A couple of weeks back, Thom Browne presented its Fall 2022 collection in New York. The show quickly picked up traction online, mostly due to its exaggerated proportions and surrealist themes. Combining Browne’s signature colour codes and design motifs with a sense of the bizarre, the collection and presentation felt like an ode to childhood. If your childhood was spent on acid.
Silhouettes were bold and impossible – exploded petticoats emerged out of box torso pieces, meant to represent the bulkiness of toy soldiers. Thom Browne’s fascination with lobsters in fashion continued, with gargantuan lobster claws peeking out from wrist cuffs. One look took the baseball motif from previous seasons, and reworked it into a sculptural upper body piece.
In the accessories department, toys took centre stage and front row. The show was attended by a real life audience, but also one entirely filled with teddy bears, who were given the best seats in the house. Bags drew on this theme too – made to emulate toy trucks, Jack in the Boxes, or the traditional letter cubes. Headwear was equally as striking – taking up space and expanding the parameters of what we think of accessories as being.
Proportions were erupted, practicality ignored, and playfulness well and truly exuded. With such a big return to the runway, we asked our community for their thoughts on the show.
For a show that had the scope to be fairly controversial, it seems that lots of people actually really liked it. Dan pointed out how difference is not a bad thing, commenting that they “think it’s great. I’m honestly bored of how commercial the fashion show became in the sense that they’re not showcases of art anymore and this one feels refreshing”. It seems from the like count that over 300 of you agree.
Equally, Paymee looked to how the surrealist show worked to shift perceptions of what fashion could and should be, adding that they “really enjoy this, it bends the ideas of what tailored clothing should be”, whilst @lepepe23 called for more of this creativity in couture – “This is what haute couture should be like, so mesmerizing”.
Elsewhere, the humour of the collection wasn’t entirely lost, with user @fartbender3 commented that “bro tryna be the Willy Wonka of fashion”. However, the biggest takeaway from the community was the show’s ability to blend fashion and art – disrupting the two spheres and bringing them together on a global level, regardless of what you personally think of the pieces.. Perhaps Plushpuppy said it best: “I love it but I also love that people could hate it. good art brings emotions no matter what that emotion be.” We’d have to agree.
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