“I want to give them the experience that fashion is more than just clothes,” Thom Browne said shortly before a show that moved just like that. Presented in partnership VogueDipper is relative GQ As a warm-up event for this year’s Super Bowl, Brown’s GQ Bowl Runway features NFL stars Marcus Allen, Justin Jefferson, and Deandre Hopkins. The brown-clad crowd watching him walk was populated with cultural players including Tiana Taylor and Francois Arnaud. Given the circumstances, Brown could have put on a gridiron-themed show that was all fireworks, pigskin and cheerleaders. Instead, he took his audience to the gates of hell.
The show took place on a runway at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco that was overlooked by Rodin Three colorswas originally conceived by the artist as part of a rendering of the front door to Dante’s Inferno. It was prefaced by a video by Vinnie Hacker, a brown-based artist, in which the host walks across saturated cityscapes in a manner reminiscent of Michael Douglas. to fall. And it was narrated by actor Yahya Abdelmatin, who followed the hacker and settled himself behind a typical Brown-style, office-hell desk beneath a Rodin statue as his raucous reading from Dante’s masterwork was broadcast across the room. Brown said: “He’s wondering ‘what is life?’ And he’s thinking, ‘What is it to be a good person?’ It’s a universal theme, and it’s beautiful.
Dante’s narrator is surveying his own life and expanding the possibilities for what follows. A little less poetically, Brown was also engaged in a survey here. Perhaps with an ethical audience in the living room and beyond in mind, he stayed true to his proportionally tailored origin story and presented Brown’s 101 of perfectly fitted sack jackets on a variety of podiums from short shorts, bermuda shorts, kilts and more. “I like things to be ready rather than changing: I’m moving towards the airless and the timeless,” he said.
That core message was embellished with brown-flavored accessories including five-stripes headphones and skin-drops, a proprietary sartorial take on the ASICS Gel-Keanu 14 sneaker. It’s also fueled by looks that showcase the talent that has evolved from Brown’s original tailoring revelation. These included a women’s cricket sweater, with ruffles at the hem, which was embroidered in navy dress fabric underneath. A coat was crafted in woven leather in a Woseley-sized Prince of Wales houndstooth check. Jessica Stam wore a natural intarsia snapshot of Brown’s imagined Nantucket winter wonderland that featured Jawsa romantic ski lift ride, and a traditional cameo from Hector. A perfecto jacket was elongated and refined into a leather trench, and two closing looks—a tulle trench and a cape—featured an infinity of hand embroidered embellishment applied by Browne’s atelier.
