Thom Browne Men's Collection 10s/s

Thom Browne the showman has often gotten in the way of Thom Browne the designer, with the archness of his presentations infecting his collections. But shorn of the ceremony and shown simply in his Tribeca shop, Browne's clothes felt refreshed, confident, and as upbeat as the soundtrack of Beatles songs. Maybe it's something to do with a new business structure that will finally allow for the kind of growth Browne has long craved. Maybe the prospect of that growth inspired him to expand on his odd and insular aesthetic, to let more people in, as it were. Has his experience designing for Moncler and Black Fleece by Brooks Brothers broadened his repertoire? Whatever, there was a whole lot more to like in this collection, and it felt like Browne himself was really having fun with the design process. Best of all were the suits in distressed and mended fabrics (one in Prince of Wales, another in seersucker). Browne called them "Robinson Crusoe suits," because he was thinking of a castaway living in his clothes through thick and thin (the way he'd like men to wear his suits in the city). The Fair Isle from Fall (remember the bunny rabbits?) was summer-ized in print and knit with palm trees and swordfish. It looked great. Marks of a new accessibility were proportions more generous than before, and outfits that broke down more easily into individual pieces: silver cargo shorts, for instance, or a topstitched navy jacket with a little peak to its shoulder, or a tan coat-jacket worn over jersey pants (with someone as rarefied as Browne, one hesitates to call them sweats).A white coat with a cutout circular motif suggested Courrèges and his spacey sixties designs. So did a helmet with goggles. Not at all, laughed Browne. He just loves polka dots and Darth Vader. That's what I mean about the lightheartedness. It was winning enough that it compelled indulgence of Browne's signature oddities: the floating nylon curtain wrapped around the waist, the halter-neck playsuit in white piqué, the decontamination suit, the collarless double-breasted jacket with an unflattering portrait neckline. On the other hand, a full-length Japanese-influenced wrap dress in black nylon had a sinuously weird charm as an alternative—make that very alternative—evening option.