Alone on a lonely platform 80
a case sits beside him
These are the opening lyrics to Visage’s “Fade to Grey,” a nod to Thom Browne’s earlier this month The apt description of the opening of ’s first show was in Paris—except that the man was model Alek Wek, and the suitcase next to her was a bespoke Thom Browne suitcase. That’s because the piece is the starting point for Browne to conceive his latest collection, which he tells us on the way from the Paris Ritz to his offices in Paris’ eighth arrondissement. In the latest episode of “A Day in the Life.”
“Andrew and I were listening to music and this Visage song came on,” Brown said after breakfast (“something unhealthy”) at his hotel,” I wanted the collection to be a little sombre, not so upbeat,” explained the designer. The play tells the story of a woman waiting for a train at a train station, looking at passers-by in haute couture clothes and thinking about her own thoughts. There are numerous gray suits and some underwater motifs to emphasize her drowning in grief. “Things weren’t always so happy,” Brown said.
However, one thing that does spark joy are accessories. “Seeing the clothes on the body is always the most exciting moment,” Browne says when he meets design director Thi Wan, walks through the collection, and begins fitting the models. As is Brown’s rule, his series includes a narrative, so not just a board with appearances, but a board outlining characters: there’s our melancholy passenger, played by Wake, a The model in the visual depicts a gray suit with bells, several doves (one of which is played by Broadway mogul Jordan Ross), a bride and, of course, the conductor and a train, the latter wearing a train headgear. “Sometimes I like to be a little corny,” Brown said with a laugh.
Brown explained that the entire collection was underscored by using his now-iconic signature gray suit as a cornerstone. His business and unifying aesthetic. Each look embodies Native American-inspired couture style. Take the meticulously hand-beaded seersucker—which Browne & co. wears throughout the video (no surprises here)—as an example of reinterpreting the vernacular of American dress through the lens of the very essence of Parisian couture. 80
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