The Thom Browne brand has been built upon a simple raison d’être: impeccable tailoring for men. From the label’s inception in 2001 to its AW17 presentation in Paris, its aptitude for reinventing the timeless suit has become a marker of its design excellence.
It has seen the designer honoured with a number of awards, including the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) Menswear Designer of the Year in both 2006 and 2013. The Thom Browne suit is synonymous with 20th-century clothing for men.
An American designer, Browne was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania in 1965. Founding his label after stints at both Giorgio Armani and Polo Ralph Lauren, the designer’s focus on re-creating the classic suit has become his way of cementing a truly distinctive American perspective that evokes the late 50s and early 60s. That viewpoint was evident in some of Browne’s earliest collections and has been continually reinvented since.
Outsized proportions and rich embellishment were on show at Thom Browne AW17. The grey-on-white colour palette allowed the designer to strip things back and focus on the essential versatility of the suit as a function of modern menswear, not to mention a key aspect of the Thom Browne aesthetic. In revisiting some of his signatures, like the precise tailoring of his suit jackets, trousers and button-down shirts, it becomes clear why the designer is now so celebrated in American fashion and abroad.
The suit jacket reinvented
The designer’s reinvention of the men’s suit began early on in his career, but still remains one of his most distinctive signatures to this day. In particular, it is the shrunken proportions of Thom Browne suit jackets that have come to define the Thom Browne aesthetic. Known for the three-button wool jacket in particular, the design is a form-fitting one that has come to symbolise both practicality and style consciousness for men all over the world.
'I thought the worst thing you could ever do to a guy was to tell him he could go to work casually', Thom Browne said in a 2015 Vanity Fair interview. 'I like the idea of something that’s classic and a uniform – but it’s really important not to make it boring.' With this in mind, the designer’s premium fabrications, bold linings and printed jacket styles all serve to keep things interesting in the jacket department. No wonder it has become such a brand hallmark.
The abbreviated suit trouser
In addition to the fitted design of his suit jackets, Thom Browne favours a slim-fit trouser that’s abbreviated through the leg. This tendency to show a little skin between the trouser hem and top edge of your shoe may sound like a simple concept, but it is actually one that has revolutionised menswear in many ways. Today, it is this cropped proportion that most identifies one of his suits in a crowd full of workwear, embracing a more refined look in the spirit of the 1950s Teddy Boys.
The designer's cropped trouser not only completes the Thom Browne suit, but it solidifies the shrunken style of his designs overall. Once coupled with the fitted nature of the blazers, the combination is unmistakable both on the runways and streets alike. The beauty of this approach, of course, is that the designer’s suits can be worn as an ensemble or as standalone pieces. Layering a leather bomber jacket over your cropped trousers changes the stylistic direction for added versatility.
The relaxed button-down
Naturally, no suit would be complete without the perfect shirt, and Thom Browne shirts, like so many of his pieces, continually return to a simple and classic point of view that captures a nonchalant feel. This ultimately sums up his approach to shirting overall, which is always more on the relaxed side. This isn't a shabby and crumpled approach, but certainly one that appears a little more lived in. Impeccably made, these garments are designed to be part of your regular wardrobe rotation, not just saved for those special occasions.
It is for this reason that a Thom Browne shirt is designed to be both timeless and distinctive. Identifiable details such as striped sleeves or contrasting prints add interest to the standard business shirt and therefore keep things fairly laid-back overall. Even the designer’s block-coloured styles are tailored to let you roll up the sleeves and live a little. After all, it’s this inherently wearable quality of the designer’s relatively formal garment styles that make them such a compelling mainstay of modern menswear.