Astronauts used to head into space with vials of fragrance that would keep Earth close. Freshly cut grass was apparently the most popular. Thom Browne's venue reeked of it. The most comforting scent on the planet paired with the most deliberately discomforting men's collection? No, I won't go there. This time around, Thom actually reined in most of his more outré tendencies in favor of a relatively crisp, clean dissertation on American sportswear. And he did mean sports, as in Flushing Meadows. Terry headbands and armbands, embroidered criss-crossed racquets as a recurring motif, white polo shirts and shorts—bits and pieces to gladden a ball boy's heart were complemented by patrician seersuckers and paisleys, but as usual the hiked-high schoolboy proportions made you think that the Browne man's mom still buys his clothes for him—and that Norman Bates-ian notion flowered in the parade of shorts, long socks, and Church's-for-Thom shoes.And suddenly, the outré effortlessly reasserted itself: The checkerboard train on a racquet-embroidered coat, the gangsta-style low-slung shorts, the endlessly reiterated waders, and—the coup de grâce—the giant tutu that closed the show. They all whiffed of Thom's ongoing Barnum and Bailey assault on masculine convention. Browne's bigger picture is hovering into view. Those low-slung shorts, for instance. You could say they offered a new take on his continuing fascination with male powerlessness: a man caught with his pants down.
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