Thom Browne charms Paris with his couture wonderland

By

Dominique Muret

Translated by
Nicola Mira

Published
Oct 4, 2017

Thom Browne made a successful landing on the Paris Fashion Week planet. After showing with menswear last June, the US designer has also brought his women's ready-to-wear fashion to the French capital, with a Spring/Summer 2018 collection at once rare and inventive, regaling his audience with an enchanting fable set within the sumptuous salons of the Hôtel de Ville.

Two white-clad women from Mars, their head encased in a globe, opened the phantasmagoric show - its rhythm strangely calm on the Fashion Week's frenetic last day - by tiptoeing across the catwalk to recount their dream: the lavish collection designed by Thom Browne, alive with an incredible variety of registers, materials, cuts, styles and decorations.

The models perched on vertiginous laced shoes worn with short black socks, one of them with white stripes. Embroidered capes enveloped sheath dresses trimmed with pearly tulle. Some outfits, in cleverly woven fabrics, seemed to be deconstructed, showing glimpses of the models' bodies through horizontal slits.

Browne offered a whole new take on his design codes - checks and suits for example - that was big on asymmetry, with oversize shapes on one side of the body and normal ones on the other. Several dresses and jackets looked sculpted, burgeoning at the shoulders or the lower back, like strange, Michelin-man-style outfits.

Elsewhere, the clothes' cocooning shapes ended in a flurry of fringes and weaves, like on the chinchilla coat. Browne also used tulle bows to add volume to oversize jackets.

A few zests of folly put the finishing touches to the whole cosmic wardrobe: an octopus resting on the back of an overcoat, extending its sculptured tentacles, or a skeleton in silvery sequins swaying to the rhythm of the model's steps over a black tunic.

The show ended in style, with an elegant white organza unicorn trotting after the snow queen of this far-off planet, as she came to salute the audience.

A very fine display by the US designer, who is also currently the main attraction at Parisian concept store Colette, whose first-floor area he has taken over until 28th October.