiral construction, like the flared and pencil-fit dresses composed of pieces of tie silk helixed around the body. Elsewhere, Browne gave his suiting a twist by dropping the shoulder of a blazer, or working plaid knits in the same way he would have done a bouclé or a tweed. The effect of all this experimentation was idiosyncratic but not inaccessible; the styling was quirkier overall than any of the silhouettes. It was easy to lose sight of the high-toned elegance of some of these looks, like the silver velvet coat with a shaved mink collar, which was an evening topper with a high glamour quotient, indeed. You might also be tempted to lodge the complaint that it would be hard to imagine the girl wearing the rugby-striped knit miniskirt and V-neck set also being the woman who wears that silver coat, but then, as Whitman famously asserted, we all contain multitudes. Maybe he wrote that in Leaves of Grass?
