FASHION

By Benjamin Judd

All Aboard For Thom Browne’s Debut Fall Couture 2023 Collection In Paris

The American designer hops on the couture train with his signature style

PARIS, FRANCE – JULY 03: Models walk the runway during the Thom Browne Haute Couture Fall/Winter 2023/2024 show as part of Paris Fashion Week on July 03, 2023 in Paris, France. (Photo by Thierry Chesnot/Getty Images)

The thought that Thom Browne, one of America’s most visionary designers working today, is only now in 2023 debuting an official haute couture collection in Paris will remain one of life’s mysteries. If Browne’s sculptural creations, which often transcend fashion into mobile art, are not couture then what is?

But here we are. Specifically, the Palais Garnier where Browne revealed not only could he hold his own amongst the more familiar couture names but had also found, artistically speaking, his sartorial home and making history as the first American to do so since Ralph Rucci back in 2009.

As with every Thom Browne collection, this one told a story too: one that integrated the American on Paris soil. The Palais had been transformed into the bare bones of a train station, with two male models armed with luggage escorting Alek Wek onto the platform. All three clad in familiar house codes of grey tailoring.

PARIS, FRANCE – JULY 3: (EDITORIAL USE ONLY – For Non-Editorial use please seek approval from Fashion House) A model walks the runway during the Thom Browne Haute Couture Fall/Winter 2023/2024 show as part of Paris Fashion Week on July 3, 2023 in Paris, France. (Photo by Estrop/Getty Images)

The genderless, or at least gender fluid, collection that followed was a transAtlantic journey of gothic Americana intertwined with motifs of travel done with Browne’s signature surrealist stamp in his native shades of grey. If anyone has asked Browne if he is a fan of steampunk, the answer is yet to be revealed, but there was no small amount of inference in the collection to this genre.

Also read: Inspired by Aquatic Architecture, Iris Van Herpen’s Haute Couture Fall/Winter 2023 Collection Looks to the Undertow for a Hybrid Fantasy

Heavy felt jackets were reworked into skirts, the broad shoulders working like a crinoline on steroids. Or at least a crinoline designed by a linebacker. Those shoulders were replicated, and exaggerated, in a series of coats that cocooned their models while creating a cleverly wrought trompe l’oeil of tailoring across the front.

Adding detail to the collection was the alliteration of aforementioned travel motifs: nautical elements like anchors and ropes, patchwork lighthouses and starfish or bells and bell-shaped accessories that were a nod to the constant chiming of the bell overhead that marked the passage of time slash final boarding call. And of course, Browne’s familiar daschund.

Also read: At Giambattista Valli, A Regal Display Of Macro-Couture

Model on the runway at the Thom Browne Fall 2023 Couture Collection Fashion Show on July 3, 2023 in Paris, France. (Photo by Giovanni Giannoni/WWD via Getty Images)

Underpinning every design in the collection was the same blueprint: the grey suit. Even the most abstract of pieces could be traced back to its sartorial architecture whether it was a taffeta ballgown, a base layer shirt with printed tie or Browne’s take on bridal: a sheer, glittering white coat dress with elongated train (pun obviously intended).

Why it has taken so long for Browne, whose garments veer between the abstract, the inspired absurd and razor sharp, minimalist tailoring, to participate is anyone’s guess but hopefully this isn’t his last.