During the New York Fashion Week for the Fall-Winter 2024 season, Thom Browne made a comeback on the runway with a modern-day myth, a story that only the language of design, filled with beauty, and the boundless creativity of the American designer could create.
In an era where the fashion industry is racing with new trends, numerous fashion houses and conglomerates are completely overhauling their operational machinery just to become more “commercial,” Thom Browne stands as one of the few designers striving to preserve the “castle” of storytelling in the fashion world, safeguarding each fairytale page full of dreams against the threat of commercial flames and the quiet-luxury tsunami. While New York Fashion Week in recent years has been losing its boundary-pushing creativity in storytelling, Thom Browne might be the place to satisfy the “faithful sheep” with his limitless interpretation of fashion. When asked about the inspiration behind the collection, we often hear the familiar answer – focusing on building a timeless wardrobe, using simplicity to justify creative exhaustion. As a result, day by day, season after season, there have been numerous similar shows with identical settings, presentation styles, less grandeur, and born “boredom.”
Fortunately, not long ago, John Galliano caused a stir in the fashion world by reviving his glory days of the 90s and 00s with a Couture fashion story full of extremism under the glittering lights of Paris. That first “underground” shot laid the groundwork for Thom Browne to continue telling us American-style Gothic legends. In the dim, imaginative sky of the fashion world, those shots rekindled the once extinguished flames in the fashion realm. And once again, we find ourselves intoxicated in the realm of imagination in the land of fashion.
After a season of absence, Thom Browne returned to New York Fashion Week to treat the fashion world to magnificent performances. His last appearance on the runway was in July when he unveiled a haute couture collection at the Opera Garnier in Paris with his characteristic theatrical presentation. This time, the designer returned to The Shed at Hudson Yards, where he staged his unique interpretation of “The Little Prince.” In that artistic atmosphere, Thom Browne created a new fashion story inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Raven” (1845). “Poe is an American legend, and I am an American designer. ‘The Raven’ resonates with me, and I think the story is beautiful, romantically beautiful,” Thom Browne candidly revealed about his new design inspiration.
There is an undeniable truth that attending a Thom Browne show, one must be mentally prepared to enjoy dramatic performances, rather than just witnessing models walking back and forth for a few minutes with a cold demeanor. Thom Browne Fall 2024 still embodies that spirit, combining stagecraft, art, poetry, music,… to immerse the audience deeper into the designer’s mind. “The Raven” was first depicted by Thom Browne right on the runway. It was a snowy courtyard, a brightly lit window with a broken pane as if about to reveal interesting secrets, and a sturdy old tree standing in the middle – upon closer inspection, it seemed like a giant raven wearing Thom Browne’s long black puffer coat. And that’s also the bleak scene of loneliness, with a hint of mystery that Edgar Allan Poe narrated in the poem.
The show began with a dramatic, thrilling, and chaotic reading of the poem by actress Carrie Coon. The raven, with arms as two knobby branches, began to move, becoming the perfect backdrop for the appearance of Anna Cleveland and four children unexpectedly revealed after playing hide and seek inside the giant raven’s coat. “All the music was composed specifically for this show. I did that because Coon’s melodious voice is perfect to the point where it really doesn’t need music. It just needs background sounds,” Browne said right after the performance backstage.
Poe’s “The Raven” became more familiar in the fashion world, especially among Thom Browne’s followers, due to its signature black color palette and classic tailoring style. Browne’s eccentric coats with 1-0-2 lapels remain central pieces, refreshed with various unique combinations. There was a bold white moiré coat with intarsia prints of flying black birds, and a boxy coat with the word “nevermore” printed – the haunting cry of the raven in “The Raven” on the back. The audience couldn’t take their eyes off the oversized tweed coats seemingly dipped in dark black oil and adorned with trademark grosgrain bows, as well as flexible details like pleated hems, off-shoulder cuts, or snug fits secured by soft silk bows at the end. Or a sophisticated countryside mackintosh coat with black velvet sleeves, a sheepskin coat with pinstripes, or a padded coat with twisted shoulder pads. The bold mood board of Thom Browne Fall 2024 was not only directly interpreted through the main color palette of the collection but also completed with messy hair covering most of the face, wearing a mesh like a bird’s nest, long black nails, and quirky makeup reminiscent of the New Romantics era by makeup artist Isamaya Ffrench.
Based on the guidelines in Thom Browne’s Couture show in Paris in July and the Pre-Fall collection the month before, instead of over-decorating, the American designer focused on powerful sportswear silhouettes, sturdy protections with broad, robust shoulders, boxy shapes, dresses from the 1910s, narrow and curved at the top, paired with pants, short dresses, skinny pants, long pants, and shorts at the bottom. Indeed, the heart and soul of Thom Browne Fall 2024 completely adhere to the tailored rule that Thom has pursued for many years, accurately recreating the vocabulary of American fashion: dress shirts, bow ties, blazers, standard suits, and exquisite craftsmanship. All those vintage silhouettes were woven with fabrics like tweed, cashmeres, moiré silk,… while embellished with intarsias, embroidery, sophisticated Couture-worthy details to fully express the essence of “The Raven” poem.
Thom Browne freely showcased his boundless creativity and imagination. He added beetles to prints of black ravens; in some dignified suits from the 1910s, Thom segmented them horizontally like an insect’s body, and sculpted them more with the top layers peeling off the shoulders to reveal the lining layer as if in the process of molting, reminiscent of the character Gregor Samsa in “Kafka
