Themes and theatrics are par for the course at a Thom Browne show, be it in New York, Paris or Milan for the various collections he designs for men and women at his own label, Black Fleece by Brooks Brothers or Moncler Gamme Bleu. He underscored his latest effort with a twisted forest landscape, replete with plaid and tweed-covered oaks with woodland fauna crawling at their roots. Later he transformed his models with a millinery menagerie by Stephen Jones, their Surrealist animal heads and hats atop Browne's signature suiting that had been fringed in 4-pocket bouclé wools, or felt checks layered with kilts and shorts. In an about turn halfway, the one-note greige tailoring was upended by a bell-shaped silhouette adorned with peeling oak leaf embroideries - the models faces shaded in the same motif to clownish effect. Browne closed his point in a revolving finale, posing the contrasting chapters face-to-face, in an absurdist, fantasy face-off.
Photography: Anna Stokland/Jason Lloyd-Evans
